Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to the SDTC scandal. The organization had a key mandate. It was federally funded, non-profit and approved to disburse over $100 million in funds annually to clean-technology companies. Sustainable Development Technology Canada was established in 2001 by the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to fund the development and demonstration of new technologies that promote sustainable development.
It was to be an arm's-length, not-for-profit organization, created to support projects that developed and demonstrated new technologies addressing issues related to climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil. Clearly, it must have functioned quite well until around 2017-18, when the government changed hands and it fell under the responsibility of our Liberal government; actually, the Liberal government. I have trouble saying “our” because I do not feel it is representing me or my riding.
In 2018, former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains expressed concerns regarding the Harper-era chair of SDTC, Jim Balsillie, given his public criticism of government privacy legislation. The minister's office expressed its discomfort about Mr. Balsillie's comments to the CEO of SDTC, and Mr. Bains requested that the chair stop criticizing government legislation. At that point, the minister proposed two alternative chairs to the CEO of SDTC as replacements, in a phone call.
One of the candidates proposed was Annette Verschuren, an entrepreneur who was receiving SDTC funding through one of her companies. The minister, the PMO and the PCO were warned of the risks associated with appointing a conflicted chair and were told that, up until that point, the fund had never had a chair with interests in companies receiving funding from SDTC.
It sounds like it was run well with proper oversight. However, in June 2019, former minister Bains decided to proceed with the appointment of Ms. Verschuren despite repeated warnings expressed at his office. The new chair went on to create an environment where conflicts of interest were tolerated and managed by board members. Board members went on to award SDTC funding to companies they held stock or positions in. Former minister Bains went on to appoint two other controversial board members who engaged in unethical behaviour, in breach of the Conflict of Interest Act, by approving funding to companies in which they held ownership stakes.
This is beyond the pale for Canadians. They are at the point where they wonder if there is anything the current government does that does not serve itself or those who are part of its larger group. ISED officials witnessed 186 conflicts at the board, but they did not intervene.
In January 2021, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain became the new Minister of Industry, replacing Navdeep Bains after his decision not to run for re-election. Mr. Bains, I guess, felt that would be a wise decision on his part.
In November 2022, whistle-blowers raised internal concerns with the Auditor General about unethical practices that were taking place. The Privy Council was briefed by the whistle-blowers about the allegations shortly after, and it commissioned two independent reports.
In September 2023, the whistle-blowers took the allegations public, and the minister agreed, finally, to suspend SDTC funding. Things were a mess.
In November 2023, the Auditor General announced an audit, and in June 2024, the Auditor General's report was released, finding severe government failures. The Auditor General and Ethics Commissioner initiated these separate investigations after whistle-blowers came forward with allegations of financial mismanagement at the fund. I have to say, it is an amazing thing when people are willing to put their reputations, their lives and their futures on the line because they see something like this taking place within the government. I applaud them for making that decision and for moving forward with that.
I am going to take a moment here to share some of the words from the whistle-blower that were shared as committee testimony:
I think the Auditor General's investigation was more of a cursory review. I don't think the goal and mandate of the Auditor General's office is to actually look into criminality, so I'm not surprised by the fact that they haven't found anything criminal. They're not looking at intent. If their investigation was focused on intent, of course they would find the criminality....
I know that the federal government, like the minister, has continued saying that there was no criminal intent and nothing was found, but I think the committee would agree that they're not to be trusted on this situation.
What a sad comment to be made of a government that is responsible for Canadian taxpayers' dollars.
I would happily agree to whatever the findings are by the RCMP, but I would say that I wouldn't trust that there isn't any criminality unless the RCMP is given full authority to investigate.
Of course, my colleagues on this side of the House and I could not agree more.
I don't think we should leave it to the current federal government or the ruling party to make those decisions.
Obviously, there is an incredible lack of trust among our public servants who are responsible for working with these organizations that they see clearly are being abused by the federal government.
Just as I was always confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement...I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.
There is one more that I think is really important. It really hit me when I read what he said:
The true failure of the situation stands at the feet of our current government, whose decision to protect wrongdoers and cover up their findings over the last 12 months is a serious indictment of how our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference.
The political interference level of the Liberal-NDP government, I think, is beyond anything in the history of Canada. We are dealing with internal political interference and international interference under the current government's watch.
It should never have taken two years for the issues to reach this point. What should have been a straightforward process turned into a bureaucratic nightmare that allowed SDTC to continue wasting millions of [taxpayer] dollars and abusing countless employees over the last year.
That really hit me, of course, the wasting of Canadian taxpayer dollars, especially when it is related to supposedly doing things that would improve our environment. The government cannot get off its need to tax Canadians with the carbon tax because of the work that needs to be done to make sure our country and our world are sustainable for the next generations. In the meantime, it is taking those exact dollars set aside for green technologies and improvements and giving them quietly to companies that have ulterior motives for that money and no intention of using it for supposed environmental processes.
When Canadians who are paying that carbon tax are not getting back what they have put into it, and are facing higher costs for fuel, food, housing and everything because of the added down-the-line costs of that carbon tax, we know where it is leading Canadians. We know how desperate they are in wanting a new future for Canada, which, of course, will come when the Conservative Party of Canada has the incredible honour of forming government soon.
On the second part, the “abusing [of] countless employees over the last year”, the government talks about how much it appreciates the people behind the scenes, and the high quality of people who serve the government. Here we have an individual talking about how it abused countless employees. This speaks to a government that is not a servant but rather a master, determining that what it wants will happen. It is the government's way or the highway and who is in the way does not matter; it is willing to throw them under the bus.
There are so many violations here of Canadians' trust. My colleague from Saskatoon West spoke of many other issues the government has been part of, all the way back to the ad scam and up to the WE challenge. There are just so many. I have one myself that I cannot help but recall, which really hit me as a new member of Parliament when I had the opportunity to speak for the first time to an issue in the House of Commons.
It was a bill brought forward by the federal government to be discussed. It was actually the first debate I participated in that sought to remove the government's accountability to the House. It was in regard to an environmental framework, and the bill sought to give sweeping power to the minister and accountability to an advisory board.
I was somewhat concerned about this. I had not heard a lot about this approach, so I asked the individual who had spoken, the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, about this board: what it was supposed to look like, how it would function, how many people would be on it, where they would come from, what their qualifications and credentials would be, what their mandate would be and all of these types of questions. We were at the beginning of discussing the potential of this bill and wanting to give good feedback on what we thought was appropriate or not.
That member stood up and immediately was so pleased to say that the board had already been chosen. We were in the first hours of debate, and the deal was done. This gives just a bit of an example of how the government really does not care about the elected people representing this country and how they are to function within the responsibilities of Parliament.
As I said, so many violations have been discussed throughout the day, in addition to the green slush fund, that I cannot help but notice how much Canadians' trust in this particular NDP-Liberal coalition, and in government in general and many of our institutions, is waning. Canadians are very discouraged because they see these ethical violations taking place over and over again on that side of the floor, yet the government has no sense of having to apologize or to change its behaviour on behalf of Canadians.
Abusing employees is something else. The Liberals enabled the SDTC to give funds to those who should not have received those funds. I cannot help but think it is a very good thing we made the decision to request that these papers get to the RCMP so that criminality can be explored.
Then there is the question of financial management. People say we can give the benefit of the doubt the first time we hear of an error. I believe the new minister even said, “As soon as we heard, we acted.” Well, two years later, it is the result of whistle-blowers that we are here dealing with this today.
Are the Liberals not capable of running the government in a respectful, transparent way that makes proper use of Canadian tax dollars? Are they not capable, or are they just indifferent? Here the Liberals are, in places of power, and not truly giving proper oversight to the departments they are responsible for. That speaks not only to indifference but to the potential for being incapable of doing their job and of ensuring their departments are being run properly.
Then there is the third thing, and I think this is the one that is now so obvious to Canadians, which is that of a very self-serving agenda. That it is not about Canadians and is not about serving Canadians, but is about Liberals serving themselves and their friends and being focused on political gain at all costs rather than doing the right thing for Canadians.
The Auditor General's report showed that over $400 million, over the five-year audit period, had been awarded to projects that either should not have been eligible or was awarded to projects in which the board members were conflicted. A preschooler could understand the importance of doing this properly. If the Liberal government knew these are the things that were expected in these roles, it would see very clearly that this did not match that.
On the part about speaking about indifference and self-serving, I want to follow it up with a quote I have used before that speaks to the very essence of what we are hearing in this circumstance and in so many other conflicts by the government, which is, “It's hard not to feel disappointed in your government when every day there is a new scandal.” These are the words of the Prime Minister, as the member for Papineau, when he was in opposition.
Liberals have said a lot that we Conservatives cannot blame them because we did the same thing. This is not true.