Debates of Oct. 21st, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since my Conservative colleague wants to get to the bottom of things, I would like to ask him a question.

He mentioned Annette Verschuren, who he linked to the Liberal Party. Ms. Verschuren did receive considerable funding. She was an economic adviser to Stephen Harper from 2008 to 2015.

Does he realize that?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the chair of the green slush fund, Ms. Verschuren, resigned from the fund because of the Ethics Commissioner's investigation on her, which is what the minister should also do. He should resign and release the documents. That is the issue at hand.

The debate today, which has been going on for the last however many weeks, is about there being severe corruption; it is documented. The Auditor General has made it clear. In my speech, I went through many of the items in her report: severe, serious infractions by the fund development group. We need the unredacted documents to be released to the RCMP; that is the point. Why are the Liberals trying to hide them?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is my brother's member of Parliament.

Like the member, I have been in the House for many days of debate on the issue, but we are at the stage where we are not hearing anything new. I can summarize the last two weeks: The Liberals and Conservatives have been pointing fingers at each other, saying that each party was worse in government. The fact is that each of these parties is guilty of major scandals and of having withheld documents. They do not shine in the debate. One is actually as bad as the other.

Let us get to what is going on in the House right now. The Conservatives are filibustering their own motion. The House of Commons costs about $70,000 an hour to run. That is a lot of money being burned up right now, and we are doing absolutely nothing.

Like the member, I want to get to the bottom of this. I would love to see the documents, but as long as we are talking this through, we cannot get to the action part. If I were a judge in a case such as this, I would be asking counsel to make their closing arguments. When are we going to get to that stage? When are we going to get to the part where the House can actually take action, vote and proceed to the next question of privilege, which is about calling an individual before the bar to be admonished and to allow the House to ask questions of that individual?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I hope I meet the member's brother one day in my riding, as I door-knock daily when I am in Calgary. Maybe he can let me know where his brother lives. I can knock on his door and perhaps convince him to support the Conservative Party.

There is a way to end the current debate and move on in the House of Commons, and that is for the Liberal government to release all unredacted documents to the RCMP so there can be a full and clear study of what has been going on at the SDTC. That is what will end the debate.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member and I both come from provinces where protecting our environment is top of mind and crucial because of the makeup of our provinces. The government insists that its members are the ones who care about the environment; however, there is a fund specifically set up to help with that, and the tax dollars the government is collecting, in carbon tax supposedly, are being abused in this circumstance.

Could the member please comment on that?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is completely right. Canadians have been paying hundreds of millions of dollars into the carbon tax to go to funds like the SDTC fund for the government to allocate to businesses. What do we hear? We hear that the businesses in question are not even eligible; they are businesses that have close ties to the Liberal government. It is a shame.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind our colleagues from the NDP, with the finger pointing back and forth, not to forget who has propped up the government through the corruption and scandals for the last four and a half years. They are just as guilty as those across the way.

Our hon. colleague gave a great speech summarizing the corruption over the last nine years and what we are dealing with here today. We are talking about over $400 million of taxpayers' funds where the Auditor General found potential criminality and 186 points of conflicts of interest, where the chair and Liberal appointees siphoned the $480 million. They essentially stole it.

I want to ask our hon. colleague this, because the Liberals are essentially asking us to let the issue go to committee: If somebody steals from him, does he go to a committee or to the RCMP?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague summarized very clearly what has been going on. If somebody steals from me, whom do I go to? I go to the police. I don't go to some neighbour to figure out how to get my money back. This is where we are going here. We want the documents released to the RCMP so it can have a clear investigation and prosecute whoever has to be prosecuted.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in this situation, the leader of the Conservative Party says, “I want more information. I want to see the unredacted information.” On the other hand, when it comes to foreign interference, an issue that Canadians are deeply concerned about, he does not want to get his security clearance.

What does Wesley Wark, who advised the Liberal and Conservative governments on national security, have to say? He says that the Tory leader “is ‘playing with Canadians’ by refusing to get a top-level security clearance and receive classified briefings on foreign interference.”

The leader of the Conservative Party wants it both ways. Why is he choosing to play games with Canadians? What is it in his past that Canadians should be aware of that would prevent him from getting the security clearance?

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

With 30 seconds remaining, the hon. member for Calgary Confederation has the floor.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Speaker, 30 seconds is just not enough time to answer the question. Also, it is not the issue at hand right now. It is not relevant to the debate we are having here today. There is severe corruption at the SDTC. It is well documented and very serious. We need the unredacted documents released to the RCMP.

Why will the government not release the documents to the RCMP? What are its members trying to hide?

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Before going to the next speaker, I just want to wish my dad a very happy birthday.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saskatoon West.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I wish a happy birthday to your father. I am sure he is excited to watch the proceedings here every day.

Unfortunately, for me, this is not a happy occasion to be speaking in the House of Commons. It is my job to represent the electorate of Saskatoon West, to do things in their best interest and to put forward a positive vision of our great country.

I can say to the people back home in Saskatoon that the Conservative Party has a positive vision for this country, for Canada. We have a plan that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Conservatives, led by our leader, will fix what this costly NDP-Liberal coalition has broken. They do not have to worry. I will speak to the hopeful optimism that the leader of the Conservative Party is bringing to Canadians.

Like I said, today is not a good day, and it is because, instead of being able to speak to the great things Conservatives would do for Canadians, we are once again stuck here in the quagmire of an NDP-Liberal scandal. With another NDP-Liberal scandal, I can imagine people flipping the switch and tuning out right now. Canadians have heard this record on repeat for 10 years. Actually, it has been much longer than that. It goes back even further. At this point, Canadians are quite jaded to the graft corruption and outright illegality of the Prime Minister and his cronies.

Before us today is a simple issue: The House asked the government to provide documents related to the green slush fund to the RCMP because we are suspicious that the Liberals have been taking taxpayers' money and giving it to their friends and supporters. The government provided some documents but decided to black out much of the relevant data.

The Speaker's office ruled that the Liberals were wrong and had violated the rules of the House, so now the Liberals would rather gridlock Parliament than provide the blacked out information. There must be some nasty surprises lurking in those documents. I also want to remind everyone in the House that the Liberals could end their filibuster of Parliament by simply releasing the documents, but they seem to want to fight this one to the end. Again, I am curious to know what they are hiding.

This is history on repeat to many folks. It certainly is to me. I stand here in the House of Commons as a Conservative member of Parliament, but I must say that I have not always been partisan. Most of my adult life, I did my civic duty, just like most Canadians. I would look at the candidates running for election and then mark my ballot. I would pick my MP based on the leader who I thought would make the best prime minister, the party that had the best policy items and the local candidate who would best represent me in the House. Then I would go home and repeat that process four years later. That was it.

Then, the 1990s occurred, and the Liberal government members at that time did what they always did, which was to become arrogant and out of touch. It is so important to understand that Liberals behave a certain way. Just like the prior Liberal government collapsed in a pile of corruption, it appears that the current Liberal government is moving the same way, this time helped by the NDP. Twenty-five years ago, the Liberal corruption was a billion dollars wasted on a long-gun registry that was useless and ineffective; Jean Chrétien using his influence as the then prime minister to ensure that money flowed to a hotel owner in his riding, in a scandal known as Shawinigate; the billion-dollar boondoggle; and the even more staggering sponsorship scandal. These are the Liberal corruption scandals that convinced me that it was time to stop just marking my ballot and to take a keen interest in the workings of our government.

It appears that here again we have a story of Liberal corruption, but it is important to put it in context. One of the most egregious examples of Liberal mismanagement in our nation's history, the billion-dollar boondoggle, occurred in the 1990s under the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien. It was not a small oversight or an isolated mistake. It was systemic incompetence that cost Canadians over a billion dollars, money that was supposed to be used to create jobs and help hard-working families.

At the heart of that scandal was Human Resources Development Canada. An internal audit revealed that over a billion dollars in grants had been handed out without proper paperwork, oversight or accountability. Grant applications were incomplete or non-existent, and approvals were given based on politics, not on the quality of the application. Essentially, public money was being given out to Liberal insiders and supporters as a reward, the kind of corruption we expect to see in a third-world dictatorship, not in Canada. That was my introduction to the Liberal Party, the first time I really paid attention to politics. Billions of dollars had been funnelled into pet projects, wasted with no oversight and with no one held responsible. Canadians were promised better job opportunities and stronger communities. What did they get? A scandal that reeked of corruption and incompetence, with taxpayers left holding the bag.

Soon after came another dark chapter in our country's history of Liberal corruption, which was the infamous sponsorship scandal, also known as ad scam. This scandal represents one of the clearest examples of why Canadians can never trust the Liberal Party to responsibly handle their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

In the early 2000s, an investigation revealed that, under the Chrétien Liberal government, millions of dollars were funnelled into a corrupt scheme under the guise of a national unity program. This sponsorship program, supposedly designed to promote Canadian unity in Quebec, became nothing more than a cash machine for Liberal-friendly ad firms and well-connected insiders. Public money was funnelled through advertising agencies that had close ties to the Liberal Party.

These companies received millions for doing next to nothing, and then conveniently donated a portion of that money back to the Liberal Party. This was a government caught red-handed using taxpayers' money to grease the palms of its political friends while Canadians were left paying the bills. Fortunately, Canadians saw through this and elected a Conservative government to clean up the mess. Does this sound familiar?

We know the importance of fiscal responsibility and transparency. That is why we are committed to fixing the damage caused by these corrupt and wasteful practices. Billion-dollar boondoggles and sponsorship scandals are what happens when the Liberals are in charge. There is waste, fraud and scandal. Let me remind the House that this is the same Liberal Party that continues to throw around billions in unchecked spending, all while raising taxes on the very people we are supposed to serve.

Conservative governments believe in fiscal responsibility, transparency and in being careful stewards of the hard-earned tax dollars of Canadians. We will not tolerate waste and mismanagement. It is time to axe the tax, fix the budget and put an end to the reckless spending habits of the Liberal government once and for all.

Sometimes we forget the impact the decisions made in the House have on Canadian people. The waste and graft that occurs through the Liberal mismanagement of public dollars impacts people in a very real way. Last week when I was home, I was reminded of this when I met somebody that has been impacted by this.

Stan Holcomb, born near Viscount, Saskatchewan, overcame the loss of his left leg to become an exceptional athlete and prosthetist. Raised on a family farm, he thrived in sports, learning to skate and swim with a prosthetic leg. In 1971, Stan joined the Saskatchewan Abilities Council, launching a 43-year career in prosthetics, and began competing in wheelchair sports.

He represented Canada in the 1976 Paralympics and was integral in founding the Canadian Amputee Sports Association and Canadian Association for Disabled Skiing. A passionate volunteer, he remains an avid golfer and dedicated sports supporter. A fixture in the Saskatoon community, Stan's dedication to hard work, personal responsibility and traditional values align closely with his Conservative principles.

Over the years, he has been an advocate for local causes and has remained committed to strengthening his community through volunteer work, youth sports and his unwavering belief in the values that have helped shape his life and career. Stan will be inducted into the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame on November 2, and it is no wonder.

Stan's beliefs and values are shared by all Conservatives and many Canadians. It is people like Stan who feel the pain of Liberal corruption. People like Stan end up paying the price of this corruption. When people get frustrated with the corruption, it leads to a change in government, like what happened in 2006 with the election of Stephen Harper's Conservative government.

The last time Canadians called in the Conservatives to clean up the Liberal mess, a great many things were accomplished. One of the ways Stephen Harper's government cleaned up the last Liberal mess was the Federal Accountability Act, which brought in new anti-corruption laws. We also created the independent office of the Ethics Commissioner and established the lobbyist registry. One of our proudest accomplishments was the creation of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Unfortunately, the Liberals have managed to find ways around all of these safeguards. It is almost like they have a special department in the Prime Minister's office dedicated to finding ways to skirt the rules.

What is the latest scandal that is paralyzing the House right now? It is the green slush fund scandal. It follows a typical Liberal pattern. The government decides that it needs a way to reward its friends and supporters by funnelling money to them. Then it finds a legitimate program tasked with dispersing vast amounts of money. In this case, it was a program to fund environmental projects. The government then encourages all of its friends to apply on the promise that they will be approved, regardless of the actual value of what is being done, and most do not do much of anything. Then the money flows and, boy, does it flow.

After that, the Liberals get caught. In this case, it was the Auditor General who investigated and ultimately found 400 million dollars of spending that was at risk and hundreds of conflicts of interest. Now we are trying to get Canadians the accountability that they deserve, but the government refuses to provide the documents to the RCMP. Here we are, and I will the remind the House that the government and the NDP-Liberals could end this right now by providing these documents to the RCMP.

What is the legacy of the NDP-Liberal costly coalition? It takes what is good and wonderful and blows it up. The Prime Minister, when he was simply the leader of the Liberal Party in 2015, ran an election campaign on the promise of blowing up Stephen Harper's legacy of achievement. To his credit, that promise made was a promise kept. It is perhaps the only promise the Prime Minister has ever kept, and it was the one to destroy everything good about Canada. He sure made good on that one, did he not?

Is there accountability in government? Not anymore. Are there people going to prison for committing violent crimes? Not anymore. Is the government treating taxpayer dollars with respect? Not anymore. Is the Prime Minister pitting one group of Canadians against another while they fight for table scraps? Yes. Indeed, he does that every day.

Whatever the NDP-Liberals can do to hurt Canadians and make them lash out at their neighbour, I assure members they will do that. Every single wedge issue they can find, they will use. Integrity, honesty, trust and truthfulness are all foreign concepts to that lot.

How do they fill the void when they have no values? They fill the void with deficits, deceit and drugs. These are the disastrous ideals driving the NDP-Liberal coalition. After nearly a decade of its reckless policies, we are seeing the devastating consequences of the deficits, the deceit and the failure to address the drug crisis.

First, the NDP-Liberals have run up record deficits, driving our national debt to unprecedented levels. Their out-of-control spending has fuelled inflation and made life unaffordable for countless Canadians. From rising grocery bills to soaring mortgage rates, Canadian families are struggling to make ends meet, all while the government continues to pour billions into misguided programs. These deficits are not just numbers on a balance sheet. They represent higher taxes, increased borrowing costs and a future burden on our children and our grandchildren.

The government's deceit has been just as harmful. The NDP-Liberals continue to claim that they are helping Canadians, but the truth is that they are making life harder. Time and again, they have promised transparency and accountability, yet they have consistently misled Canadians. Whether it is their failure to balance a budget or their mishandling of public funds, Canadians have every right to be outraged by the government's dishonesty.

We must also talk about the drug crisis. The NDP-Liberal government's approach to drug addiction has failed to keep our communities safe. Its so-called harm reduction polices have done nothing to curb addictions or support recovery. Instead, they have enabled dangerous drug use, leading to more deaths and an increase in crime across our communities. Canadians deserve better. A Conservative government would restore fiscal responsibility, put an end to deceitful policies and tackle the drug crisis, with a focus on recovery, treatment and community safety. It is time for real leadership that puts Canadians first.

Before Canadians are able to bring it home with real Conservative leadership, perhaps we need a reminder of why we are here today. Rampant corruption is the defining feature of the NDP-Liberal costly coalition. Let us dive right into these scandals: the so-called green slush fund, the arrive scam, the WE Charity scandal, the SNC-Lavalin affair and the Prime Minister's secretive trip to the Aga Khan's private island.

Let us start with the so-called green slush fund. As I said, it was under the guise of tackling climate change that the NDP-Liberal government used a fund that had little to do with real environmental action and more to do with lining the pockets of its well-connected friends. The Liberals funnelled billions of dollars into this fund without proper oversight or accountability. The real purpose was to have a way to funnel taxpayer dollars to their friends and allies. This misuse of taxpayer money is a betrayal of trust, particularly when Canadians are facing high inflation, rising energy costs and unaffordable housing. This is not in dispute. The Liberals themselves closed the whole thing down once the Auditor General shone a light on their corruption and deceit.

Canadians deserve better. They deserve a government that is honest, transparent and focused on real solutions, not on political gains.

Next, we have the ArriveCAN debacle, better known as the arrive scam. The government spent $54 million on an app that should have cost a fraction of that amount. When questioned, the Liberals could not even explain where the money went. ArriveCAN was supposed to make border entry smoother during the pandemic but instead it turned into a costly, unnecessary fiasco. Not only was the app riddled with glitches, causing confusion and chaos for travellers, but it also became clear that most of the money spent went to well-connected contractors rather than to the development of the app itself.

How did an app like ArriveCAN, which was later deemed unnecessary, cost $54 million? While Canadians struggled during the pandemic, the NDP-Liberal government was busy wasting millions on a failed app. Instead of owning up to its mistakes, it tried to shift the blame and avoid accountability. This is not leadership. This is corruption.

We then have the infamous WE Charity scandal. In 2020, the Liberal government handed nearly a billion-dollar contract to the WE Charity, an organization with close ties to the Prime Minister's family. This was supposed to be a program to help students during the pandemic, but it quickly unravelled when it became clear that this was yet another example of the Prime Minister using his office to benefit those close to him.

Multiple members of the Prime Minister's family, including his wife and brother, received payments from WE Charity, which raised serious questions about conflicts of interest. This is a clear violation of ethical standards, but instead of coming clear, the Prime Minister and his cabinet doubled down, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. The WE Charity scandal not only wasted taxpayer money, but also showed the extent to which the government is willing to go to enrich its friends and allies. The Ethics Commissioner found that the Prime Minister broke conflict of interest rules again, and once again there were no real consequences. Canadians deserve better.

Next up is the SNC-Lavalin affair, a scandal that shook the foundations of our democracy. In 2019, it came to light that the Prime Minister and his inner circle attempted to interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based engineering firm accused of bribery and corruption. When then attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould refused to bend to the Prime Minister's will, he retaliated by removing her from her role, demonstrating that the government prioritizes political favours over principles.

This is a direct attack on the rule of law in Canada. The Prime Minister and the government were willing to bend the rules, pressure the former attorney general and undermine the justice system, all to protect a corporation with deep political connections. This scandal was not just about SNC-Lavalin. It was about the lengths to which the Liberals would go to protect their own interests. It showed a complete disregard for the rule of law and an alarming willingness to interfere in the justice system for political gain. This is corruption at the highest levels, and Canadians deserve better.

Finally, let us talk about the Prime Minister's secretive trip. In 2017, it was revealed that the Prime Minister accepted a lavish vacation on the private island of the Aga Khan, a billionaire whose foundation receives millions in funding from the Canadian government. This was a blatant conflict of interest, and the Ethics Commissioner ruled that the Prime Minister had violated the Conflict of Interest Act. Despite this, there were no real consequences, and the Prime Minister brushed off the scandal as a misunderstanding. However, make no mistake: This was no simple misunderstanding. It was yet another example of the Prime Minister using his position of power for personal gain while ignoring the ethical standards that should guide all public officials.

Canadians expect their leaders to lead by example, to be transparent and to put the interests of the country ahead of their own. However, time and again, the Liberal Prime Minister has shown that he is more interested in helping his friends, bending the rules and avoiding accountability. Canadians are tired of the corruption, the scandals and the excuses. All of these scandals show a pattern of deceit, mismanagement and ethical violations from the NDP-Liberal government. It has betrayed the trust of Canadians and has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted to govern with integrity.

A Conservative government will put an end to this corruption. It will restore accountability, transparency and ethical leadership to Ottawa. Canadians deserve a government that works for them, not one that is mired in scandal and focused on enriching its friends. It is time to clean up the mess, restore integrity and bring real leadership back to Canada.

The time for excuses and corruption is over. Canadians are tired of a government that puts political insiders ahead of hard-working families. We need real leadership, not more scandals, waste and deceit. That is why we must hold a carbon tax election. We need an election to axe the carbon tax, which drives up the cost of living, making gas, groceries and heating unaffordable for millions of Canadians.

We need to build homes, not bureaucracy. Families are struggling to find affordable housing, and the NDP-Liberal government's policies have only made it worse. A Conservative government will fix this by empowering builders, cutting red tape and ensuring more homes are built faster to meet the needs of Canadians.

We must also fix the budget. Nine years of reckless Liberal spending, like the green slush fund, have driven up inflation, and Canadians are paying the price, with higher interest rates, less purchasing power and ballooning national debt. A Conservative government will restore fiscal responsibility, balance the budget and bring down inflation to help all Canadians.

We need to stop the crime that is plaguing our communities. Under the NDP-Liberal government, crime rates are rising, and its soft-on-crime approach has failed. A Conservative government will restore safety and order and bring order to our streets by enforcing tougher penalties and supporting law enforcement.

The next election will be about restoring common sense in government. It will be about bringing home lower taxes, affordable homes, fiscal responsibility and safe streets. It is time to end the corruption and bring home a government that works for the people. Let us bring it home.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as the member was reflecting on history, let me remind him of another history. There were 70 abuses of power by Stephen Harper, 31 of them scandals, corruption and contempt. The current leader of the Conservative-Reform party, who was the parliamentary secretary to Stephen Harper, does not even want to get the security clearance necessary to deal with the issue of foreign interference. This is very much a hot topic in Canada.

Why does the leader of the Conservative Party refuse to get a security clearance? What in his past might cause it to be denied? Is the member opposite aware of anything that would prevent the leader of the Conservative Party from being able to get a security clearance? Is that why he is not applying for it?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, that is a new one. It is very clear the Liberals are doing everything they can to avoid talking about the subject we are talking about today. They are trying so hard to hide behind other issues because they do not want to face the reality of the corruption in their party, in the government and among the people who are part of the government.

I will play along a bit. Last week, we heard there were names of parliamentarians from different parties, from the Liberal Party and from wherever else supposedly, but we did not hear the names. My challenge to the member opposite is to release the names. They are not secret. If there are names, release them. I think there is some doubt about whether there are names, and until they are released, we do not know if there are.

If there is evidence that they exist, they should be shared with the public. There is no reason not to share them, and I challenge him to do that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking today about a privilege motion on the government's refusal to release documents as ordered by Parliament. I want to thank my colleague for mentioning some of the scandals that the government is mired in right now.

Let us not overlook ArriveCAN. I note that the government operations committee, the mighty OGGO, unanimously demanded documents from the government on the ArriveCAN scandal. In the production order, the committee sent for, in an unredacted format, the list of contractors and subcontractors and so on. Internal results released on the ATIP request to the government said to apply the spirit of the ATIP Act and provide any redactions that should be made. The government said that this was not an ATIP request, but there was some information that it did not want made public. It also said that if documents are redacted too much, it is recommended that those documents not be released at all.

This is another example of the government refusing an order to produce documents, this time to a committee, covering up the ArriveCAN scandal. I wonder if my colleague could comment on the government's insistence on, in this case, refusing to honour an order of Parliament to release documents.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is sad that we see this happening over and over again. The example the member raised is a really good one.

I thought it was interesting that the internal email thread basically said that if the Liberals released this information, it could be really bad for them, so they tried hard not to do it. I am sure that email thread has happened on many occasions, including this one. There are many examples. I have seen others in other parts of my work, in immigration and elsewhere, where tremendously important pieces of information that have been asked for have not been responded to, or documents have been very liberally blacked out to hide information that would implicate the government or members of the government in bad things, including potentially criminal things.

We see this over and over again. It is a practice of the government. It is a practice, as I said in my speech, of the Liberals that goes way back to as far as I can remember. We need to stop this. We need a change in government, and we need a government that applies good ethics and good practices to the House.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a rather sinister spectacle has been unfolding over the past two weeks as the Liberals and the Conservatives play their partisan games. Meanwhile, work on behalf of Canadians has come to a standstill.

I would like to ask my Conservative colleague a very specific question. We, the NDP, managed to force the government to provide dental care to seniors. If his party comes to power, will it keep the existing dental care program or take it away from Canada's seniors?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting question but is completely off of today's subject. It is something I would have expected from the Liberals, but perhaps the NDP is also trying to hide something. I do not know what is going on here.

It is a very interesting situation. The reality of it, though, is that the whole event that is going on, this whole discussion and debate, could end immediately if the government just presented the unredacted documents to the RCMP. That is what we are trying to do. We do not want the government to run away from this. We want it to have to face the consequences of what it has done. That is what we are asking for. The Liberals can end it today; it is in their control.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we agree with the Conservatives. The government's refusal to produce the documents requested by Parliament is unacceptable. However, the Conservatives have done the same thing in the past. In fact, under Mr. Harper, the Conservative government fell on that very issue.

Has my colleague given any thought to ways of preventing this kind of situation from happening again? Would he be willing to accept suggestions on how to do so?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there is a really simple solution to this, and that is a change of government. Of course, all of us on this side are eagerly working hard for Canadians to that end.

If members can believe it, I did not have enough time in my speech to go through all of the scandals. I only picked out some of the big ones, but there are others I want to briefly mention.

There was “elbowgate” in the House with MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau. There was the India trip, which I did not mention. With SNC-Lavalin, there was another issue: Employees who had been donating to the Liberal Party were being reimbursed by the company. There was, of course, the blackface scandal. There was the Governor General's spending scandal. There was the former ethics commissioner, who was sister-in-law to one of the Liberal ministers. There was also the $6,000-a-night hotel in London.

I could go on, but I am running out of time. There are so many things to talk about.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, nobody has ever accused the hon. member of not fully understanding the facts. While he wants to dismiss the hon. member from the NDP caucus, it was the NDP, at committee, that uncovered the corruption happening with one of the board members. I know that because I was the member. The notion that somehow we are in the cover-up is not only ridiculous, but is another example of the way the member chooses not to understand the facts.

The fact is that the Conservative Party wrote a motion to send this to PROC. The Conservatives are banking on their base being too stupid to understand the procedural shenanigans they are doing in the House. Given that, will the hon. member finally have at least the courtesy and dignity to stand up, come clean with Canadians and send this to committee so we can get on with the good work, or does he not understand—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Saskatoon West.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite rich for a member of the NDP to talk about how virtuous they are with regard to holding the government to account. The New Democrats have voted with the government to prop it up. They have voted for budgets hundreds of times. They are in a coalition. They have shut down debate in the House at the request of their Liberal masters. When the Liberals say “jump”, the NDP asks, “How high?” That is how this has gone for nine years, and people know the truth of that.

These documents need to be given to the RCMP. They need to be unredacted and need to be produced. That could end the whole debate right now.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

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.