Madam Speaker, I have been away for over a week. It is truly a privilege to speak on behalf of the people of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan and to be back in the House.
The people of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan are very compassionate, caring, honest and hard-working people, and they have reached out to me recently in my time of loss. This is the first opportunity since the passing of my mother that I have had a chance to speak in Parliament, and I want to recognize not just my fellow party members but also those from across party boundaries for their kind words to my daughters Saoirse and Eilidh and to me. We have buried and mourned the loss of their Scottish grandmother and my mother, Caroline Tolmie.
She moved to Canada in the early 1960s when Prime Minister Diefenbaker was in office. I am sure the fact that I represent what was once part of his riding brings a smile to both my mother's face and my father's face. My parents immigrated to Canada from bonnie Scotland when Diefenbaker was Prime Minister of our great nation. My mother believed in strong principles. She passed those principles down to me, and I am doing my best to preserve and carry those out for a strong foundation and cornerstones in my life. I am here representing the people of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan with some of the skill sets and Scottish feistiness that have been passed on to me from my family.
I wish I were speaking about another issue today, one not marred by controversy or that did not have so much hair on it. We could be talking about the cost of living crisis that is impacting Canadians' lives daily and causing stress and duress for people just trying to get by, or we could be talking about the ongoing wars and whether Canada's military is prepared or not. Is it prepared for the instability that the world is experiencing right now? Is the right leadership in charge to stabilize our country and be a positive influence in the turmoil in global affairs that we are experiencing right now?
We could be debating any number of issues that the veterans affairs committee I sit on has been studying, from the recognition of wartime service to the transition to civilian life. Why has the government not recognized veterans in the first Gulf War, the one in which Canada participated in the liberation of Kuwait? Why are our veterans not being recognized for wartime service? More importantly, we could be debating one of the main issues I have been hearing about in my riding since I was elected: axing the carbon tax. Instead we are once again talking about a massive Liberal scandal.
Let us be clear that it is not just a massive Liberal scandal, but another massive Liberal scandal. I have been an MP for only a few years, but it seems as if we are constantly in the middle of stories like this with a tired, scandal-plagued government. To be honest, this is wearing our country down. Even the Liberals are saying that the Prime Minister has no credibility in their ridings and that their one-time supporters are drowning the Prime Minister's voice out. On many occasions, I wish I could do the same. After nine long years, this is yet more proof that the Liberals are just not worth the cost, crime or corruption.
The Speaker ruled that the Liberals violated a House order to turn over evidence to the police for a criminal investigation into this $400-million scandal. Instead of simply abiding by the House order, what has happened? The Liberals have decided to paralyze the House for weeks. It really makes us wonder what could possibly be in those documents that they are so scared of. Is fear the reason we are here?
The Auditor General of Canada found that the Prime Minister turned Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. This was further corroborated by a recording of a senior civil servant who slammed the outright incompetence of the Trudeau government, which gave 390 million dollars' worth of contracts inappropriately—