Debates of Oct. 23rd, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That is a legitimate question.

Madam Speaker, why does the member across the way believe that the leader of the Conservative Party does not have the courage to go out and get that security clearance? Is it because of his past?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would remind hon. members that, unless they have been recognized, they are not to contribute to the conversation.

The hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, when I was preparing my remarks today, it got me reflecting on my time in this place. When I asked my very first question, which is a privilege for each and every one of us when we are first elected here, it was regarding an illegal trip that the Prime Minister had received. There is this trend with the Prime Minister, the leader of the Liberal Party, in which he thinks he is above the law.

At the end of the day, would the member encourage his leadership to hand over the documents?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, the current question of privilege has been before the House for about a month now. The government stubbornly refuses to hand over the documents that the House is asking it to produce. At the same time, it does not seem like the government is in a hurry to return to the usual order of business, to introduce bills, to move them forward. It would rather do nothing and let the debate go on like this.

My intuition is that it almost suits the government that the House is not studying its legislation because it no longer really has any. This is a tired government that is out of ideas. There is no sense of urgency to have a House working to pass legislation.

What does my colleague think about that?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, the government is absolutely tired and out of ideas, which is why it even prorogued Parliament not that long ago.

We could say that the government is stubborn. I might say the government could be corrupt. However, there is no willingness to just hand over the documents that have been asked for. Yes, the NDP-Liberal government is tired, out of ideas and corrupt. It just needs to hand over the documents.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, speaking of prorogation, I was here when Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament.

Interestingly enough, when we are talking about trade with China, it was Stephen Harper who tried to get subsidized Canadian oil into China to knock out our manufacturing companies in Ontario and other places across the country. Subsidizing oil would have given China a leg-up on Canadian companies, but that is another story.

However, there have been Conservative ministers over the years, with their own controversies, who were also involved with SDTC and the appointment of the board and its officials, including Annette Verschuren and so forth. A good example is Maxime Bernier. Should we call him? He was the one who had the girlfriend who was linked to organized crime. He left classified documents in her apartment. Then there was Tony Clement and the $50 million for the G8 summit. Members might remember the fake lake, the gazebos and so forth that were built in his riding. There was also some online stuff, which I will not get into. Then there was James Moore, who is really interesting because the member talked about child poverty and food banks. James Moore said, “is it my job to feed my neighbour's child? I don't think so.”

Those are the Conservative members and ministers who served when SDTC was operating. Maybe we should bring them here too.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am just wondering how long you were going to let the member give his speech for, when he should have been asking a question.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It is questions and comments. I am sure that the hon. member has been here long enough to understand that.

The hon. member had about a minute, and he was within his time frame.

The hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster has the floor.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, we do know that the Auditor General gave SDTC a clean bill of health in 2017, and it was only after the Prime Minister handpicked the Liberal board that the board members who were appointed started giving themselves, and companies that they owned, money.

Whose side is the NDP on? Is the NDP not telling the Liberals to just release the documents so this could be put to an end?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, the current Parliament has been here for three years now. We have, hopefully, just another year to put up with the government. Hopefully it ends sooner than that, quite frankly, because there has been a litany of what we deem to be corruption. We are trying to get it to the police.

Can my colleague from Saskatchewan please give us some relative terms as far as any other government in Canadian history that has transgressed the notions of democracy we have in the House of Commons more than the current government has?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, we do know that the current Prime Minister is the only one to have committed ethics violations over and over again. With respect to the corruption and the withholding of documents, I spoke about this in my remarks about the Winnipeg lab. He went so far as to call a snap election in the middle of a pandemic, when he was telling everybody to stay home. It is baffling.

The government just needs to hand over the documents so we can move on to the regular business of this place.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I believe I could have given a better answer to the question that was just asked. All one needed to do is take a look at Stephen Harper and page 1 of one document: “PMO Tied to Senate Hush Money Scandal”, “Harper Found in Contempt of Parliament”, “Against Court Order, Refusal to Share Budget [Information]”, “Conservative Cabinet Staffers Granted Immunity from Testimony” and “Conservatives Falsify Reports and Documents”. This is a huge document of abuse of a power—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The member is not to point to a document that he might be holding, because it is considered a prop. He can reference information in a document but not point to the document.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a list of a litany of things in which there was abuse of power and corruption. Name it; it is all there, and it is a long list. That was just Stephen Harper.

The problem is that when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, the current leader of the Conservative Party was his parliamentary secretary and sat around cabinet. I would suggest that what we witness today when he says he does not want to get the security clearance, unlike every other leader in the House of Commons, is a false argument and that he is hiding something.

Canadians have a right to know why the leader of the Conservative Party refuses to get the national security clearance. Canadians have a right to know that. Why will the Conservatives not come clean? What are they hiding?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, we are definitely not hiding anything.

I can tell the House that the member gets up an awful lot to defend the corruption of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. How come the member is not encouraging his leadership to release the names? What is he hiding? What are they hiding on that side?

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I like to see parliamentarians speaking out against corruption and calling for transparency. I would remind my colleague that when her party, the Conservative Party, was in power, there was corruption. Members will recall the $50 million that Tony Clement, a former Conservative minister, took from the public purse to send to his riding.

Quebec's motto is “Je me souviens” or “I remember”. I would like my colleague to explain to me why Quebeckers should trust the Conservative Party today, considering its disastrous record on corruption.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, there was a motion passed in June that stated that the documents were supposed to be brought forward within 14 days. It has been four months, and there has been no movement. Not everything has been brought forward. Things have been redacted. Some departments have said they do not need to bring forward documents as they are not even part of the government.

Why are the Liberals not just encouraging their leadership to bring forward the documents unredacted?

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is always an absolute honour to rise in the chamber. My colleague from Saskatchewan's intervention was a great one. I think the topic is very important to all of us.

When I was elected over a year and a half ago, I made a promise to my constituents, the people who put their trust in me, that every single day we will fight for their best interests. We will fight for their rights because, at the end of the day, we are public servants who work for the people who put us in the seat we sit in. We are just trustees holding that seat for over 100,000 constituents.

Constituents put their faith in us. They put their trust in us. They know that we will always have their best interests at heart. When we take the oath, whether here in the chamber or in different departments in the government, wherever we go, it is our job to fight for our constituents.

Sadly, over the last nine years, there has been a pattern of entitlement, a pattern of corruption and a pattern of the Liberals' just not caring. We have seen their reckless path. The corruption scandal we are discussing today is just one example of the Liberals' long history of corruption. They think they know better than everyone else. They think they can get away with corruption, but enough is enough.

When I was knocking on doors this past weekend in my riding, Canadians were concerned. They were asking about this issue. They were asking why the government keeps lining the pockets of its own insiders. Canadians have heard this story over and over again. The list is a very long one. I do want to share a little bit of history of the government.

We all remember, in 2016, the cash-for-access fundraisers that the Prime Minister was hosting. He wanted to get donations for his party so certain Liberal insiders, certain lobbyists, could have access to the government. Only a select few, his friends and people who supported the Liberal Party's agenda, get access to him. The last I remember, “prime minister” means “first servant”. The Prime Minister is for everyone, for all Canadians equally.

There was the 2017 Aga Khan scandal, when the Prime Minister accepted a family vacation. For the first time in history, the prime minister violated conflict of interest guidelines. He was found in violation of four sections of the act. However, he just brushed it off. He said that the Aga Khan was a personal friend. He was a personal friend who was a billionaire. Canadians do not have that option; they do not have friends with private islands giving them free vacations.

In 2019, there was the SNC-Lavalin scandal, with bribery and pressure from the Prime Minister, who even pushed senior cabinet ministers out because they would not listen to him. Jody Wilson-Raybould was one victim, one casualty, whom the Prime Minister did not even hesitate to kick out of caucus. Why? It was because of his own personal gain. The Prime Minister wants it his way.

Again, this comes back to the point I mentioned earlier: It is about entitlement. The Liberals think they know better. They think that they deserve better. It is always about them.

We cannot forget the 2020 WE Charity scandal in 2020. It was all over the news and in the media. It was talked about in our communities. The government handed out a single-source contract, not open to other tendering, for $912 million to a charity that we all know has strong ties to the Prime Minister's family.

The charity paid all expenses for different ministers who took trips and spoke at its events. They broke ethics law. We remember that the former finance minister, whom the Liberals now call a “random Liberal”, was forced to resign because of that scandal. It all comes back to the core trust that Canadians put in us: We will not act in our own best interests but in the interests of Canadians.

One of the latest scandals was the arrive scam app. I have spoken about it in Parliament before as well. The app should have cost only $80,000. How much did it end up costing Canadians? It cost at least $60 million, and every single day we hear more about the scandal.

The app did not work. It wrongfully sent 10,000 Canadians into quarantine, away from their jobs, away from their families and sometimes paying the out-of-pocket expense to live in a hotel. All this was for an app that did not work, yet the Liberals gave a contract to their insiders. There were allegations of identity theft with the scandal, including fraudulent and forged resumes.

There were no checks and balances when it came to handing the contracts out. Even a small business owner knows, when hiring someone, to do some due diligence themself. The contract was for millions and millions of dollars. There was contractual theft. There was price-fixing and collusion in the scandal. Can people imagine if this were happening at a private sector corporation? What would be done to the CEO or to the executives? They would be fired and be criminally charged for this kind of behaviour.

Again, the Prime Minister does not care. He continues to enable the behaviour. His senior bureaucrats were part of the scandals. The list is so long; I could be here all day. My whole 20 minutes could be spent on just listing all the scandals. I actually had to shorten them to try to fit in as many as I could today.

In 2023 there were the McKinsey contracts. How much money was involved? It was $209 million. Contracts were given to McKinsey & Company without proper and adequate oversight. Many of the contracts were not competitive. They were given to the Liberals' insider friends.

The point I am trying to make is that it is a pattern; it is not the first time. If the Liberals stay in power, it will not be the last time. Past behaviour predicts future behaviour.

The Liberals try to appoint people in their departments and in their independent bodies who are supposed to oversee some of this stuff. In 2023, the Liberal government appointed Martine Richard as the Ethics Commissioner. Guess who she was. She was the public safety minister's sister-in-law. What a way to stop corruption: put one's own family in to investigate the corruption within our Parliament and to oversee the problem and the crisis. What do people think is going to come out of that? Nothing. Thankfully, she did not end up staying in the position, because that would have been another conflict of interest.

How many times is this going to keep happening, where the Liberals continue to break the trust of Canadians? It is a very sacred relationship. We are public servants. We come to this chamber to work for our communities, with integrity. Service over self is something I speak about quite a lot in my community. However, for Liberals, it seems like it is about insiders over service, which is why we are here today.

Now we have a new scandal unfolding. Make no mistake; if it was not for the Conservatives pushing in committees and holding the Liberals accountable in question period, they would love to have this brushed under the rug as well. We are not going to let that happen. Conservatives will always be a strong opposition. We will hold the Liberal government to account every step of the way.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Madam Speaker, they can heckle me all they want; it is fine. We are not going to be quiet on this side of the House, because we want the truth to come out. Government members can try to heckle and try to delay. They can do whatever they want. We will always fight for the taxpayer.

In the new scandal we are talking about today, 400 million of Canadian taxpayers' hard-earned dollars have been misappropriated. The Auditor General, who is the independent body who oversees and demands accountability for these contracts, found 186 conflicts of interest.

There were people making decisions on contracts for their own benefit. One person would go out of the room, the vote would happen, the board would vote in favour and that person would come back and sit back down. The next person would get up and leave the room, the vote would happen and that person would get the contract and sit back down. That is not how we do business. That is corruption.

A lot of whistle-blowers came forward and shared their concerns. There was violation after violation and they still keep rolling out.

We have asked for these documents to be presented, unredacted, so we can get to the bottom of this scandal. The Speaker ruled on this. We all want the truth, but again, Liberals are not releasing the documents. It begs the question: What are they trying to hide? Who are they trying to protect? This $400 million is not a small amount of change.

We have seen Liberals paralyze Parliament because of the corruption and their cover-up. It is sometimes said that the crime is bad but the cover-up is even worse. We are seeing attempts every single day to cover this up. The money the Liberals have wasted on this scandal and every other scandal I listed earlier today is taxpayer money, which was not given to us easily.

When I am in my riding, I hear from that single mother who is working double shifts and feels she is being taxed to death, but who sometimes believes the money that goes to the government might help her one day. She makes the sacrifice of being away from her family. I hear from that senior on a fixed income, on a fixed pension, who is getting clocked taxes.

I also hear from that owner of the mom-and-pop shop who has taken a massive line of credit, who took the risk of starting a business. The people who put all their life savings into these businesses are paying more taxes. When the Liberal government is taxing Canadians to death, each dollar means something. People are paying their taxes with their blood, sweat and tears. That money comes to the government. All people ask is that the money that gets spent helps make their lives better, is not wasted and is not given to the government's friends.

We know how tough life is right now. Two million Canadians are lining up at food banks and one in four are skipping meals. There are seniors who cannot afford medicine anymore. We have seen businesses shutting down, and 60% of Canadians are only $200 away from bankruptcy.

We saw what happened in B.C., where 15,000 people lined up just to get a bag of rotten potatoes, or potatoes not fit for sale. People are struggling. Every dollar that goes out of their pockets makes it tougher for them to live and raise their families.

Canada had a promise that the Conservative leader spoke about today: If people worked hard in this country, they were able to save some money, buy that dream house and go on a vacation once in a while. However, when the government is taxing people to death and then recklessly spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' hard-earned money on itself, that is a problem. While Canadians line up at food banks, the government is lining the pockets of Liberal insiders. That is something quite concerning to all of us.

Conservatives take this very seriously because we hear this story every single day. When my colleagues and I are door knocking, when we are at events or meet-and-greets, this is a number one concern. Constituents say the government keeps taking more and more, and it keeps spending it recklessly.

Tax dollars come to the government, and what do the Liberals do? Line their own pockets. We have to keep reminding them this is not something that will go away; it is something we will keep fighting for. It is a scandal we are not going to let go away until the government brings these documents to the committee, has the RCMP investigate this and has some transparency and openness.

On this side of the House, we take this job very seriously. Seeing the Liberals not comply with the Speaker's ruling sends a very strong message that they are hiding something and that the problem is a lot bigger than what we may even know. On the Conservative side, we are going to keep fighting the good fight. We are going to get to the bottom of this scandal and we are not going to stop; we are relentless.

We are not going to stop fighting for Canadian taxpayers. We are going to make sure the documents come out, and we want this to stop paralyzing Parliament. We want to go back to our core values and our core message to fight for Canadians: We will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.

We are not going to let the government continue to steal money from Canadians. It is not going to happen, at least not under our watch. Our ask to the Liberals, again and again, is to please release the documents, unredacted. This could all stop if they give us the documents. This will stop when they pay back the money that Canadians are owed. It is not their money; it is the Canadian taxpayers' money.

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

Madam Speaker, we actually have released the documents. This motion is about the issue going to the procedure and House affairs committee. The bottom line is that the Conservative Party wants to continue to play games. That is what it is all about.

To quote the member, “Past behaviour predicts future behaviour.” I started to list off some scandals, but I have a very long list: “Repeated Duplicity in Afghan Detainees Controversy”; “Repeated Duplicity on Costing of F-35 Fighter Jets”; “Harper Minister Lies, Blames Statistics Canada for Killing Long Form Census”; “Conservative MP Admits He Lied to Parliament”; “Conservative House Leader Admits to Mockery of Question Period”; “Harper Maligns the Supreme Court Chief Justice”. I will continue on as the day goes on.

Nothing has changed. The Leader of the Opposition's behaviour is still the same as when he was the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister. Why will he not get the security clearance? Canadians have a right to know. What is the argument that the Conservative Party is advancing to justify its leader not getting the security clearance?

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order.

If others want to participate in the debate, they need to wait until the appropriate time. I am sure their colleague who has the floor and has the ability to answer that question will do so.

The hon. member for Oxford.

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is the same entitled behaviour I was talking about in my speech. They just do not care. They have not released all the unredacted documents. They are not providing clarity to the committees. They are not even complying with the ruling from the Speaker.

Something I want to highlight is that the government is also now under investigation by the RCMP. It is being investigated because it received documents from the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. It is going to be looked at by the RCMP, so I do not buy the member's argument here. The Liberals have been part of the problem, and they can hide all they want, but we are going to get to the bottom of this.