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.