Debates of Oct. 24th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

We really are straying off subject.

The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith has the floor.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, first I just want to say that I do genuinely enjoy my time sitting on the fisheries committee with my colleague.

I have noticed the Conservatives and the Liberals pointing fingers at one another. I have heard the Conservatives talk over and over about the Liberal insiders, and one thing that I would love to be able to get some insights from the member about is the fact that we know that SDTC's Annette Verschuren was donating tens of thousands of dollars to both the Conservatives and the Liberal government. I also believe that she was an adviser to Harper, but correct me if I am wrong on that, and Brian Mulroney, I am being told.

Although I want to get to the bottom of this, I want to understand what the facts are here. As such, my question to the member is this: Why are the Conservatives not taking accountability for their part in this inside work that is happening here?

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate working with my colleague on the fisheries committee.

I think she should be with us over here, though. Because she has such strong Conservative values, I do not think she is in the right place

However, the lady that she mentioned was hand-picked by the Prime Minister against his adviser's wishes. He was told she was in a conflict. He knew she was in a conflict, and because corruption does not faze him at all, he went ahead and appointed her anyway.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, my friend from Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame has entertained the House as he always does with a very thoughtful and entertaining speech, and maybe I could also help our friend, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

The member questioned why we just do not let this go to committee, and I would argue that the filibuster is a filibuster by the Liberal government, which is filibustering against releasing the documents the House ordered. I would ask the hon. member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame whether he thinks that this delay by the government of releasing documents that are not covered up and are not edited is because it is hiding something.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my mentor, my guru, the MP for South Shore—St. Margarets for working so diligently on this file, for the people of South Shore—St. Margarets, who cannot get a nickel from the blue slush fund, known as small craft harbours.

I would like to thank my colleague for his hard work, for what he has highlighted in this scandal, and how bad and just how deep this scandal runs, this green slush fund. My colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets knows exactly what Liberals are covering up, what everyone on this side knows that they are covering up. The cover-up needs to end, and we need a carbon tax election now.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on the answer the member gave to my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert. My colleague asked whether he agreed with the legitimacy of Quebec's independence. The member across the way said he was worried about what we would do without oil from Labrador.

Is he telling us that he agrees that Labrador should never have been taken from Quebec and that Quebec is entitled to it?

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Madam Speaker, I am here in the House of Commons of Canada. This is the Parliament of Canada. I am here to represent Newfoundland and Labrador in the House of Commons. Our members down to the left, my very good friends, the Bloc Québécois, are here to represent the ridings that elected them to Parliament. Why would we come to a place to advocate not to come back here again? Does that make sense? I cannot answer that. Of course I am not for Quebec independence. I challenge them to go out and campaign on that, and they will see where they are. We will take all that row of seats down there as well.

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

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member can just expand in regard to the issue of the filibuster. I think it is important that what is being asked is for this report to go to the procedure and House affairs committee. That is what the Speaker's ruling is. The Conservatives, on the other hand, continue to not only filibuster the main motion but also the amendment, and the amendment to the amendment. They are the ones who are actually filibustering and they are trying to get the Liberal government to say no to the RCMP, the Auditor General of Canada and the former law clerk when it comes to directly collecting documents and handing them directly to the RCMP.

That is wrong yet the Conservatives believe it is right. Can the member indicate why they are filibustering?

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Madam Speaker, the Chair ruled that there has been a breach in the House. That member should convince his costly coalition Prime Minister to produce the documents. This—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Electoral Reform; the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, Emergency Preparedness; the member for Langley—Aldergrove, Carbon Pricing.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, at a time when Canadians are struggling to put food on their table; when the dream of home ownership in Canada is just that, a dream for many young Canadians; and when our country is plagued by so many other serious challenges brought upon us by the failed policies of the incompetent and reckless government, we are here this afternoon continuing debate on the government's failure to live up to its responsibilities in your order to produce important documents pertaining to the Sustainable Development Technology Canada green slush fund scandal.

SDTC was established by the Government of Canada in 2001. As a federally funded foundation, it was responsible for the approval and disbursement of over $100 million annually in taxpayer funds to help Canadian companies develop and deploy sustainable technologies. For many years, SDTC operated responsibly and earned a generally good reputation for its work. However, that all changed in 2019, when former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains appointed Annette Verschuren as chair of SDTC.

The issue at hand was conflict of interest. Verschuren was an entrepreneur who was already receiving SDTC funding through one of her companies, but then she was appointed by the Liberal government to hold responsibilities overseeing the very same funds her company was receiving. That fact alone should have sounded alarm bells and set off red flashing lights to alert everyone in the government to the obvious conflict of interest at hand.

In fact, it was no secret. The minister, the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office all knew and were warned of the risks associated with appointing a conflicted chair. However, the warnings all fell on deaf ears and indifference, as Verschuren was appointed by the Liberal minister anyway. How can we tell that a government has lost its moral compass? It is when it makes poor decisions like this one without concern for doing the right thing and without fear of consequences.

Only two years later, Minister Bains announced in January 2021 that he had decided to step away from politics and not run again in the upcoming federal election. That same year, SDTC entered into a five-year, $1-billion agreement with the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

Fast-forward to Fall 2024, and it is clear that the Liberals are trying desperately to run away and wash their hands of this mess, which they laid the foundation for through their own actions, especially after the Auditor General released a scathing report about SDTC in June 2024. The AG found massive issues at SDTC, which resulted in the current Minister of Industry, the hon. member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, abolishing the SDTC and immediately transferring its funds to the National Research Council Canada. These are truly astonishing developments in just three years for something the Liberal government does not want to talk about anymore.

What did the AG find that was so bad as to cause all this carnage? In June 2024, she found that SDTC had demonstrated “significant lapses in governance and stewardship of public funds”. Nearly 20% of the SDTC projects examined by the AG were in fact ineligible, based on the government's own rules for funding, for a total price tag of $59 million. There were also 90 instances when the SDTC ignored conflict of interest provisions while awarding $76 million to various projects. The AG found 63 cases where the SDTC directors voted in favour of payment to companies in which they had declared conflicts.

The AG report concluded, “Not managing conflicts of interest—whether real, perceived, or potential—increases the risk that an individual's duty to act in the best interests of the foundation is affected, particularly when making decisions to award funding." It also blamed the government's Minister of Industry, whose ministry or department did not sufficiently monitor the contribution agreements with SDTC.

Believe it or not, it gets far worse. Since June, the Auditor General has found that directors had awarded funding to projects that were ineligible and where conflicts of interest existed. She found that over $300 million in taxpayers' money was paid out in over 180 cases where there were potential conflicts of interests, where Liberal-appointed directors funnelled money to companies they owned.

Time after time, the Liberal government and its Prime Minister have shown total contempt for Canada's ethic laws. In fact the Prime Minister himself has been found the subject of three ethics investigations and has been found guilty of breaking ethics laws twice. The Liberal government allows the culture of law-breaking to persist, as six Liberals have been found guilty of breaking ethics laws. The Liberals have gone through ethical scandals before; that is why they are withholding the documents, breaching parliamentary privilege and trying desperately to sweep the mess under the rug and move on to the next thing.

However, the common-sense Conservatives are not going to let the Liberals get away with it. We are holding the corrupt Liberal government to account. It will be held responsible for its carelessness, recklessness and, indeed, corruption. That is why on June 10 the House of Commons adopted the following motion proposed by common-sense Conservatives on this important matter:

That the House order the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Auditor General of Canada each to deposit with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, within 14 days of the adoption of this order, the following documents, created or dated since January 1, 2017, which are in its or her possession, custody or control...

The motion then detailed what documents were to be supplied, and then directed that “the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall provide forthwith any documents received by him, pursuant to this order, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police”.

The common-sense Conservative motion passed with the support of the New Democrats, the Green Party and the Bloc Québécois. Only the Liberals opposed it. To be clear, nothing in the motion orders the RCMP to conduct an investigation. The House is simply asking that the documents be turned over to the RCMP.

Fourteen days came and went, and instead of complying with the adopted motion, federal departments outright refused the House order or provided heavily redacted documents, citing provisions in the Privacy Act or the Access to Information Act. This is not a good look.

Further, nothing in the House order contemplated redactions to documents being made by the government. That is because the House of Commons enjoys the absolute and unfettered power to order the production of documents. That is not limited by statute; the powers are rooted in the Constitution Act of 1867 and the Parliament of Canada Act.

In response to the Liberal government's failure to produce the documents, the Conservative House leader rightly raised a question of privilege, arguing that a House privilege had been breached due to the failure to comply with the House order. On September 26, you issued a ruling on the question of privilege raised, and you found that the privileges of the House had in fact been breached. Today, nearly a month later, we continue our important debate on the matter and continue our demands for the Liberal government to provide the RCMP with the unredacted SDTC documents.

You have ruled that the government has violated a House order to turn over evidence to the RCMP in the latest Liberal scandal, the $400-million green slush fund scandal. The Liberal government's refusal to respect your ruling has paralyzed Parliament, pushing aside all other work to address issues such as the cruel and crippling carbon tax, the cost of living crisis Canadians face for food and shelter, and the increasing crime, disorder and chaos in our streets, our communities and cities. This is happening at a time when the cost of food, fuel and shelter are all up and millions of Canadians are having to line up outside food banks just to survive. Sadly, as Canadians continue to struggle, life for well-connected Liberal insiders has never been so good.

One of the drivers of this hardship is the cruel NDP-Liberal carbon tax. In fact the carbon tax will cost the average Ontarian $903 this year. This is completely unacceptable to the constituents in my communities of Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie, who work hard for their money, who save carefully for their future and who dream of a better tomorrow. Instead of doing anything about climate change, the NDP-Liberal carbon tax is impoverishing Canadians.

Recently the PBO confirmed that Canadians will suffer a net cost, paying more in the carbon tax than they will ever get back in rebates. Unfortunately the NDP-Liberal government does not care. Instead of giving Canadians the tax relief they deserve, the government hiked the carbon tax by 23% last year as part of its plan to actually quadruple the carbon tax by 2030.

It turns out that the carbon tax is not a tool to fight climate change like the Prime Minister argues; it is just another tax grab. Canadians can add it to the long list of growing NDP-Liberal taxes they already pay, including income tax, sales tax, excise tax, underutilized housing tax, property tax, capital gains tax and more. After listing all those taxes, it is easy to see why Canadians are getting poor. It is because the government is taking more of their hard-earned money away.

The STDC scandal is also happening at a time when costs are up for food. In fact food will cost families $700 more this year than it did in 2023. That is because when the government taxes the farmer who grows the food, the trucker who ships the food and the store that stocks, stores and sells the food, it ends up taxing the family that buys the food. As Sylvain Charlebois, the “food professor” and director of Dalhousie University Agri-Food Analytics Labs, has said, the costly NDP-Liberal “carbon tax likely adds a significant cost burden to the Canadian food industry”.

Canadians are going hungry. That is evident by the massive surge in demand and need at food banks. Food bank usage has increased every year the NDP-Liberal government has been in office, because its inflationary spending and punishing carbon tax have hiked up the price of groceries, causing Canadians to skip meals, eat less healthy food and rely on food banks to survive.

This was confirmed recently by Feed Ontario, which revealed that a record one million people visited a food bank in Ontario in 2024. That is a dramatic increase of 25% from the previous year. In fact Feed Ontario's CEO told media that she never thought she would see this day. She has been with the organization 15 years and never thought it would see this level of demand. She cannot believe it has reached a point where numbers are so drastically high.

Food Banks Canada reported earlier this year that it had seen a 50% increase in visits since 2021, with food banks handling a record two million visits in a single month in 2023. Of the people visiting food banks in Ontario, one in three visitors is a child. Only one in six adults visiting food banks is unemployed; the NDP-Liberal government's cost of living crisis has become so severe that even working Canadians are having to depend on food banks to get by.

The numbers reflect what is happening across Niagara too. Let us try to wrap our heads around the following statistics from Project Share, which serves vulnerable residents in Niagara Falls. Last year Project Share saw a 20% increase in people served, compared to the previous year, and 4,740 people accessed its services for the first time. On average, 120 families per day accessed its essential support services. In total, 13,995 people were served last year, which equates to one in seven residents in Niagara Falls having accessed its essential support services just last year.

We should be debating these issues, and we could if the government simply abided by the Speaker's ruling and provided the documents the House has requested. Why are the Liberals so hesitant to do what is right? Is it that they do not want to speak to the situation facing young Canadians and first-time homebuyers, which is so bad that the Canadian dream of home ownership is dying? Two-thirds of young people believe they will never be able to afford a home. Canadians see the housing crisis most tragically in our streets, where there are now 1,800 homeless encampments across Ontario and thousands more across the country.

Time after time, the NDP-Liberal government has promised to fix the housing crisis, but the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been clear that the number of new homes being built is not enough to reduce the existing supply gap and improve affordability for Canadians.

Crime is also getting worse under the watch of the NDP-Liberal government. Again, perhaps that is why they refuse to hand over these documents: so we cannot debate these issues, which are so important to all of our constituents. Since 2015, when the Liberals formed government, the number of auto thefts has skyrocketed by 45%, violent crime has increased by 50% and hate crimes have increased by 251%. In addition, just recently, the Toronto Police Association had to come out publicly and fact-check the Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister attempted to brag about banning firearms for law-abiding firearms owners while continuing to ignore the crime wave he has unleashed across the country, the Toronto Police Association reminded him that, in just the last year, shootings have gone up 45% and gun-related homicides have gone up 62% in Toronto.

The reality is that the Liberals' soft-on-crime approach is making life easier for violent criminals by repealing mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes with Bill C-5 and making it easier to get bail with Bill C-75. Meanwhile, it is failing to stop the flow of illegal guns across the U.S. border. The issues I noted are all pressing, and parliamentarians should be debating them. However, the House of Commons has seized because the government is refusing to comply with the House order to hand over SDTC documents to the RCMP.

Canadians are suffering great hardship after nine years of the NDP-Liberal coalition. The country is headed in the wrong direction, and we are all worse off than we were about 10 years ago. The Speaker ruled that the government has violated a House order to turn over evidence to the RCMP about the latest Liberal scandal, the $400-million green slush fund. The Liberal government's refusal to respect the Speaker's ruling has paralyzed Parliament, pushing aside all other debate. It is time for the Liberals to end their corrupt cover-up and provide the ordered documents to the police so that Parliament can get back to work and Canadians can have the accountability they so rightly deserve.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just need to see if history has been revised a little bit by my hon. colleague. My understanding is that the original motion called for the documents to be provided to a standing committee. In fact, the Speaker had questioned the wisdom of providing documents to the RCMP, which said it probably could not use them. The RCMP had the documents it needed, and it was able to go after more documents if it saw fit.

I would ask the hon. member just to go back in history and recount the original motion and where those documents were really supposed to go.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, in fact, I quoted the actual motion in my remarks. It indicated that the Auditor General of Canada and SDTC were “each to deposit with the Law Clerk...documents”. The motion also stated that “the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall provide forthwith any documents received by him, pursuant to this order, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is Small Business Week. I just want to take the opportunity to thank the small businesses in Port Moody—Coquitlam, as well as home businesses in Anmore and Belcarra, and to recognize a couple of our key community and business groups. We have Austin Heights BIA, Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce, the Koreatown association and the Iranian professional network. They are all so important to our community. I thank them so much for everything they do.

My question for the member relates to these small businesses: Why is it that Conservatives and Liberals continue to award contracts to the largest corporations, to the largest companies, while they ignore the small business owners with brick and mortar businesses in the community?

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to congratulate all the small business owners and operators in my community, in Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie. As the member probably knows, we are a tourism community. Those tourism businesses employ over 40,000 workers. Prior to COVID, our community generated $2.4 billion in tourism receipts, and those 40,000 employees depend on international and domestic visitors to come to our community. A lot of local business owners currently benefit from our tourism economy, and our hope is to grow that. We should be talking about that. We should be talking about how we go about growing our tourism sector, as well as all our economic sectors, but we are precluded from doing that because the Liberal government does not want to produce those documents. Why is that?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, apart from the unredacted documents that we requested for analysis, the situation we are currently facing stems from the fact that the government delegated some of its management authority to a fund that hands out money. Everything worked well for a while, but things seem to have broken down during the pandemic, with everything everyone was going through. Authorities were delegated, but it seems that the need for audits was overlooked.

My question is this. When authority is delegated, is it relinquished entirely, or is it still necessary to conduct audits? Is it the approach that needs to change instead?

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, delegating power does not delegate one's overall responsibility to ensure that these foundations, these agencies, operate to the mandate they were given. In fact, at the time of the appointment of Ms. Verschuren, the CEO indicated to the government that there was a conflict of interest and that it should not proceed with this appointment. The government knew about it. The Privy Council advised the government of the fact, yet it decided to proceed anyway, and we can see what happened. Ultimately, no one is to blame but the Liberal government.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion in the debate on this privilege motion about the ruling of the Speaker and the motion going to the procedure committee. Why do we not just let it go there and let the committee determine whether there was a procedure breach? We heard the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader say this many times. In fact, I do not think he or the government understands what the motion says. The motion does not say to refer it to the committee to determine a breach; the Speaker already determined that. The motion is about going to the committee to determine what to do about the government's failure to abide by the motion passed by the House and the reluctance to do that.

Could the member tell me why he thinks the Liberals are trying to divert the purpose of the motion and why they would have an interpretation that is actually different from what the motion would do?

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, ultimately, it is about what the Liberals have been doing in the House all along. It is all about disinformation. It is about changing the channel with regard to what has happened here. It is about getting this off our television screens and out of the media. I can promise the ladies and gentlemen here, and my constituents at home, that the people on this side of the House are going to keep raising the issue of the $400-million green slush fund. Can we imagine what that $400 million would have meant for people in my community? Again, one in seven residents had to visit a food bank in the past year. That is unacceptable. We should all be charged with that issue and looking at that; however, because of the Liberals' incompetence and corruption, we are here arguing this instead.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Madam Speaker, the member speaks to the importance of food security and poverty elimination in Canada, which is a very valuable debate and something we should make time for in the House. He talked about Feed Ontario and various food security organizations and food banks. Then he immediately launched into his typical slogans on carbon pricing, although none of those food security organizations have mentioned carbon pricing or the elimination of a so-called carbon tax in their advocacy. They want more poverty reduction strategies. They have all acknowledged that the Canada carbon rebate reduces poverty; they also recognize that carbon emissions and climate change itself have an impact on food prices.

When will the Conservatives recognize that the Canada carbon rebate is supporting families in need? It is eliminating food security challenges in Canada. We need to fight climate change and lower emissions in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of food prices in Canada and around the world. If Conservatives are going to quote food banks and food security organizations, they ought to listen to what they are advocating for, which is poverty elimination, not carbon taxing.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, in my remarks, I also quoted the PBO. The PBO's report on the carbon tax actually showed that, for Canadians and people in Ontario such as my constituents, there is a net cost because of the carbon tax. In Ontario itself, I think it is $1,400 for every Ontarian. Therefore, the PBO is speaking to this issue as well. That is causing the unaffordability that Canadians are facing.

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

Madam Speaker, I asked the question a few times and so far, I have had no answer.

My colleague talks a lot about the Liberals and their corruption. However, examples of corruption involving Conservative governments also exist. Does my colleague have any ideas on ways to prevent this kind of corruption?

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, perhaps they should have started with listening to the CEO of the SDTC foundation, who actually recommended not proceeding with the hiring of Ms. Verschuren at SDTC. If that had taken place, they would have identified the conflict of interest that existed and all of this could have been avoided.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon as the member of Parliament for Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

In most offices on Parliament Hill, there is, perched upon a bookshelf, an unassuming little book, about an inch wide, and if a member or a staffer has been here for some time, it is likely collecting a fair amount of dust. Outside of a House leader's office, there is not too much need for this book, with its greyish-blue hard cover, inlaid in faux gold with the mace of the House of Commons. I certainly never thought I would ever have the need for it when I started my parliamentary career three years ago.

However, thanks to the government and the hard work of one of its former colleagues, it became incredibly valuable in the preparation of my remarks this afternoon. I am, of course, talking about The Power of Parliamentary Houses to Send for Persons, Papers and Records: A Sourcebook on the Law and Precedent of Parliamentary Subpoena Powers for Canadian and Other Houses, a book by former Liberal MP Derek Lee. To Mr. Lee, I send my thanks.

The reason I want to bring up this authority is because it is my firm belief that Canadians need to know why opposition parties, both past and present, take such umbrage with what is currently happening in this place. Far too often, we as members can get lost in the ebb and flow of the internal machinations of the House of Commons, or perhaps take it for granted that people who are tuning in are as knowledgeable in procedure as some of us may be.

If members will indulge me, I would like to first talk about the how. One of Parliament's privileges, the power to send for persons, papers and records, is a cornerstone of the functions of every legislative responsibility and every legislative assembly. It is important to note that this power, to send for persons, papers and records, as a law of Parliament, is constitutional in nature. It is so fundamental that it has scarcely been altered over the centuries, and as a matter of law, cannot be altered except by the express will of Parliament itself.

The power of a House of Parliament to send for persons, papers and records is an essential element of a democratic legislative function founded on the rule of law. One of the cornerstone privileges of both historic and modern Parliaments and other assemblies, the term is often better understood when restated in more contemporary language. Based on principles firmly established in constitutional and parliamentary law, a House of Parliament has the full authority to summon and compel the attendance and testimony of any person and to summon and compel the production of any document.

I think this section is very straightforward. The House has the power to compel documents. This is the overarching umbrella under which we are now operating. It stands to reason that the next question would be if this authority extend to ministers, and if so, if there are limitations on what they can do. Mr. Lee writes that, under the law, ministers of the Crown enjoy no special status of privilege before the House or a committee. Any difference in treatment is either for political reasons or because the minister is a member of a House. In other words, legally speaking, a minister who is not a member of a House may be treated like any other member of the public.

He further writes that, when the House orders a return from the government without a deadline specified, it is the government's bounden duty to bring it down to the House as quickly as possible. This Canadian reference is one of those cited by Bourinot, the third clerk of the House of Commons, for his statement that, if a person neglects to furnish a return or frames it so as knowingly to mislead the House, it will be considered a breach of privilege, and he will be liable to reprimand or punishment.

When a deadline is imposed, therefore, and a minister fails to comply, he or she may be found in contempt and punished by the House or other powers used to coerce the minister to comply.

Again, it is pretty clear that, if the House asks, the government must comply.

Now we have two very important pieces to explain the how. First, Parliament has the power to compel the production of documents. Second, it is allowed to compel documentation from ministers and the government, and they must comply. From the words of the Speaker, it very much appears that the government failed to comply with the lawful order of the House, which leads us to the why.

In 2001, the government of the day established an arm's-length organization, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, for which the stated aim was to demonstrate new technologies to promote sustainable development, including technologies to address issues related to climate change and the quality of air, water and soil. There was no issue with this organization during its first governance period, and that is a fairly impressive statement.

The Jean Chrétien Liberals managed to not abuse the program. The Paul Martin Liberals managed to not line the pockets of their lackeys. The Stephen Harper Conservatives fought off the urge to swindle the taxpayers. The Liberals, enter the scene, far left, were ready to put the gift in grift. There was 400 million in taxpayer dollars stolen out of the pockets of hard-working Canadian families and funnelled into the silk-lined jackets of Liberal Party insiders. Members need not take my word for it. The non-partisan Auditor General has much to say on the matter.

The Auditor General released a scathing report with such headers as: “The Foundation awarded funding to ineligible projects”; “The foundation’s records showed that the conflict-of-interest policies were not followed in 90 cases”; “The Foundation did not report conflicts of interest to the department”; “Legal requirements for the number of the foundation’s members were not met”; and my personal favourite, “The department did not monitor conflicts of interest at the foundation”.

In the report, the Auditor General states:

...we found 90 cases where, according to the foundation’s own records, its conflict-of-interest policies were not followed:

According to the meeting minutes, the official corporate records, in 25 cases, directors participated in discussions and voted to approve funding to ultimate recipients despite having previously declared conflicts of interest. For about half these situations, directors informed us that either there was an error in the corporate records and they did not have a conflict of interest, or when they did have a conflict, they recused themselves from voting. While directors had the opportunity to correct the board’s meeting minutes prior to their approval at a subsequent meeting, such corrections were not made.

Additionally, when news started breaking out about the improprieties, the organization decided to take action. What did it decide to do? Well, I will let the Auditor General tell us:

Soon after the board received allegations about financial mismanagement and poor human resources practices at the foundation in January 2023, a special committee of the board was struck. The special committee hand-selected the same law firm to which the foundation’s external general counsel belonged to investigate and produce a report that the board received in May 2023. This could create the appearance that the investigation was not independent.

Earlier today, I rose in the House to speak about the dangers of rotten, self-serving institutions. It is clear that this is another example of a decrepit, broken organization. It clearly always has been this way, surviving over successive governments. The only difference is that the current administration was the only one out of four that looked at it and thought to itself, “Let's abuse it.” Considering that the Chrétien and Martin governments, which were run by two individuals who were heavily involved in the ad scam scandal, gave this grift a pass, I would wager to say that the current government opting to siphon funds from this particular program is bordering on profound.

We have the ability to call an election over this. It has been done before, and we do not even need to try to score bonus points by couching it under auspices of contempt of Parliament, primarily because this is an actual breach, something far worse than the contempt charge. Judging by the past rhetoric of other parties in the House, particularly in 2011, we would not think so.

When it was politically expedient, the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc members decided that they could not bear the thought of a government's using redactions in documents and decided to find it in contempt and force an election, even though that backfired cartoonishly on two of the three parties. However, today, the Liberals suddenly seem perfectly fine with it, going so far as to accuse the Conservatives of slowing down Parliament. I keep hearing about the millions of dollars a day being spent on holding the government to account, yet the Liberals are suspiciously quiet on the $400 million that was funnelled into the pockets of Liberal insiders.

Let us take a step back. I would like to go back to a better time. Food costs were less. Housing was much more affordable. Canadians could heat their homes for the winter and put gas in their cars for an upcoming trip to see nana and papa with the kids. Working Canadian families were seized with the decision of where to go on their summer vacation instead of which food bank to rotate into to put food on their tables. It was a better time. It was the tail end of the Harper minority years.

However, there was an issue brewing in the House of Commons. There was a new hockey arena to be built in Quebec. The federal government had decided that it would not support the project unless there was more private sector buy-in. There was a request for documents, and the government of the day provided redacted paperwork. This was particularly upsetting to one first-term MP, an up-and-comer from Quebec. On March 11, 2011, this young MP got up and said the following:

Mr. Speaker, North Africa is going after tyrants and fighting for democracy, but here in Canada, it is the Conservatives who are attacking our democracy. They continue to refuse to be held accountable by covering up anything that could enable Canadians to judge their actions.

The latest example we have is the document on the financing of the Quebec City arena with page after page blacked out. There are no state secrets here. They are only hiding the dangerous incompetence of this irresponsible government.

Why are the Conservatives so afraid of transparency?

To be clear, this young MP decided to compare documentation over a hockey arena to the brutal regime of Muammar Gaddafi. In his mind, this was an apt comparison, or at least something he thought worth putting on the parliamentary record. Of course, the documentation that was handed over was subject to revision and redaction by the public service at the time, under the sets of rules then instituted, which this person was not happy with.

To wit, he continued:

In order for members of the House to do our jobs and make informed decisions on behalf of Canadians, we need to pry scraps of relevant information out of the Conservatives' clenched fists and drag it out of them as they kick and scream....

Clearly, this member took the production of papers to Parliament extremely seriously.

In any event, we know how that failed NDP-Liberal-Bloc attempt to discredit the Conservative Party ended up. Their gamble with contempt of Parliament failed miserably. The Liberals got relegated to the political hinterland. The NDP saw a massive surge in Quebec, becoming the official opposition, and Stephen Harper finally got his strong, stable, national Conservative majority government.

However, what of our young first-term MP who found the concept of withholding documents so morally repulsive, so disgusting, that he likened the government of the day to a literal Libyan dictator who was, at that very moment, engaged in the brutal suppression of his people? Well, he managed to be one of the very few Liberal MPs who got re-elected. In fact, he is still a member of this place.

The member, representing a small riding on the island of Montreal, actually found great successes in the ashes of the Liberal Party. The member for Papineau is the Prime Minister, the very same member who now, 13 years later, refuses to table documents ordered by the House, not over a sporting complex but over $400 million of taxpayer money being siphoned from the pockets of hard-working Canadians and into the trust funds of Liberal insiders.

It is extremely interesting what 13 years in politics can do to how one views the role of government and how power can change and affect one's morals. In any event, it certainly is an interesting thought experiment to think what the hopeful and beaming newly minted member for Papineau would think of the Prime Minister and his government today.

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

Madam Speaker, there is one fundamental flaw when we look at the order and what is being requested of the government. The Conservatives are saying we should collect the documents, unredacted, and hand them directly to the RCMP. The RCMP has said no. The Auditor General has said no. The former law clerk has said no.

What the member missed saying is that the only prime minister in the history of Canada to ever be held in contempt of Parliament was Stephen Harper. Who was his parliamentary secretary? It was the leader of the Conservative Party.

Nothing has changed. The leader of the Conservative Party today, for example, refuses to get the security clearance so he can be informed about foreign interference. It is a serious issue. On the one hand, Conservatives play games on the floor of the chamber and exaggerate and mislead on many fronts, including many of the statements the member just put on the record; then, on the other hand, they ignore the important issue of foreign interference.

Why will the leader of the Conservative Party not get his security clearance?