Debates of Oct. 25th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak in the House on behalf of my constituents of Sturgeon River—Parkland. I want to wish every member of the House and the Canadian people a very happy Saint Crispin's day.

I am going to start with a small excerpt from a speech in Shakespeare's Henry V, in which the King, before the Battle of Agincourt, said:

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold....
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.

That is illustrative of the debate we are having here today, as people seem more covetous for gold than they are for their own honour. We have seen that very clearly with the debacle at Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

There has never been a better time in this country's history to be a Liberal insider than under the Liberal government. After nine years, the government has shown no restraint in enriching their friends. As we approach the dying days of the government, the Liberals are more desperate than ever to hide the truth, going to extraordinary lengths to block the release of documents in this terrible scandal. We are talking about $400 million of taxpayers' money that was misappropriated by Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

We are here today, for my constituents who tuning into the debate, to talk about parliamentary privilege. Members of the House of Commons have something called parliamentary privilege. It is a sacred principle that we inherited from Westminster.

Erskine May's Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament defines parliamentary privilege as, “Parliamentary privilege is the sum of certain rights enjoyed by each House collectively...and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions, and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals.”

The Liberal government has violated the rights of Parliament and parliamentarians by refusing to turn over all the unredacted documents relating to the scandal at the Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

The powers of parliamentary privilege are rooted in the Constitution Act, 1867, and the Parliament of Canada Act. This issue is such a significant issue that it has essentially led to the shutdown of all other parliamentary debate as we undertake the privilege motion.

Some members, including recently a member across the way, have pointed to the previous government's refusal in 2011 to release documents. This issue was taken to a higher power, in fact the highest power of the land: the people. They decided to give that government a majority mandate after an election was fought. The people, the highest power, vindicated the government of the day's position.

The Liberal minority government has no mandate from the people to defy the will of Parliament. If it believes it does, which it clearly does, it should call an election so it can get that mandate from the people. However, the government is not willing to go to the highest power in the land because it already knows what the answer will be. It will be a resounding rejection of the government's decision to defy the will of Parliament and refuse to provide these documents. If the government wants to keep hiding these documents in violation of parliamentary supremacy, it must call an election to get a mandate from the people.

I want to go into how the motion put forward came to be and why we are here today.

The Auditor General of Canada, an independent office, investigated Sustainable Development Technology Canada and found that Liberal appointees gave $400 million of taxpayers' money to their own companies, involving 186 instances of conflicts of interest. The Prime Minister's former industry minister, Navdeep Bains, hand-picked these board members and their chair to manage a billion dollars in taxpayer funds. Then in February 2023, employees at the fund, from within the organization itself, filed a complaint, and that complaint led to an investigation. It was a complaint that Conservatives fought to get an investigation for and that the Liberal government fought tooth and nail to avoid an investigation for.

When the Auditor General's report was made public, it showed that there were 186 conflicts of interest involving the board and the chair. They did a sample and found that 82% of the cases they had investigated had a conflict of interest. This is not just a one-off case where somebody maybe mistook the rules and had a minor interest in something and did not think it mattered. Instead, 82% of cases in a sample taken showed conflicts of interest.

In one case, Annette Verschuren, who was the Liberal-appointed chair of the green slush fund, gave $217,000 to her own company. It has yet to return the money. According to one of the whistle-blowers from the organization, “our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference”. The people who were in the organization itself were saying that there was political interference going on.

This fund operated well. There were a lot of goals to provide funding to promote sustainable development and new technologies. I know that there are companies in my riding that have accessed this funding. However, under the Liberal government, it was allowed to turn into a slush fund.

In fact, under the previous Conservative government, when this fund was looked into, it was given a clean bill of health. It was only under the Liberal government, under the decay and negligence, and with the turning of a blind eye to corruption, that this once pristine organization, was allowed to descend into the mires of this corruption.

Though SDTC should have been at arm's length from the government, it was not. It was found, in numerous cases, that the government had intricate involvements in the day-to-day affairs of SDTC, something that made it ripe for corruption and political interference.

I want to talk about some of the cases here, just to elaborate for Canadians how serious this is. For one board member, who was a board member from 2015 to 2021, their companies, companies they had an interest in, received $114 million dollars while they were sitting on the board. They did not recuse themselves.

In this case, for the company in question, which was Cycle Capital, the value of this company tripled during this member's time on the board of directors. Do members know who Cycle Capital's paid lobbyist during this time period was? It was the current Liberal Minister of Environment. Talk about strong ties. This board member was appointed to the Canada Infrastructure Bank's board of directors in 2021. No bad deed goes unrewarded under the Liberal government. They allocated an additional $170 million to Annette Verschuren's company when Verschuren was the chair of SDTC.

The Minister of Environment, before entering Parliament, was the lobbyist for this company that had tripled in value, and it had received an immense amount of funds from this fund. He lobbied 25 times just in the year before he was elected to the House. The Prime Minister's Office and the industry department gave his client over $100 million from this fund. When he became a cabinet minister, it did not end. He approved $750 million in funding through SDTC and $250 million of that went to Cycle Capital, a company that the minister continues to hold shares in to this day.

In another case, a slush fund board member who was hand-picked by the Prime Minister admitted in committee that $17 million went to companies in which he had an interest. In another case, a former political staffer who was a political staffer for Liberal environment minister David Anderson, who was a political organizer for the Prime Minister in British Columbia, approved $5 million for companies in which he had an interest.

There is the board chair, who I have mentioned before. Former minister Navdeep Bains replaced the previous chair of the Sustainable Development Technology Canada council with Annette Verschuren, after the previous chair criticized the government's tech policies. So much for listening to the experts, and so much for muzzling experts. Do members know who that previous board chair was? It was Jim Balsillie, one of the pioneering tech entrepreneurs of our country. He started BlackBerry.

In fact Jim Balsillie warned the government about the conflict of interest in appointing Ms. Verschuren, but the government ignored it anyway. In fact the Liberal minister at the time knew that Ms. Verschuren's companies were receiving funds, yet he appointed her anyway. He ignored repeated warnings from the Privy Council office, the Prime Minister's office and his own office. In fact in one case, Ms. Verschuren herself even told him that she had a conflict of interest.

However, that was not good enough for the Liberal government. It was going to go ahead and appoint its hand-picked chair. Verschuren moved a motion and voted to send $220,000 to her own company. The Ethics Commissioner found her guilty of violating ethics laws.

I am going to quote from one of the whistle-blowers, because so many whistle-blowers have come forward. People who are watching may want to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it is just the Conservatives spreading misinformation. Here are some quotes from a whistle-blower from the organization itself:

The true failure of the situation stands at the feet of our current government....Our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference....a straightforward process [became] a bureaucratic nightmare [allowing] SDTC to [waste] millions...and [abuse]...employees....

They also said that the current government is more focused on protecting itself from public scrutiny.

The whistle-blower said:

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. 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.

That is what we are debating here: giving the RCMP the full unredacted documents, not just the documents that the government wants to give the RCMP but the documents that Parliament has ordered it to give to the RCMP.

The whistle-blower continued:

Again, if you bring in the RCMP and they do their investigation and they find something or they don't, I think the public would be happy with that. I don't think we should leave it to the current federal government or the ruling party to make those decisions. Let the public see what's there....

Just as I was always confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement at SDTC, I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.

They also said:

For all of the information the RCMP received from ISED or the AG, again the question to them is, were any of them looking for criminal intent? It's one thing to say that no criminal intent was found, but the question to ask the AG or anyone else is, were they looking for criminal intent or were they not?

If you look at the scope of the RCGT report or the Auditor General's report, that was not in their scope or mandate....

That is why we need the RCMP to investigate. It was not in the scope of the Auditor General's mandate to look into whether there were criminal actions. On the surface, I think there is evidence that points to possible criminal actions, but that is really up to the RCMP, and the RCMP cannot do its job unless it gets the full documents.

Why must the House obtain the documents? Whistle-blowers claim that criminal intent would be found if the documents were given to the RCMP, so the government should not be withholding the documents in any way. A majority of members of the House passed a motion demanding that the documents be turned over, and the Liberals refused or they sent heavily redacted documents instead. The Leader of the Opposition has argued that Parliament's rights were breached, and the Speaker of the House agreed.

This is not the only Liberal scam. We know that during the pandemic the Liberals gave themselves unlimited taxing and spending powers. We know that the Prime Minister has been found guilty of violating ethics laws four times.

We know that the Prime Minister tried to hand $900 million to an organization that was paying his own family members. I found it very interesting, going back over the WE Charity debates, to learn that there were many other wonderful people who had wonderful experiences and were speaking at WE Charity events, but they were not getting paid anything. Curiously, it appeared to be only members of the Prime Minister's family who were getting paid. What a coincidence that was. There are questions that still need to be asked and answers that have yet to be given.

We know that in 2021, the government took the Speaker of the House to court over the Winnipeg lab documents. The House asked for those documents. We fought an election on it. The government was handed a minority mandate with a lower percentage of the popular vote than the Conservative Party. The Liberals do not have a clear mandate. They were given a mandate to work with other parties in this House and the government has refused to work with members. It has stonewalled and refused to give these documents, in defiance of the will of Parliament, a mandate it did not get from the Canadian people in the last election.

We are only scratching the surface. The Auditor General was only able to review half of the transactions in this case. When we consider that 82% of a sample size had conflicts of interest, we know a full review would show even more conflicts of interest. The CFO of the industry department called this worse than the sponsorship scandal. What is the government trying to hide? This is just the tip of the iceberg, and that is how it starts.

I remember my late friend, who, sadly, passed away this summer, John Williams, former MP and former chair of the public accounts committee, who relentlessly worked on a little-known issue called the sponsorship scandal, or ad scam. It happened in the 1990s. Some people started talking about it. It really blew up in the 2000s. It was only because of the relentless work of opposition parties in this Parliament and that committee that Canadians got the truth.

Then there was the Gomery inquiry, which showed the Liberal Party misappropriated funds, was sending funds to ad agencies, funds that were being returned to the Liberal Party in the form of donations. My late friend John Williams always told me the thing that separates a great society from a failing society is accountability. That was his watchword in his life: accountability. Under the current Liberal government, accountability has been allowed to go by the wayside.

We are doing our best here in the opposition. We are standing up here every day exposing the government's corruption and lack of transparency. The Liberals were talking about being “open by default” back in 2015, and about sunny ways. We have come a long way in these past nine years. Canadians would be right to be pretty cynical about the current government. Liberals talk a lot about slogans in the House, but we remember those slogans and they have been tossed to the wayside along with accountability.

Accountability is so essential because in great societies, when we have institutions that work as they should, when we have government that respects the rule of law and the will of its Parliament, there is transparency. When there is transparency, there is accountability, and when there is accountability, people do their jobs and do not steal money. They do not covet gold; they covet honour. We should all covet honour in this House. We should all be proud to be the guiltiest person to covet honour.

However, under the Liberal government, after the hundreds of millions of dollars, or billions if we are looking at the broad swath of scandals under nine years of the current Liberal government, we have seen that what has been allowed to fester in this country is the coveting of gold, the coveting of taxpayer money, which has been misappropriated, for the benefit of the few to the detriment of the people. The people are the highest power in the land: the people who send us here, who give us a job to do and who we have to be accountable to at the end of the day.

Conservatives will always push for accountability. We are the people who brought in the Federal Accountability Act, after all. After we form government again, there will have to be some revisions to that accountability act because, after nine years, the Liberals have certainly given us a lot of examples of the ways they could get around those rules and abuse the processes. There are going to have to be a lot of updates to that document because the Liberals have given us a lot of lessons in what not to do and how not to run a government. The Liberal government is comfortable with wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. There does not appear to be any real effort by the current government to recoup that money. The Liberals have broken the trust of hard-working Canadians. The Prime Minister's trust has been broken. The Liberals have broken Canada.

The Liberals do not have a mandate to defy the will of Parliament. They do not have a mandate to withhold these documents from the RCMP. If they want to get a mandate, as I said earlier, it is time to call an election so the Canadian people can decide if they are right or wrong. I am not afraid to ask that question, but I know the members on the other side are afraid to ask that question. Let us get to an election right now.

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

Mr. Speaker, I respect my colleague very much. I respect his work on the environment committee. I also want to thank him for his service. I know he is a member of the military. We are all wearing our poppies today, and I want to acknowledge that we are wearing them in remembrance of the service of veterans. As he is a man in uniform, I would like to thank him for that work.

I have a pointed question for the member. As we have heard today, the leaders of all but one party in the House, the Greens, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Liberals, have received a security clearance so they can be briefed on something very serious, which is international and foreign interference with respect to domestic democracy and security. As the member is also a member of the military, I can only imagine that the member knows more about this than I do. He is more informed and has an obligation to stand up for our domestic security, so how can he support a leader who refuses to get a security clearance to get briefed on foreign interference?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate being buttered up before giving a response.

I am glad the member asked this question. The Leader of the Opposition would be happy to take a briefing. He would be happy to take the same kind of briefing that The Washington Post received from the government. It appears the government selectively gives briefings to whoever it thinks can benefit it the most politically. It is quite odd.

A very interesting fact was made known to me recently, which is that, when the leader of the official opposition was in government, he received those security clearances, and they had to be renewed every two years. In 2019, the Liberal government changed the rules so that ministers of cabinet do not have to receive regular two-year updates to their security clearances, so members of the Liberal cabinet have not been vetted for national security for the past five years.

I agree the Prime Minister has the right, as the head of government and as Prime Minister, to have access to classified information. It should not be subject to whether he can get a top secret security clearance, but he has not received a top secret security clearance.

[An hon. member]

He hasn't been vetted.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

We do not know if he has been vetted.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. He said that the Liberal government does not have a mandate to break Canada. I wonder if my colleague's party gave him a mandate to forget the facts and history.

I would remind my colleague that, when his party was in power, Minister Tony Clement personally embezzled $50 million in public funds in his own riding. This was not some committee with a program embezzling funds. However, he is not saying anything about that today.

What about the Conservative government at the time, which refused to hand over documents concerning Afghan prisoners? We had the same question of privilege situation as today, yet he did not mention it.

I would like my colleague to tell us and the people tuning in why Quebeckers should trust this government, which has betrayed the people with corruption scandals and a lack of transparency.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member from the Bloc Québécois was listening to my speech because I dealt with that issue head on.

In 2011, when the government of the day refused to hand over documents, there was a privilege debate in the House of Commons. An election was called, and we went to the people for a mandate. What did the people do? They gave the government a majority mandate. Ultimately the people have the highest power in the land, and they chose to give that government a majority. That is something I do not think the Liberals would be willing to do.

The Liberals would not be willing to test the confidence of the Canadian people in an election to decide whether they are right or wrong in withholding these documents, yet they are in Parliament without a majority mandate. It has been three years now since the last election, an election during which we were not discussing this issue, and they have refused to provide the documents. They have defied the will of Parliament, and it is unacceptable. They should either turn over the documents or call an election.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for really bringing forth and talking about the accountability issue, because I think it is important. Actually, I would like his opinion, because I know I have no time for corruption regardless of the political party or who is in government. We have to do better here.

He mentioned increasing the penalties for conflict of interest, accountability and ethical failures in the House. We ran in the last election, in 2021, on increasing the penalties from the $200-ish fines that exist right now and taking them up to $40,000.

Could he expand on that a little and say why other parties are not advocating for something similar? In his opinion, why are they not demanding that every single one of us who is elected to this chamber be held to account if they are not following conflict of interest and ethics laws?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if we study economics, we study incentives. There are good incentives and bad incentives. Unfortunately, at the time the ethics rules were put in place, it was thought that they would not have to be used very often. Members of Parliament would not want to be named and shamed or to be on the wrong side of ethics rules. Therefore, we have smaller fines.

However, after nine years of the Liberal government, it is clear that having these fines or being named is not really being taken seriously. As such, it is clear to me that we need to look into increasing the penalties so that we can provide that incentive and people know that there are real consequences to violating our ethics rules.

This government needs to know that there are real consequences to defying the will of Parliament and that those consequences will be felt when we get to an election.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member across says that we are not serious and that we are afraid to ask questions, but he is not afraid. I am curious about this: Is he afraid to ask his leader to go out and get his security clearance?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, nobody in this party is afraid to test the Canadian people in the next election. Nobody in this party is afraid to stand up for what we have been talking about or to fight for what the Canadian people have been desperately wanting, to fight against the corruption of the Liberal government. We are not afraid to keep asking questions and to get down to the truth. We are not afraid to stand up for what Canadians really want, which is accountable government.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague quoted several whistle-blowers in his speech. We know that whistle-blowers have to be protected.

Does my colleague think it is unusual that a bill designed to protect whistle-blowers originated with the opposition, not the government? In this case, the bill in question was introduced by my colleague from Mirabel.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, whistle-blowers are an essential part of democracy. Any time we have whistle-blowers who know something is going wrong in their department, there are always appropriate channels. Maybe going to the media is not the first thing they do, but in these cases, I am sure that these people have exhausted all the possible avenues that they have to try to get things right within their organization.

When they have been stonewalled, whether it be from the processes or from corrupt people who are preventing them from doing that, they need to have the knowledge that they are free to speak without penalty and without consequences that would be detrimental for them or their families. Without that, we cannot have accountability, and that is here in the House, that is in our public service and that is in our private sector.

We need accountability across the country. What separates great societies from failing societies is when people know that they can be held accountable when they are doing wrong.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk about security clearances today, and it is clear to me that the real issue is this: The Prime Minister has been getting briefings for the last two years, so he knows about the foreign interference and who the 11 compromised parliamentarians are.

Could my colleague comment on why he has not taken any action or disclosed those names?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a really good question.

The Liberals talk in the House about how the Leader of the Opposition needs to get a security clearance, yet we have a Prime Minister who has access to this classified information and has done absolutely nothing. In fact, in one case, a member of his caucus left caucus of his own volition, and the Liberals were looking forward to him returning to caucus, with the full knowledge that he was involved in foreign interference. It is shameful.

When they had classified information, they did not act. What do they expect from the rest of Canadians?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had a few interventions this fall, but this is my first opportunity to rise and take part in a debate, so if you will indulge me, I want to extend my appreciation to the great people of Kenora and across northwestern Ontario for giving me their trust to represent them in this place. I just recently surpassed my five-year anniversary as a member of Parliament as well.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues. It is always very humbling and an honour to rise in this place to speak on behalf of the people of northwestern Ontario.

Today, of course, we are speaking about a very important matter. I wish I could say that this motion is unprecedented, but it is not the first time the government has disobeyed, disregarded or otherwise simply not cared about an order the House has made.

When I was first elected over five years ago, I made a promise to the people of northwestern Ontario, the people who put their trust in me to represent them here and fight for their best interests. That promise was to ensure that government is acting in their best interests and spending their tax dollars responsibly. That is something we have not seen the government do.

Currently, the regular business of this House, as many know at this point, has been on hold because the government refuses to hand over documents the House has ordered of it. This is preventing us from doing anything. We are at an absolute standstill, and it is preventing us from addressing other issues that the NDP-Liberal government has caused, such as the doubling of housing costs; the creation of the housing crisis, with many young people giving up completely on their dream of home ownership; the affordability crisis; the infrastructure gap in first nations; and the crime the government has unleashed by breaking the bail system and implementing catch-and-release policies for violent criminals.

All of these issues are on the back burner now because the government is instead choosing to gridlock Parliament. It is the only one that has the power to end it. If the government were to comply with the House order and hand over all documents related to the green slush fund, we could get back to the regularly scheduled programming of the House. Instead, it is going to great lengths to protect itself and withhold them. I would imagine it is very damaging information given the extent it is willingness to go to do this.

I want to touch a bit on parliamentary privilege. Of course, it is a crucial function for ensuring that the legislative branch of government can meet one of its main objectives, that is, holding the government accountable. With this privilege comes extraordinary powers to ensure that the government cannot interfere with parliamentarians meeting that objective. In particular, this privilege includes the power to order the production of documents that the House deems necessary to carry out its duties. This is important. There is not a similar privilege afforded to the government to refuse an order for the production of said documents. I will get back to that more later, but I first want to talk about why we are here discussing the motion before us.

Last year, as folks at home know and members of the House know, we learned of allegations that Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, the organization the government entrusted to administer its billion-dollar green slush fund, was grossly mismanaging this fund. When a former employee blew the whistle, the government commissioned Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton to inquire about the allegations. Its report later confirmed a number of those allegations to be true.

If we fast-forward from that point to December 11, 2023, one of those employees testified at the industry committee. This former employee outlined that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were misspent by SDTC. Alongside that, there were conflicts of interest, and senior-level managers were playing favourites. On top of all of that, when concerns were raised, complaints were never taken seriously and were always swept under the rug. This is the testimony that was heard at committee.

The whistle-blower made it clear that the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and his office had known about the corruption within Sustainable Development Technology Canada and had helped to cover it up. The whistle-blower said, “The minister said, on the record and multiple times, that he was briefed on the outcome only on August 27, but that's definitively not true.” He also went on to say:

The minister and PCO [which is the Privy Council Office] have been aware of this file longer than they are telling the public. There is documented evidence that they even engaged with everyone at ISED to make sure there were edits to the briefings before they were officially sent to them.

All of this is backed up by documents, transcripts and recordings, some of which we've already submitted to this committee.

That is disgraceful. These are shocking allegations about the improper use of taxpayer dollars. That it would not be taken seriously and that the minister would cover it up is even worse. At that point, the committee also learned that Liberal-appointed members had violated conflict of interest rules. Alongside the committee's investigation, the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner were doing their own investigations. Unfortunately, under the government, it has become even more unsurprising what it has allowed to happen under its watch.

As we look to the industry committee's meeting from January 31 of this year, during that meeting, Leah Lawrence, the former president and CEO of SDTC, told the committee that she had warned the government about the board chair's conflict of interest. That is very clear. The government was warned about this conflict of interest. She had also told the committee about the chair's conflicts of interest. However, the chair disregarded that and sent money to her own company.

Ms. Lawrence's testimony also said that she shared those concerns with former Liberal minister Navdeep Bains' office, but the Liberals allowed the chair to stay in charge. Despite Liberal claims that they only learned about the abuse of the fund this year, Ms. Lawrence's testimony made very clear to all parliamentarians, and indeed, all Canadians, that they have known about it since 2019, which was five years ago.

I will also note that, at that time, the NDP-Liberal government and the Bloc Québécois were refusing to get documents from SDTC that would expose the level of corruption at this organization. Disclosure documents had also gone missing, or were filled out after the fact when the probe asked for them. A report into SDTC said the conflict of interest policy was “inconsistently applied”.

If we are going through the timeline, as we have been doing, and we fast-forward a bit more to June 4 of this year, the Auditor General released a damning report about Sustainable Development Technology Canada. She, the Auditor General, found the government had turned SDTC into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. She also found that SDTC had awarded funding to projects that were ineligible and where conflicts of interest existed. In total, 123 million dollars' worth of contracts were found to have been given inappropriately, with $59 million being given to projects that never should have been awarded any money at all.

On top of this, the Auditor General discovered that conflicts of interest were connected to approval decisions. As a consequence of this, nearly $76 million in funding was awarded to projects where there was a connection to the Liberals' friends who had been appointed to roles within SDTC, while $12 million in funding was given to projects that were both ineligible and had a conflict of interest. In fact, the Auditor General discovered that long-established conflict of interest policies were not followed in 90 instances. In one case, the Prime Minister's hand-picked chair siphoned off over $200,000 to her own company.

The Auditor General made it very clear that the blame for this scandal lies directly at the feet of the Prime Minister's industry minister, who did not sufficiently monitor the contracts that were being awarded to Liberal insiders. He utterly failed in his duty to protect the Canadian taxpayer.

Following the revelation from the Auditor General's report, common-sense Conservatives put forward a motion that required the government, SDTC and the Auditor General to hand over all relevant documents that are in their possession related to this scandal. They had to do so within 30 days of the motion being adopted. The motion passed on June 10; go figure, only Liberal MPs opposed it.

That brings us to today and why we are discussing this issue. Since the adoption of the order, the Liberals have refused to comply. That is really what it comes down to. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, they could end all of this. The Liberals could get the House back working on their legislative priorities, if we can call them that. However, they are choosing to hold up their priorities because their only priority right now is to ensure that Canadians do not get answers and that there is no accountability for this scandal.

The Conservative House leader raised a question of privilege. In the days leading up to the Speaker's ruling, the government tried to justify its defiance. It argued that Parliament may have exceeded its authority when it adopted the order. In the ruling, the Speaker noted:

The procedural precedents and authorities are abundantly clear. The House has the undoubted right to order the production of any and all documents from any entity or individual it deems necessary to carry out its duties. Moreover, these powers are a settled matter, at least as far as the House is concerned. They have been confirmed and reconfirmed by my immediate predecessors, as well as those more distantly removed.

He also quoted page 985 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, which I will quote for the benefit of members of the House. It states:

No statute or practice diminishes the fullness of that power rooted in House privileges unless there is an explicit legal provision to that effect, or unless the House adopts a specific resolution limiting the power. The House has never set a limit on its power to order the production of papers....

That brings me back to the privileges we, as members of the House, enjoy, whether individually or collectively as a chamber. In this case, it is clear that the government is violating one of our collective privileges as members of Parliament. Unfortunately, this is not the first time the government has refused to comply with an order of the House. Many previous speakers have also highlighted this.

Many of us will remember the Winnipeg lab scandal. How could we forget? At the time, the House again ordered, among other things, that the government hand over all relevant documents. Just as it is doing now, the government refused to comply with the order and instead tried to suggest that it complied with the order by sending the documents to the Prime Minister-controlled National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. The Speaker at the time ruled that this was not acceptable since said committee was not a parliamentary committee.

What the government did next, however, was really shocking. It took the Speaker to court to argue that the government had the legal authority to withhold documents requested by the House. The government taking the Speaker to court is absolutely unheard of. There was never a court ruling, because the government called an early and unnecessary pandemic election shortly after, which effectively cancelled the order to produce those documents. However, this shows just how far the government will go to disregard the will of Parliament and, by extension, the will of all Canadians, who brought us to this place and who elected us as members of Parliament to represent them.

It is beyond unacceptable that the government has continued to defy the House order to hand over the documents. The government has caused this place to be in gridlock or, as we have heard, paralyzed for almost three weeks now, and it begs the question of whether the documents are damaging to the government.

[An hon. member]

They must be.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard one of my colleagues say they must be. The Liberals do not want to talk about moving any of their agenda items forward. They do not want to talk about the issues facing Canadians day to day. They would rather Parliament be completely focused on this issue than comply with the order and be accountable to Canadians.

Unfortunately, this issue of corruption and scandal within the Liberal government is not new. I mentioned the Winnipeg Lab scandal, but the list goes on. This has become a trend with the government, to the point that many Canadians have almost become numb to these scandals. If we ask Canadians on the street how they feel about the Liberal government scandal, they ask which one, because there are so many to choose from.

I would like to share some of them, and unfortunately, this is a very small subset of the scandals the government has found itself in. It certainly is not an exhaustive list.

We all remember the Aga Khan vacation, when the Prime Minister accepted a family vacation to a private island of the Aga Khan, a wealthy leader who happened to have lobbied the government on several occasions. The Prime Minister was found guilty of ethics violations there.

There was also the cash for access fundraisers, where the Prime Minister held private fundraisers for wealthy donors who could pay for access to him as the Prime Minister and to his senior ministers. These events led to allegations that the donors were effectively buying access to decision-makers.

There is more. The Prime Minister also found himself in hot water when he charged taxpayers $6,000 per night for his hotel room while in England attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth.

One of the more well-known scandals, the WE Charity scandal, draws a lot of similarities to the SDTC green slush fund scandal, in particular with money being given where a conflict of interest exists. In the WE Charity case, the Ethics Commissioner found that then finance minister Bill Morneau broke the law by violating the Conflict of Interest Act.

Finally, we have the SNC-Lavalin scandal, where the Prime Minister and other senior officials tried to pressure then attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin. When she refused, she was kicked out of cabinet and out of caucus. The Prime Minister was found guilty once again by the Ethics Commissioner.

This has become a pattern with the Liberal government, and it has caused a lot of Canadians to become incredibly frustrated or perhaps even jaded with politicians in general, because all they see is scandal after scandal coming from the government.

I want to end my speech with a message to Canadians. This is not how their government should be ran. Their government should not be caught up in scandal after scandal, improperly spending taxpayer dollars and trying to cover it up or trying to give money to well-connected Liberal insiders. That is why the Conservatives are going to keep fighting for Canadians by getting to the bottom of this scandal. Canadians deserve to know what is in the documents the government is hiding, and anyone who broke the law should be prosecuted.

It is clear the government is not worth the cost or the corruption and that only common-sense Conservatives will take action to clean up this mess. Above all, it is time for a carbon tax election so that Canadians can elect a common-sense Conservative government that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime and stop the corruption.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to Canadians following that to indicate that, from the government's perspective, the Conservative Party is the one that is actually playing games, at a great expense. The Conservatives have chosen not to allow a vote on the motion that everyone else wants to vote on. Rather, they want to filibuster their own motion because they do not want it to go to committee, even though that was the ruling of the Chair.

Having said that, the member talked about nothing new. I could talk about Harper's corruption and how the current Conservative leader was directly involved with abuses of powers and so forth, including contempt of Parliament.

My question to the member is related to a very important issue of foreign interference. All of the leaders in the House of Commons today have the necessary security clearance, except for the leader of the Conservative Party, who refuses. Is it because there are serious allegations of foreign interference in the leadership race that he won? This is a very serious issue. Is it because there are other names among the Conservative parliamentarians that are there that he does not want to know about? Instead, he chirps from his seat, “Give us the names”, knowing full well that we cannot provide those names.

What is the Conservative Party leader hiding from Canadians that he is so scared of getting the security clearance? Why not?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always amusing to listen to the member for Winnipeg North. He spoke about many things, and, of course, the security clearance was the crux of his question. Our leader has been clear that he will gladly be getting the same kind of briefing that The Washington Post received, which is the same kind of briefing that the Prime Minister is willing to give when it suits his political benefit.

When it comes to the issue, the government has to stop playing games. The member for Winnipeg North knows full well that the Prime Minister has the authority, the knowledge and the power, if he chooses, to release the names. The Prime Minister has to release the names so that Canadians and all parliamentarians know them and that the appropriate action can be taken.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let us be honest. Technically speaking, we are doing the work that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs should be doing, that is, receiving questions of privilege. I have been here quite a number of years now. I think that all of my colleagues who want what is best for their voters are unanimous in feeling it is time to move on.

I have a hard time understanding how the opposition can be so dead set on obtaining information it can use to take down the current government that it is filibustering its own motion. We could already have referred the whole matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs by now.

Is there something fishy going on? I do not get it.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to disagree with my colleague's presentation of her question. As I mentioned off the top, this is my first opportunity to rise in this place since I have been back, so there certainly is no filibuster. I am honoured and pleased to be speaking to an important issue.

What it really comes down to is that it is up to the government. If the Liberals hand over the documents, we are back to regularly scheduled programming in this place, where we can hold the government to account and they can move forward with their own legislative agenda. They are choosing to keep Parliament paralyzed because they do not want to be accountable to Canadians. I think that raises questions of how damaging this evidence truly is.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in this corner of the House, the NDP is supporting the motion. We want to get to the bottom of the SDTC scandal, as when NDP MPs played a key role in making sure we got to the bottom of the WE Charity scandal and the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

It is a bit rich for Conservatives to be pointing the finger at the Liberals when their own past is so tarnished by corruption and scandals. During the Harper majority regime, we had much bigger scandals that were covered up by Conservatives. I just have to mention them, because I think it is important to come back to them. The ETS scandal was $400 million; we never got to the bottom of it. The G8 scandal was $1 billion; we were never able to get answers because the Harper regime shut down any inquiries. The Phoenix pay scandal was $2.2 billion. The anti-terrorism funding, in the complete absence of a paper trail, was over $3 billion.

I could mention many other scandals, but I am limited by time. The point is this: scandals are not only at the federal level but at the provincial level, with the Doug Ford Conservative government in Ontario. Now we about hear about Gary Grewal, a Saskatchewan conservative MLA, who basically stole from taxpayers three-quarters of a million dollars.

Will Conservatives apologize for all of the scandals they have been involved in, and will they commit to acting differently than they have acted in the past?