Debates of Oct. 25th, 2024

The House resumed from October 24 consideration of the motion, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise in the House this morning to continue to talk about the ethical failures of the Liberal government. I will start where I left off.

The trade minister also violated ethics rules by awarding untendered contracts directly from her office to her close friend and campaign manager. She too was found in violation of ethics rules, yet we hear very little from the Liberals about these repeated breaches.

Many Canadians are rightly concerned about the recurring pattern of law-breaking within the Liberal government. It is well known that there have been multiple violations of ethics and other laws. The Prime Minister's own parliamentary secretary at the time was found guilty of breaking ethics laws, along with several current and former Liberal MPs, who used their offices to benefit themselves, their family members and their friends.

We are currently witnessing yet another scandal, this time involving the employment minister, a Liberal cabinet member from Edmonton, and his pandemic profiteering business partner. This scandal is so serious that it has prompted a ruling from the Speaker on the right of democratically elected members to receive full, honest answers and information from individuals summoned by the House. In this particular case, the business partner of the Liberal minister from Edmonton Centre refused to provide crucial information about an individual referred to as “the other Randy”.

Why is this significant? It is because it strikes at the core of a scandal involving a sitting cabinet minister who, while serving in government, held a 50% stake in a company that was awarded government contracts by his own government. This is not just unethical; it is deeply concerning.

What exacerbates the situation is that the minister claimed he had no contact with his business partner throughout 2022, a key year in the timeline. He even testified to this in the House. His business partner echoed the same claim. However, what did we discover when the documents were produced? They had been texting and communicating throughout that entire year.

This is the clear problem: The minister's testimony was not truthful and his business partner's testimony was not truthful. They misled the House, the public and the media. Now we know that instead of working for Canadians, this sitting Liberal cabinet minister was actively managing the day-to-day operations of a company profiting from pandemic contracts awarded by his own government. This is the kind of corruption that has brought the House to a standstill. It is about conflicts of interest and a blatant refusal to follow the law. Canadians are expected to follow the law. Why not the Liberals?

Canadians have had enough, and they are demanding that the RCMP fully investigate these scandals. A letter from the RCMP dated October 9 states, “the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation into SDTC is ongoing.” We know that SDTC operated under various governments, including that of Stephen Harper. However, according to Canada's Auditor General, it faced no issues until 2017. It was after 2017, when the Liberal Prime Minister appointed his own choice as chair of SDTC, that the problems began.

What happened next? The most ethically challenged Prime Minister, who has allowed corruption to fester within the government, appointed his hand-picked chair to oversee SDTC. It is no surprise that we have now seen 186 conflicts of interest and $400 million in mismanaged funds. The Auditor General's report only examined a portion of the deals made under the billion-dollar slush fund, and she found conflicts of interest in 80% of the cases that were reviewed.

The Liberals continue to claim that they are hiding the truth to protect charter rights, but as the leader of the Conservative Party rightly pointed out, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is designed to protect citizens from the government, not to provide cover for the government to withhold documents from the people. We must uphold the supremacy of Parliament. Parliament, with its elected representatives of Canadians, writes the rules, creates laws and directs our justice system, not the other way around, yet the Liberals are constantly attempting to distort this fundamental truth.

All of this has come to light thanks to a courageous whistle-blower who said:

The true failure of the situation stands at the feet of our current government, whose decision to protect wrongdoers and cover up their findings over the last 12 months is a serious indictment of how our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference.

This is absolutely correct. The Liberals have not attempted to comply with the Auditor General's report. They have ignored the recommendations of the industry committee and continue to refuse to comply with the House's order to produce the documents essential to uncovering the truth about how their friends and Liberal insiders are getting rich while ordinary Canadians continue to struggle.

The RCMP will continue its investigation, but it is crucial that it receives all the necessary materials to complete its work. What can we expect from the Liberal government? It will claim it wants this matter referred to a committee, but instead of tabling the documents, it wants the committee to study whether the documents should even be tabled in the first place.

The House has already ordered the production of these documents. That decision was made by a majority of MPs, yet the Liberals, with their shrinking support, refuse to comply. They are hiding behind redactions and claims of cabinet confidence, but Canadians see through this charade. The Liberals are playing a dangerous game with our democracy, and if they are willing to violate this law, what other laws might they be willing to break?

In a piece in the National Post, Christopher Nardi wrote:

The fact that government organizations are still withholding information that was ordered by the House of Commons in June is significant because it appears to fly in the face of a ruling by [the Speaker] last month that they likely had no right to do so.

The Prime Ministernot only has failed to lead by example when it comes to ethical behaviour, but has also shown himself unable to ensure that a high ethical bar is met within the government he runs.

The complete disregard he has shown for the will of the House is not surprising. Time and time again, he has doubled down in the midst of scandals instead of fessing up and delivering good, honest government to Canadians. It has certainly been interesting to hear that some of the Prime Minister's own Liberal MPs are finally getting fed up with a Prime Minister who dismissed their concerns and whose leadership has been continuously scandal-plagued. Their concerns echo the sentiments of many Canadians who, after nine years of the Prime Minister, are tired of higher costs, increased crime and government corruption.

We have already witnessed the government repeatedly breach the Conflict of Interest Act. The Prime Minister, ministers, Liberal MPs and insiders have violated the very rules designed to protect Canadians from this type of corruption. Enough is enough. Canadians deserve transparency, they deserve accountability and they deserve a government that upholds the law. It is time for the Liberals to stop playing games with our democracy, hand over the documents and allow the RCMP to complete its investigation. Only common-sense Conservatives will end the corruption and get answers for Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about corruption. The most corrupt prime minister that Canada has ever seen is likely Stephen Harper. In fact, he is the only prime minister in the history of Canada who has been found in contempt of Parliament. The leader of the Conservative Party today was his parliamentary secretary. No one was a stronger advocate for Stephen Harper than the leader of the Conservative Party, who sat around the cabinet table.

Having said that, nothing has changed. Today, the leader of the Conservative Party, unlike the NDP leader, the Green Party leader and the Bloc leader, says he does not need to get a security clearance. Why should the leader of the Conservative Party not get the security clearance that would enable him to find out what is happening with foreign interference? What is the leader of the Conservative Party hiding?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is an easy answer to his question, and that is to show the documents. I do not know what the member for Winnipeg North is afraid of. The Liberals can just put the documents on the table and give them to the RCMP. It is out of our hands anyway. The RCMP is already reviewing this situation, but all the government wants to do is limit the amount of information the RCMP has to work with.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question concerns the question of privilege and the bill that my colleague introduced and got through the House. As I recall, the bill concerned the transfer of family businesses.

At the time, the House passed the bill, but the government refused to implement it. It is a bit like what we are seeing here. The House ordered the government to produce documents and the government refused to comply.

I would humbly point out that we, the members of the Standing Committee on Finance, convened a meeting with specialists back in the summer to remind the government how unacceptable this is.

Does the hon. member see a link between the way the government handled his bill and the question currently under debate?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do see a link. The situation my colleague from Joliette pointed out is that, at the time, the government was completely against my bill. Once it was implemented on the night it passed in the Senate, it became immediate law. However, it has been used across Canada for the last three years and nothing has happened to the tax system in Canada, other than putting people who were jeopardized on the same level as those selling their small businesses to their family, as opposed to a complete stranger, and getting a benefit for selling it to a complete stranger.

The member pointed out that the government was against it, and all of a sudden it was for it when we called an emergency meeting. He pointed out that the government had not been in favour of it for, I think, over 550 days, and I remember his speech well in the committee we had that day. There is a link and it is ongoing.

In my speech, I pointed out the plethora of scandals the government has had. It took most of the time of my presentation, for sure, and that should take care of the concerns of the member for Winnipeg North, who I think is a little jittery about his own seat.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am seeing a pattern of behaviour: Whenever there is a scandal, if it goes to committee, the Liberals filibuster and withhold documents. I wonder if my colleague could comment on whether he thinks the same thing is likely to happen if this ends up at PROC.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. It certainly is a concern. That is why I mentioned in my presentation that all of the information should be turned over to the RCMP. We know that if the Liberals get it into committee, they will try to squelch, or maybe squander, the information that would be there for the public to see. Some of the information has already been heavily redacted. They could quite easily put it in the committee and then adjourn it, which would end the whole charade. They would want that.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member said to just hand over the documents to the RCMP. I do not know if he is aware, but the RCMP has written to the law clerk of the House of Commons to say that it is very unlikely the RCMP would use the documents if they came through this process. We all know the RCMP can get access to any documents and has a legal process for doing so. Also, the Auditor General has written that this is highly irregular and has said that the RCMP has a legal process to get what it wants.

Why is the member asking to do what the RCMP suggests not to do?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Obviously, Mr. Speaker, RCMP members are already looking at this situation, and all we want is for them to have the full information to work with. They have already asked for it. There has been a House ruling that it should go there. I do not understand why the Liberals keep filibustering, making up things that are irrelevant and providing cover for their cover-up.

We are also in a situation right now where the Prime Minister has been asked to provide the names of the people who are involved in this whole area. The Leader of the Opposition is quite willing to take a briefing. He would take the same kind of briefing the Washington Post got on classified information, given by the national security and intelligence adviser and the deputy minister of foreign affairs. He would take the same briefing given to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills under section 12.1 of the CSIS Act, “Measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada”. He would take the same classified briefing the Prime Minister has been all too willing to give to the House when it suits him, such as when he revealed classified information on the floor of the House of Commons a year ago.

Instead of wasting time and playing politics for foreign interference, the Prime Minister should just release the names.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for Brandon—Souris for his excellent speech.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight the fact that the member is one of the most experienced members of Parliament in the House. As a parliamentarian, he was first elected in 2013, but before that he served on the provincial legislature. He was first elected there in 1999, so this year we commemorate his 25th anniversary of being in service to the people of Canada. I thank him so much for his experience and his service to Canadians.

Based on his great parliamentarian experience, could the member tell us if he has ever seen a more corrupt government than the one we have today?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague also has a great plethora of history in politics and recording the events that have taken place in this nation, so I thank him very much. Coming from him, those compliments mean a lot to me. It has been an honour to serve this country.

I have never seen anything like this in my life. I referred to that earlier in debates when I was asking questions. One of our colleagues last night talked about the $16 glass of orange juice from many years ago, when that individual was basically forced out of Parliament. Then we went through the ad scam situation for 40 million dollars' worth of scandal, and this is $400 million. To put everything into perspective, at a time when Canadians are struggling with gas and groceries and heating their homes, we have a $400-million scandal going on. This is something the government tried to cover up in the SDTC operations.

I have never seen anything this bad in Canadian history.

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

Mr. Speaker, my constituents have a proud motto, “Je me souviens”, or “I remember”. I would like to remind members of some historical facts about the Conservative Party, and especially what our colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent just mentioned, which also highlights the 25 years of service of our colleague from Brandon—Souris.

Members will recall that there certainly was corruption when the Conservative Party was in power. Former Conservative minister Tony Clement misappropriated funds, and not just $10 million, $20 million, $30 million or $40 million. He misappropriated $50 million, funnelling it directly to his riding. Members will also recall the corruption scandal involving robocalls. A member of the Conservative Party served nine months in prison for giving false information.

Therefore, I would like my colleague to explain why Quebeckers should trust a Conservative government, which has betrayed people's trust in the past.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think Quebec has done very well being a member of Confederation. Under former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, the Conservatives did an excellent job of bringing Canadians together instead of separating us. It was a great time in Canadian history, when free trade benefited Quebec as much as it did anywhere else in Canada. I spent a couple of hours last evening with an old friend of mine, Lance Yohe, who was the executive director of the Red River Basin Commission for years and is now a member of the International Joint Commission. These are the kinds of relationships that we need to build. We do not need separation.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to see a packed House here this morning to listen to me speak. I am really excited about that. I am always honoured to speak in front of my colleagues, so it is great to be here this morning. Unfortunately, it is such a sad occasion, with what we are talking about. I would love to be talking about housing. I would love to be talking about crime, for sure.

In fact, in my riding of Prince Albert yesterday, there was an emergency notice. Somebody was shot while someone was stealing his truck. My thoughts go out to his family. These are serious events and serious things that we should be talking about, and we could be talking about them, if the Liberals would only provide the evidence as the Speaker has instructed them to do.

I got elected in 2008. I remember back in 2008, my colleague LaVar Payne, the member for Medicine Hat, had a heckle. His heckle was really simple: “Where is the $40 million?” During question period, the Liberals would try to say something distinguishable and he would just say, “Where is the $40 million?” Then the Liberals would shrink down in their seats and shrug away. They could not answer his question.

He did that for a year and a half or two years. We never did find out where that $40 million went to and how the Liberals took that money and used it for their own personal benefit. That was never really ever accounted for. That money just disappeared, and the Liberals shrugged their shoulders, and on we went. In the meantime, I think they went down to 12 seats, just marginal numbers.

Canadians were mad at the Liberal Party of Canada for what they had done. They kicked them out. They put in an honourable prime minister, former prime minister Stephen Harper. We saw our economy turn around. We saw strong management through a fiscal crisis in the global recession. We saw growth in our communities, even during the global recession. We saw lift stations. We saw water treatment plants. We saw bridges. We saw the Canada West Foundation, through which we built infrastructure in western Canada in the ports. We were actually growing as a country.

By 2015, we were experiencing that boom of growth because of that solid stewardship of the economy and the responsible use of taxpayers' dollars. I could do an announcement in my riding, and I would know that I would be able to touch what was going to be built. If we said we were going to spend $20 million on a water treatment plant, like we did in Prince Albert, I could take members there to show them that water treatment plant and its benefits. When we did bridges, we could drive a car across the bridge once it was completed.

Those are the things Canadians want us to do. They want responsible use of their funds. If they are going to trust us with their money, then we have a duty to ensure that we handle it with respect and dignity, and that we take their trust seriously.

LaVar was asking about $40 million. Roughly 18 years later, it is $400 million. Why have the Liberals not learned their lesson? We would think they would have learned that that is a lot of money. They should not be taking that from taxpayers and abusing taxpayers' trust. That is what they have done with this $400-million fund. It is disgusting because, like I said, we could be talking about or debating things like housing. How many kids are living in their parents' basement right now? Did we talk about that this week? No.

We could be talking about crime. We could be talking about what we need to do to get serious about repeat offenders. We could be talking about how to deal with auto thefts. We could be talking about how to put violent offenders behind bars to make sure they do not get out and repeat offend. We could be talking about what we can do to stop crime. We could be talking about addictions and mental health.

These are all things Canadians want us here to talk about at this time because these are things they are concerned about, but we are talking about the fact that the Liberals are snubbing Parliament. They are ignoring a direct order from the Speaker. The Speaker should be really upset, and I know he is upset because they are challenging his authority over this body by not providing those documents.

What do they do? They shrug. Their arrogance shows up. They just say, “We do not care about Parliament.” That is obvious because they did not care about the $400 million either. They just went and spent it as they wanted to spend it for their purposes, not for taxpayers' purposes. This resonates right through the whole government and how it conducts its business. It has never been about the people.

It has never been about how it can help the people in British Columbia or help the people in Quebec. It has never been about how it can help the people in Atlantic Canada, how it can get them more prosperity and raise their standard of living. Let us look at what has happened under the current government. Look at our GDP. Look at our standing in the G7. They are embarrassing.

We have known for years now that the port of Vancouver is one of the worst ports in the world. What has the government done? Has it invested in the port? Has it made changes? Has it looked at it and actually done a study to say these types of actions would make this port the best in the world? No.

They say that it is good enough and that we are okay being at the bottom of the list. That is fine. Canadians do not think that is fine. Canadians are upset about that.

Let us circle back to the $400 million that was squandered. I would like to say stolen, but I do not think that is parliamentary, so I will call it squandered. Just think of what we could do with that $400 million. How many police officers and how many RCMP officers could we put across Canada with $400 million? If we think about that, it would be quite a few.

We can think about how we could improve trade with $400 million or how we could make our infrastructure and supply chains more efficient with the proper investment of $400 million. In fact, if we did that with the private sector, that $400 million of investment could probably become $1.2 billion of actual investment on the ground to help Canadians, improve Canadians' lives for the future and beyond, and address issues for their kids and their grandkids.

What did the Liberals do? They squandered it. They ignored any type of governance. They put themselves in direct conflict of interest. The Auditor General said that 186 direct conflicts of interest showed up in her study. We can think about it: 186 conflicts of interest.

These are professional people managing a big fund and they did not understand governance. I am sorry, but I do not buy that. How did they not understand conflict of interest? If they were not sure, there is a person called the Ethics Commissioner. They could phone them to receive all sorts of advice on conflict of interest. There are all sorts of people and that is what they do. They help boards to avoid situations such as this if there is a desire within that group to maintain purity in how they dispense that cash.

If they had done what they were supposed to do with it, we would probably be better off. Maybe that fund would have been a really good working fund. Maybe it would have had objectives that would have been met. However, they decided to ignore that. They ignored it willingly. In fact, their due diligence was lacking. If we were in the private sector, and we had shareholders, and they had seen this type of activity, I do not think they would get board of directors insurance, first of all. Second, I think the shareholders would sue them for neglect of the asset that they owned shares in.

What did the government do? It probably gave them a bonus because they like doing that with other executives, such as those at the CBC. We give them bonuses when they do not meet their objectives, but that is fine. We will just give them money. That is good. It is all good. There is no problem, right? There is no problem. It is not my dollar. However, that is the problem. It is not my dollar. They need to understand that it is not their dollar. It is the taxpayers' dollar. It is given to us in trust to make good decisions with.

Again, to come back to that $400 million, what could I do with that? That is a huge amount of money. That is crazy. It is actually so big that Canadians cannot get their heads around it. It is also a little bit surprising because they cannot believe that anybody would be that arrogant to try to get away with this. They cannot believe that the government would be willing to back and protect these people by not providing the evidence and not letting the RCMP do its job.

What is the arrogance in that scenario? What are the Liberals saying to Canadian taxpayers? They are saying to not worry, that it is fine, to look the other way. Do not worry about it. It is fine. It is good that our kid lives with us in the basement. It is better for our family. It is all good. Seriously, this is what the Liberals are thinking.

When these people were sitting around the table looking at projects, there were probably some really good projects that they could have funded, but because it did not belong to a Liberal or it did not belong to one of their own companies or a friend of theirs, it got ignored. It is shameful. It is darn right shameful. It is darn right maddening because, if we were doing our job right, if we had put a group together to manage a fund like this and it had done its job, it could have really done some amazing things because that is a lot of money, but it did not.

We are now here today. Instead of talking about housing, crime or what we could do to fix the budget, balance the budget and bring our house in order, what are we doing? We are talking about the NDP-Liberals' inability or unwillingness to listen to the Speaker and take his orders seriously to provide the documents to the RCMP. I cannot believe this. I cannot believe that they have let this go on. This is very simple to fix.

Do members know that Paul Martin, during the ad scam, at least brought together a group that addressed it? It was not pretty for him. It was probably very uncomfortable.

I will give him credit. At least he did the honourable thing and tried to address it. They changed financier and they brought in Ralph Goodale. He was trying to get to the bottom of it too. I give him credit for trying.

The Liberals are not even trying. They do not want to try. They want to play conquer and divide. They want to shine a light over here and say there is nothing to look at, so move on. That is so sad because Canadians have had enough of that type of activity here in Ottawa. That is why the Conservative Party is sitting at 42% in the polls. It is because Conservatives are talking to people. We are listening.

Canadians are saying they want the Conservatives to deal with the housing crisis. They want us to deal with crime. They want us to make sure their taxes are being spent properly. They want us to make sure they have proper health care and proper funding of health care. How many MRI scanners could we buy with $400 million? How many hospital beds could have been opened up with $400 million? What other benefits could we have provided Canadians with for $400 million? Again, if we use our imagination, it could help a substantial amount of people.

I go back to Mr. Payne. I am sure he is sitting somewhere shaking his head and saying, “A Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal.” I still remember coming here with a former MLA from Alberta before I was elected. We were with the wheat growers and the barley growers. He sat down with the parliamentary secretary of agriculture, who is the former member for Malpeque, Mr. Easter, who I think is a fairly honourable person. I enjoyed working with him, and I wish him well in his retirement.

I remember Mr. Strankman saying to Mr. Easter, as they were finishing up their meeting and shaking hands, “Wayne, it is getting really tough to see the difference between a Liberal and a criminal here in Ottawa.” I know Mr. Easter took it to heart. I know he was upset, rightly so, but I do not think he was mad at Mr. Strankman. I think Mr. Easter was mad at his own party. I think he was mad at the people who were pulling off this crap. I think he knew what was going on, or had suspicions of what was going on, and could not fix it himself. He wanted to see change, but he was handcuffed because he could not do it. He knew it was going to hurt him. He knew it was going to hurt him both electorally and reputation-wise. He was not mad at the comment. He was mad that people were actually telling him what he already knew.

There should be Liberal members over there saying the same thing. They should be mad. Maybe 24 Liberal members are mad. Maybe that is part of the reason they want a different leader. They are looking at this and saying not another one. When they go to caucus and want to ask questions, they are told they did not make the list this week. When they ask about the next week, they are told they are probably not going to make the list next week either. Can a member ask a question about bubble gum? Sure, they can put that on the list. They can come up to the mike and the Liberal caucus will talk about bubble gum.

That is what is going on and that is why we see discontent among the Liberal Party. Its members are being ignored. I believe there are some hon. members over there who would actually like to see this dealt with and would like to get to the bottom of this. However, the leadership team is so heavily involved with it and the friends of the leadership team may end up going to jail if it was investigated. I think we should give them the evidence to see what the court would decide. That would be the honourable way of doing it. If the court says, “No, these people are innocent,” I guess we will have to accept that. However, the court might come back and say, “Yes, this is corruption. This is illegal.” There are consequences to that. That is what should happen then. It is really sad that the voice is not being heard.

The Conservatives have been giving everybody the opportunity to do the right thing here. We have been talking to people here. We have been trying to be progressive and conciliatory, but we cannot forsake our values. We cannot let corruption go on. We cannot sit here and not call it out when we see it so blatantly. We cannot let the Prime Minister, who has had unethical breaches over and over again, get away with another one, nor can we let him throw somebody else under a bus, like he has done in the past with different cabinet ministers. The ministers tend to be female, by the way, which is very disconcerting.

I will go back to Saskatchewan, as I talked a bit about what happened yesterday. People are sitting there. They have been told to stay home. They were told to lock up and to not pick up strangers. Those are scary things and they are happening way too often. People are upset. We should be talking about that today. We should be talking about how to prevent that from happening in the future.

It is really interesting, and interesting may not be the right word, that this has been going on as long as it has. As far as I am concerned, it will continue to go on until the Liberals do the right thing. They know what the right thing is. They have to provide the documents. They have to respect your judgment. If they are not going to respect your judgment now, what happens tomorrow? If you make a judgment tomorrow and they do not respect you tomorrow or the day after, what does that mean? When does Parliament cease to function? When does Parliament actually not operate the way it is intended to operate? That is what is starting to be at stake here.

We are no longer a Parliament that actually debates back and forth. We go to committees and have debates back and forth, bring in experts and witnesses, listen to their advice, produce a proper report, table it in Parliament and get a response from the government. Parliament has not been doing that now for about three weeks. It is embarrassing. The Liberals need to do the right thing so that Parliament can get back on track to do what it needs to do. There are still things that need to be done. If they cannot do that and if they think this is okay, it is not.

They have one other option that would be honourable, and that is to go to the polls, to go to the Governor General, dissolve Parliament and have a carbon tax election. That is an option that they should strongly consider. If they think that they are so right, if they think their actions are so honourable and that Canadians do not care, then let us put it to Canadians. Let us ask them directly through a vote. That is really the ultimate in democracy. I think Canadians would be very concerned if Parliament was sliding back and not functioning. The honourable thing for the Prime Minister would be to go to the Governor General, dissolve Parliament, call an election and let the people decide. That is something that would be an end to all the stories.

The Liberals have some options. They can take the documents, go to the RCMP, give it the boxes, step back and let it do its work. If there are criminal charges, let them progress. If it goes to court, let the courts do what they do. If they are found innocent, they are found innocent. I do not think they will be, but I am not going to prejudge it. If they are found guilty, then there are consequences to be paid. That is one option.

The second option is to dissolve Parliament, go to the Governor General, put it in front of the people of Canada and let them decide. They can tell the Liberal Party and the members here what they think should happen. The people of Canada can speak, and they are the best spokesmen and the best judges that we have for our Parliament in a democracy. Let us go to them. Let us put it in front of them, even though they will not see all of the information, because the Liberals will still hide it, but at least they would look at the consequences and the things that are surrounding the decision that has been made here. They would look at the way Parliament is not functioning and they would make the changes they see fit, but they would make the changes so that Parliament operates again, so that it gets back to talking about housing, crime, affordability and the things they really are struggling with. We could talk about the cost of groceries and the cost of basic necessities. Those are the things that they want us to be talking about today.

Canadians are ashamed of this Parliament. They are ashamed of the government. There is no question about it. It is showing in the polls. They are ashamed of the antics the government has been playing here in Ottawa. They want change and they are going to get change. They are going to get a new prime minister. I strongly believe that. They are going to get an honourable person for a prime minister, somebody who will make changes, who will respect their tax dollars, who will actually look them in the eye and tell them what needs to be done and make the appropriate changes for their benefit. That is what we are going to see out of a new government.

I will go back to my friend LaVar Payne and tell him today that there is hope. Just like there was in 2006, when we changed government then, there is hope coming here now. There is going to be a change in government. We are going to see honour brought back to the system. We are going to see respect for taxpayer dollars. We are going to see a government focused on individuals and Canadians.

This has been an interesting morning. I wish we were talking about everything else but this. I am glad I had a chance to voice my opinion.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member stated that he knows the negative impact of other important business being stalled in this House.

Conservatives are harming kids. Their inability to get anything done means that the online harms bill cannot get to committee, so it could be improved to protect children. Last week, Amanda Todd's mother came to my office to ask me to ask the Conservatives to stop any delays and to put the lives of kids first.

Will the Conservatives stop deprioritizing kids and let this go to committee?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member has made my argument for me. We are not the government. We are not the ones holding back the documents. We are not the people sitting here saying that we do not want to proceed.

We are not the ones who are ignoring the Speaker's ruling. It is the government. That is the reality. To Amanda Todd and her mother, I feel their pain. I want to see that move forward. If we could do that today, it would be great.

The hurdle is not the Conservative Party, though. It is the government that is not willing to actually do the right thing, the honourable thing and turn the documents over, like the Speaker has instructed them to do. Then Parliament could get back to work and the question of privilege could end.

We have to fight for our Constitution. We have to fight for our democracy. We have to fight for this place. It is a shame that she has to be the one paying for it. However, it is not a Conservative issue stopping this. It is right across the aisle with the Liberal Party of Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to read something from the RCMP. This is from the commissioner. He says:

It is therefore highly unlikely that any information obtained by the RCMP under the Motion where privacy interests exist could be used to support a criminal prosecution or further a criminal investigation.

What we have is an issue of what and how. On what, I agree entirely with the member. Let us find out what happened. Let us exonerate or convict. However, how they are proposing to go about doing it could even compromise, beyond redemption, a proper RCMP investigation into this incident.

Why do the Conservatives not trust the RCMP to know how to do its job, rather than trying to impose something on it that could actually ruin the outcome that the member looking for?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, what the member is reading is speculation by the RCMP, because it does not actually have the documents to say yes or no, or confirm whether this would or would not help them.

The RCMP does not have it. It is not that it does not want it. The RCMP is speculating what may or may not be in there. If the government gave the documents to the RCMP and the RCMP went through them, it could make that decision. If the RCMP went through the documents and said, “This does not move forward. There is not enough here. It does not make sense,” this would all be done.

The RCMP is speculating. The reality is, give them the documents. What harm is there? The RCMP could decide to move forward. If it moves forward with criminal charges, great. However, keeping the documents hidden does not only harm this institution of Parliament, because the government is ignoring the rule of Parliament and the order of the Speaker, but it also undermines the fact that this fund may have actually done some good work. Who knows?

Right now, the fund is under a cloud. The way it looks to me, with what the Auditor General has said, this fund has serious problems, and the people around it have some serious ethical issues.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what us happening right now is really disturbing and makes me uneasy. As a parliamentarian, I have been feeling rather low for the past three weeks because Parliament has been paralyzed.

There are all kinds of problems outside this Parliament that, interestingly enough, my colleagues address in their speeches. They talk about crime, the housing crisis, the underfunding of health care and homelessness. There are all kinds of problems. My colleagues say that we should be talking about those issues. They tell us that Canadians want to talk about them, that Canadians are worried. Of course they are worried. However, for the past three weeks, the Conservatives have been preventing us from talking about these issues and doing our job.

As a parliamentarian, I feel I am being held hostage by the official opposition party, even though we are on the same page. The other opposition parties are ready to vote. Personally, I feel that my fundamental right to question the government and make Parliament work is being denied. I am not at all comfortable with that.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member has a right to be mad, but he is facing the wrong party with his anger. The party is across the aisle. What I find even more insulting is when members of one party in the House, the Bloc Québécois, say they are for sale if they get what they want. They will ignore the rule of the Speaker, the rule of law and all that because they are for sale; they will take whatever they can get and move forward. Is that not more embarrassing? In fact, how do they justify that to their electorate?

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I ask the hon. member for Calgary Signal Hill to please not take the floor unless recognized by the Speaker.

The hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for a very passionate and reasonable take on the question of privilege that we have been debating for the last little while. I was shocked when I had the opportunity to speak to the motion last week. I wanted to understand what my constituents thought; ultimately, we are all here to represent Canadians right across this great nation.

I sent an email asking two simple questions: first, whether government should comply with your will, Mr. Speaker, and the will of the House to turn the documents over and, second, whether anybody who is found complicit in receiving these funds in an improper manner should have to pay them back. Within four hours, I had over 200 email replies. Within a day and a half, I had 400-and-some emails. Ninety-plus per cent of my constituents absolutely agree that the government should comply with the will of Parliament and that, if anybody is found guilty, they should return that money to Canadian taxpayers.

What is the member's opinion on this, and what has he heard from his own constituents in his great riding?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to acknowledge the great work the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound did in Afghanistan. He did an honourable thing there, and I think Canadians are better off because of what he accomplished. Even with all the challenges, that is something we should celebrate here in Parliament.

I think of the former member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Larry Miller. LaVar Payne would say, “Where is the $40 million?” Larry Miller would also be up there saying, “Where is the $40 million?” He was right there with them because he wanted to make sure there was accountability for taxpayer dollars in the House, and that would be the same response I would get from my riding.

If I asked the individuals in my riding, they would look at me and ask, “What is going on? Why is it not functioning?” When we explained to them that the government is refusing to hand over possible evidence, papers and documents to the RCMP, they would say, “Well, how can they do that? We have to be able to force it; we have to be able to do something.” I would say, “No, if the other two parties are not willing to stand up with us, they can do whatever they want.”

People are ashamed of the current Parliament, the government and the Prime Minister. Whenever he goes abroad, they cringe. Saskatchewan is an exporting province. We rely on markets all around the world, so when we hear that the Prime Minister is going somewhere else, we ask what it is going to cost us. That is usually what happens.

When it comes to this issue, there is no surprise. It is almost becoming expected from the current government. Is that not sad? I think it is.