Debates of Oct. 28th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am basing that comment on the point that the leader of the official opposition would be gagged. There is no such—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

That is just falling into debate.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will comment on the previous question. Debating whether the House of Commons should have voted for the original opposition motion is the old debate. Liberals are debating something that has already been pronounced on by the House. What we are debating now is the actual issue of the breach of privilege.

In his speech, the member talked about the accusation that it is the opposition paralyzing Parliament. The government could just table the documents and have this debate over with. We would rather deal with the actual problem than study it. Furthermore, I agree with the member: I do not want to debate new government bills that are going to continue on the same agenda that has wrought so much destruction to the Canadian economy. Does he agree?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree with that. Anything that stops the Liberal-NDP partnership from continuing to destroy the economics of our country is important. I also want to point out the reason we are having this debate, which is that the Liberals continue to do exactly what the hon. member said. They relitigate a debate they already lost a vote on, which was the opposition day motion. That vote is done. It was passed in the House. They did not win. We are here today because members such as the hon. member continue to stand up in the House and relitigate that debate. This can end immediately if the government simply complies with the conditions of the order that was passed in the House.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, here is where the member is incorrect when he asserts that his leader does not want to be gagged.

I ask members to listen to what iPolitics stated:

Wesley Wark, who has advised both Liberal and Conservative governments on national security issues, said the Tory leader is knowingly misleading the public by claiming he doesn't need the clearance because his chief of staff has received briefings.

“[The leader's] idea that it is sufficient for his chief of staff to be briefed for him and for his chief of staff to share that information with him is complete nonsense,” Wark told iPolitics.

No gag would be imposed on the leader of the Conservative Party. Why will the leader of the Conservative Party not do the honourable thing, get the security clearance and show Canadians that he is going to put the nation ahead of his party?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, again, the hon. member stands up and asserts that I am incorrect in what I said, but he does not actually reference what I said.

Yes, our leader would be restricted. It is very clear. We could say he would be “gagged” or whatever other word we use, but he would be restricted in his ability to say things that he learns in the briefing. People might have different opinions on everything that is going on. This foreign interference scandal is one of the most important issues facing our country today. We need the government to name the names. We have been very clear that we want the government to do so; then we can decide where we go from there to protect our country.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, members opposite may think that we are here to talk about the production of documents, something that has engaged the House for weeks now. I suspect that the Liberals have set themselves to tune out any words I say and perhaps instead are watching cat videos on their phones.

The documents in question are really not the issue here, and the government knows that. The government does not want its own Liberal members to understand what the issues are. It wants them to keep watching cat videos in the hopes that they will not realize just how much contempt their leader and their ministers have for them and for the House.

The Speaker has ruled that the Liberals have violated an order by the House to turn over evidence to the police for a criminal investigation into the latest Liberal scandal, which involves $400 million. In essence, the government is telling us that it knows best and that the will of the House can be ignored no matter what the Speaker and the members say.

However, as the Prime Minister said in his mandate letter to the previous government House leader, “Canadians expect us to work hard, speak truthfully and be committed to advancing their interests and aspirations. When we make mistakes—as we all will—Canadians expect us to acknowledge them, and most importantly, to learn from them.”

It is time for the government to speak truthfully. It does not want the documents released, not because it is concerned about the legal process but because it is embarrassed. The Auditor General has found that Liberal appointees gave $400 million of taxpayers' money to their own companies. This involved 186 conflicts of interest. The government is concerned that providing the documents would reveal even more corruption.

The issue is about $400 million of wasted or stolen taxpayers' money, while Canadians cannot afford to eat, heat their home and house themselves. The government's embarrassment is understandable. The implication of what has so far been revealed is that Liberals were illegally benefiting Liberals, advancing their own interests and aspirations instead of the country's best interests. What was supposed to be a way of fighting climate change was instead a way to line the pockets of people who had Liberal connections.

After nine years of the current government, Canadians are not surprised by the climate hypocrisy; however, there is no reason for them to accept it. The Prime Minister has apparently forgotten his own words about admitting mistakes and learning from them, or maybe he thinks he and his government are so perfect that mistakes are impossible so there is nothing to acknowledge and nothing to learn.

The government seems to think there is a problem with the opposition parties in this matter. The Liberals say that the work of the House is being tied up and that if the opposition would just allow a committee to deal with the matter, then we could get on with more important business. The government wants to know why the opposition cannot see that.

When Liberal cabinet ministers make statements like that, they seem to have checked their collective brain at the door. What is more important for the House than to establish that the government does not dictate to the elected members? When the House makes an order and the Speaker affirms the order, the government does not get to say no.

I realize it would be more convenient for the Liberals if the opposition did not exist. That may be why its first idea at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was to suggest that it be given free rein to act without parliamentary oversight. The government wanted the opposition parties to go home and allow it to work without oversight. That is not the way parliamentary democracy is supposed to work. I would hope that the government MPs who were here at the time look back on that period with a certain amount of embarrassment that they were persuaded to agree to such a thing.

This was, after all, supposed to be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. In 2013, the newly elected Liberal leader, today's Prime Minister, said, “Political leadership is about raising the bar on openness and transparency.” Eleven years later, the government has a reputation for secrecy. The Prime Minister will not release the documents. What is he trying to hide?

The Prime Minister seems to have forgotten his own words, or maybe he was just saying something he did not believe in order to get elected. Canadians believed him when he said, “For me, transparency isn’t a slogan or a tactic; it’s a way of doing business.” In 2024, Canadians doubt the truth of that statement. Obviously it was a slogan and a tactic designed to fool the public.

Canadians are no longer fooled. If the Prime Minister and his government believed in transparency, there would be no need for me to be speaking today. They would have released the documents already. Instead they look like a criminal with something to hide.

The supposedly open and transparent government is defying the will of the House. The Liberals' actions show just how hollow their idealistic words are. If the Liberals want to move the work of the House forward, something we all would like to see, then the path forward is simple: Obey the will of the House, accept the ruling of the Speaker and provide the documents.

What happens to the documents is not the Liberals' concern. They are not the Law Clerk. They are not the RCMP. The government should not be telling others what to do with the material. The Liberals have already shown that a cover-up is their preference. They must end the cover-up and hand over the evidence to the police so Parliament can get back to working for Canadians. Why do they continue to defy the will of the House and the ruling of their own Speaker?

It is probably worth mentioning again why this is an issue. The Auditor General of Canada found that the government, led by a Prime Minister who boasted about transparency, turned Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. A recording of senior civil servants slammed the outright incompetence of the Liberal government, which gave 390 million dollars' worth of contracts inappropriately.

The Auditor General also found that, first, SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that on some occasions could not demonstrate an environmental benefit or development of green technology. Second, $334 million was given to over 186 projects in which board members had a conflict of interest. Third, $58 million was given to projects without ensuring that contribution agreement terms were met. The Auditor General made it clear that the blame for the scandal falls on the industry minister, who did not sufficiently monitor the contracts that were given to Liberal insiders.

By not complying with the Speaker's ruling, the Liberals have paralyzed Parliament, making it impossible for anyone here to address issues like the doubling of housing costs, Liberal food inflation, and crime and chaos. Given the Liberal record, I wonder whether that is their plan. With the level of incompetence they have displayed over the past nine years, I would not want to talk about housing, crime or the economy either, but maybe we should.

After all, after nine years of the Liberal government, Canadians have never been less safe. Insane catch-and-release policies are putting dangerous repeat violent offenders back onto our streets. The reckless experiment of taxpayer-funded hard drugs has created crime, chaos and disorder across Canada. Statistics Canada has revealed that since 2015, violent crime is up by nearly 50%. Homicides are up 28%, while sexual assaults, auto theft and extortion are up 74%, 45% and 357% respectively.

Meanwhile, the Liberals' failed experiment funding hard drugs with taxpayer dollars has increased drug deaths by 184% since 2015. In London, Ontario, the chief of police has been clear about the unfolding disaster, saying, “Diverted safe supply is being resold into our community. It's being trafficked into other communities and it is being used as currency in exchange for fentanyl, fuelling the drug trade.”

In British Columbia, the Vancouver Police Department noted that around 50% of all hydromorphone seizures were diverted from thePrime Minister's taxpayer-funded hard drugs program. Since 2015, nearly 45,000 Canadians have died from drug overdose. It seems that everyone except the current government can see the problem.

When it comes to housing, the Liberals know they created a problem, but they do not know how to fix it. Housing has become unaffordable in Canada because we are failing to build enough homes for Canadians. This was confirmed by a recent report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, which showed that Canada is still building fewer homes than in the 1970s, when Canada had half the population it has today.

National housing starts declined by 13% between August 2023 and August 2024. There has been a 25% drop in housing starts in Ontario. In Toronto, housing starts in August 2024 had a massive 48% decline over 2023, while Vancouver saw a drop of 34% year over year.

The Liberals' housing hell is not limited to Toronto or Vancouver. Across British Columbia, housing starts dropped by 31%, and in Victoria housing starts decline by 33%. Manitoba and Saskatchewan housing starts have dropped by 14% and 12% respectively during the first eight months of this year compared to the same period in 2023. Winnipeg's housing starts are down by 16% over the same period, while Ottawa had 17% fewer new housing projects. Housing remains unaffordable in Canada, in spite of the Liberals' giving billions of dollars to the same gatekeepers who caused the housing crisis in the first place.

Since last year, food prices in Canada have risen overall by 3.9%, with meat up by 9.5% and margarine up by 9.9%. The price of baby food has increased by 5%. These price increases hit seniors and low-income Canadian families the hardest. According to a recent poll by Angus Reid Institute, more than one-third of Canadians have struggled to afford enough food to feed their family. This is unacceptable.

Our food prices are an afterthought for the Liberal government. While inflation may have slowed, food prices are not going down, and the Liberal's carbon tax further restricts producers' competitiveness through added transportation costs. It is fair to say that Canada's food security is at a tipping point.

These are definitely not topics that the Liberals want to address. Since they have no plans to fix anything, they instead tie up the work of the House, hoping that Canadians will not notice. The Liberals try to pretend that they are standing on principle, instead of being open and transparent. They are trying to convince Canadians that covering up wrongdoing is a virtue. Canadians do not believe them.

The Liberals say it is all the opposition's fault, while they continue to do the wrong thing as they ignore the will of the House of Commons and the authority of the Speaker. Instead they are trying to deflect the issue and are pretending the order is somehow improper. What could be more proper than the House of Commons' demanding accountability from the government? There is 800 years of constitutional tradition backing that up. The Prime Minister may not like it, but we are not here to do what he likes; we are here to do what is right.

The government's House leader has said this debate is, “something every single Canadian should be extremely alarmed about.” I agree. Canadians should be alarmed and concerned about a government that thinks it is above the law. Canadians should be alarmed by a government whose ministers do not seem to understand what constitutes a conflict of interest. Canadians should be alarmed by a government that illegally rewards its friends. Canadians should be alarmed by a government that tries to cover things up while claiming to be open and transparent.

Parliament needs to be respected by the government. The documents must be released. It is not the government's responsibility to consider what happens when the documents are released. It can let the law clerk and the RCMP worry about that. That is not the Liberals' job. The Liberals' duty is to release the documents and to stop their contempt of Parliament, which is the democratic system that they claim to uphold.

When a party that claims to be the most transparent government in Canadian history refuses to respect the will of the House of Commons, Canadians are right in wondering what the party is trying to hide. We know there is something questionable about the $400 million. How much more is there? Canadians deserve to know the truth, no matter how much the Liberals want to cover it up.

We all know why we are here. The Liberals' selective amnesia is not fooling Canadians. The Auditor General found evidence of serious mismanagement at SDTC, and maybe even criminal activity. The Liberals response to this, as with so many other things, is to cover it up and pretend there is no problem. Maybe, from their perspective, there is no problem. After all, apparently the funds in question went to those with Liberal connections. How can anyone see a conflict of interest in awarding contracts to a few friends?

The Liberals need to remember that this is not their money. The $400 million did not come from the Liberal Party. It came from ordinary Canadians who are struggling to put food on the table as they are being carbon taxed to death. They deserve better. The Prime Minister is fond of telling the media and the House that Canadians will forgive him for not taking direction from the Conservatives. His ministers frequently use the same line. It makes for a nice media clip.

However, the Prime Minister and his ministers really should take direction from Conservatives respecting Parliament, ethics and transparency, not to mention crime, housing, taxation and balancing the budget. No, I do not think Canadians are going to forgive him.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will emphasize that this is nothing more than a political game the Conservatives are playing, at a very expensive cost. I want to pick up on the member's quote when he says, “to do what is right”. That is what we are asking the Conservative leader of Canada to do: to do what is right. To take another quote from the member, he says Canadians deserve it, and he, again, is right. Canadians do deserve to know why the Conservative leader today is refusing to get the security clearance.

Why is he putting his political party ahead of the interest of the nation? That is a legitimate question, and we have yet to hear any argument as to why and how the leader of the Conservative party is justifying that behaviour by refusing. The leaders of the Bloc, the Greens and the NDP, as well as, obviously, the Prime Minister, all have that security clearance.

What is the Conservative Party scared of? They owe an answer, a credible answer, to Canadians. What is it?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the ask is mutual. The government has to be responsible, answer questions, tell the truth and uncover what it is trying to cover up, such as the scandal of $400 million of taxpayers' money.

The member is a symptom of a government that expects everybody to do its dirty work. This is a government that hides things every day and that has been a government of secrecy since day one. It is a majority government in the House, and it continues to do that with the NDP members.

This is a political gain. The Liberals are talking about political gain. There has never been a government in Canadian history that always wants to look for opportunities for political gain, with ID politics and everything it has done so far. Shame on the government for questioning members about this.

To change the topic, let us get the answer to this question: Where is the $400 million?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are some pretty surreal moments in Parliament at times. That is what I think when I hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons asking the official opposition party what it is scared of and demanding answers, when all we have been talking about for weeks is the transparent handing over of unredacted documents. That is a question for the government to answer.

I have a question for the opposition member. When are we going to vote on this? The Bloc Québécois is ready to vote, and the Conservatives know they have the support of the majority in the House. When do we vote to force the government to hand over the documents?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my Bloc colleague for his question.

The government has started asking the opposition parties to do something. The Liberals should ask themselves to do what is their duty, which is requested and expected by Canadians. That is the first thing. They have to look in the mirror and ask themselves to do this. That is what the Conservatives expect from this debate.

As soon as the Liberals do that and show the level of transparency expected, then we will have a resolution to this crisis, which they created. This is a fire that the Liberals made, and they want to send the fire department to put it out.

That is the government that we are dealing with. Until the Liberals are responsible enough and transparent enough to do what is right, we will have a problem.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think my question is very similar to that of my friend from the Bloc.

I have been here for five years, and I think that this is the first time I have seen the House in violent agreement with the content of a motion while members are refusing to vote on that same motion so a committee could do the work that is called for in the motion. If I were a Canadian sitting up in the gallery, I would be rightly confused by the little game being played. The reality, of course, is that the Conservatives are simply holding up the business of the House as a way to try to force the production of these documents, something which, incidentally, is not called for in the content of the motion being debated.

Why does my friend from the Conservative Party feel it is appropriate for the business of the House to be held up for so long when what he is calling for, and what he just spoke to, is not actually in the content of the motion his party has put forward?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has been propping up the government for the last two years, on good and bad issues, to get to this stage. The government felt so comfortable to do whatever it wished to do. Of course, it was supported heavily by the NDP.

The NDP should ask the government, as they were partners with a kind of marriage, over two years, and they are still working together, to do the right thing, which is to release the documents and tell the truth. That will solve the problem.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Edmonton Manning for his excellent speech. I have been listening to this debate for a long time now. The reality is that the Auditor General found that money had been funnelled from Liberal appointees at the green slush fund to themselves. All we are asking for is that the evidence of this crime be released by the government. I would think that would be a natural thing, that the government would want to co-operate with the police and get to the bottom of this crime.

What does the hon. member think is in these documents that would be so damning against the government that it would allow Parliament to be paralyzed for weeks on end?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the $400 million could be more. That is why the government is fearful of releasing any source of information on this, hiding behind certain things that it believes that it can convince Canadians of.

The first responsibility for decision-makers, policy-makers and representatives of Canadians is to tell the truth. We are supposed to be managing the money and wealth of Canadians properly and not wasting it on friends and people who support certain parties. The government is in the position of hiding everything so Canadians do not know the truth. If Liberals are really being transparent, they should do that.

I believe the $400 million, unfortunately, may not be the full amount. There could be more. There is a lot of stuff that Liberals have been hiding, and Canadians deserve the truth.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I asked a legitimate question of the member, and he chose to completely ignore it. That does not make the question or the issue disappear. Canadians have a right to know why the Conservative leader of Canada has chosen to put his party ahead of the nation.

Can the member across the way explain, from his perspective, why the leader of the Conservative Party is not coming clean with Canadians about getting the security clearance and, if he continues to refuse to do so, to explain the real reason? Is there something in his background that Canadians should know about?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve to know the truth about the $400 million, the waste of money, and the mismanagement of their wealth, the taxes that they work hard for to pay to the government. That is what Canadians expect.

The government can try to change the channel as much as it wants. Is it going to happen? We know exactly what Liberals are looking for, and we know what they are hiding. Canadians are not fooled by the government. Hopefully, the truth and the sun will come out to uncover the scandal that is deeply rooted in the government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is still not an answer.

Let me move to something a little more relevant in his mind. At the end of the day, the only prime minister in the history of Canada to ever be held in contempt of Parliament was Stephen Harper. The parliamentary secretary at that time is today's leader of the Conservative Party. I could argue that he is once again in contempt of Parliament by not doing what is in the nation's best interest.

Why is the leader of the Conservative Party so driven to not get that security clearance? What is it in his past that is preventing him from doing the honourable thing and putting the nation ahead of his political party?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how the multi-billion dollar scandal government can face others and ask them to do something that it does not do itself in the first place. It is very unfortunate, but knowing the nature of the government, and of the member who asks the same question over and over again, the answer is simple. They should be transparent and tell Canadians what they are hiding about that $400 million. They need to tell the truth about what they have done. Then we will have a chance to discuss other things. Otherwise, they have had scandals, worth many billions of dollars, that Canadians are fed up with.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, is an honour to rise in the House once again. Before I speak to the motion of privilege, if the House will indulge me, I will say that tomorrow will be one year since the of passing of mom and missing of her cookies. However, we smile and we celebrate her life today. I know that she watched me speak many times in the House. As we have all lost loved ones, it kind of hits home today.

First and foremost, I am honoured to represent the wonderful people of Essex and to address the House today. As my colleague and friend, the member for Oshawa, pointed out last week during his speech on this very topic, we are once again proud to stand today on behalf of the constituents of our ridings to hold the government accountable for its Liberal corruption. However, we do not take any pleasure in this. Returning to our ridings, trying to explain how the government has undermined our institutions and corrupted the way government operates is truly a disheartening example of governance.

I want to highlight the government's mishandling of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, often called the green slush fund. This program was created in 2001 to support innovation and sustainable technologies, and ran smoothly under both Liberal and Conservative governments until the current Prime Minister took office. I know a thing or two about clean technology.

It is unacceptable that the Liberals are refusing to hand over all the documents related to the Prime Minister's green slush fund to the RCMP within the required days. My colleagues on the public accounts committee received a report from the Auditor General last June in which she found that the Liberal government had turned the once legitimate Sustainable Development Technology Canada into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. The Auditor General found that the Liberal-appointed SDTC board members who voted to give out that money had a conflict of interest.

I am tired of this lack of transparency, which only deepens distrust and frustrations among Canadians. After nearly a decade in power, we have yet more evidence that the NDP-Liberals are not worth the cost in terms of both financial resources and the increasing crime and corruption that has plagued the government. Their inability to be transparent about their actions is unacceptable.

The Speaker has ruled that the NDP-Liberals have violated a House order to turn over evidence to the police regarding a criminal investigation into their latest $400-million scandal. This blatant disregard for accountability shows their ongoing refusal to be open and honest with Canadians.

The Speaker's ruling, coupled with the NDP-Liberals' stubbornness, has effectively paralyzed Parliament. This inaction makes it impossible for us to address pressing issues like skyrocketing housing costs, rampant food inflation and the rise of crime and chaos in our communities. We cannot move forward while they hide behind their secrecy.

While it used to be normal for working-class young people to buy homes, now 80% of Canadians tell pollsters that home ownership is only for the very rich and definitely out of their reach. After nine years of NDP-Liberals the situation is so bad that there are now 1,400 homeless encampments in Ontario alone.

In Ontario and British Columbia, government charges account for more than 30% for the cost of a new home. The federal government takes the biggest share. In Ontario, about 39% of total taxes on a new home go to politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa. The GST alone adds $50,000 in cost to a $1 million home. In my great riding of Essex, people are struggling. According to the Windsor-Essex County Association of Realtors' September market update, the average sales price was up 8.2% to $579,290.

At a time when many Canadians are struggling to make ends meet, with rising housing and food costs, it is incredibly disappointing that we find ourselves still discussing the Liberal government's role in the $400-million green slush fund scandal. The Auditor General has clearly stated that the responsibility for this scandal lies directly with the former Liberal industry minister, as well as the current one, who failed to adequately oversee the contracts awarded to Liberal insiders. This lack of oversight has contributed to a serious breach of public trust at a moment when transparency and accountability are more important than ever.

At the heart of this issue is the Auditor General's finding that Liberal appointees were allocating $400 million of taxpayer money to their own companies, resulting in 186 documented conflicts of interest. This is not just a scandal; it is a betrayal of the trust that Canadians place in their government, and it underscores the urgent need for transparency.

This money could have gone back into the pockets of hard-working Canadians or toward beneficial programs that would help our communities. This money may have been used to support neighbourhood projects, support the growth of small enterprises or lessen the financial strain on families dealing with growing expenses. It is a lost chance that may have had a significant impact on the lives of regular people. We are talking about $400 million in taxpayer money that may have been wasted or stolen, while everyday Canadians struggle to afford food, heating and housing.

This situation is intolerable, especially when so many are suffering due to the government's lack of accountability. The NDP-Liberals must put an end to their cover-up and hand over the evidence to the police. Only then can Parliament get back to its critical work of serving the interests of Canadians. Their continued obstruction is unacceptable.

The division between those in government and regular Canadians who must deal with the fallout from such carelessness is widened by this incident. Why will the NDP-Liberals not stop hiding behind the green slush fund and release the required documentation so that Canadians can have the openness and accountability they deserve? Only our sensible Conservative colleagues will put an end to the turmoil and corruption and figure out what happened to the $400 million.

To know where we are going, we must know where we came from, and it is really important to speak about the scandal timeline.

Dating back all the way to late 2018, the then Liberal industry minister, Navdeep Bains, expressed concerns regarding the Harper-era chair of SDTC, Jim Balsillie, given his public criticism of the government's privacy legislation. Minister Bains then proposed two alternative chairs to the CEO of SDTC as replacements in a phone call. One of the candidates proposed was Annette Verschuren, an entrepreneur who was receiving SDTC funds through one of her companies. Then the minister, PMO and PCO were warned of the risks associated with appointing a conflict chair, and were told that, up until this point, the fund never had a chair who had interests in companies. It then went into June 2019, another full year later, and Minister Bains decided to proceed with the appointment of Annette Verschuren despite repeated warnings expressed to his office. The new chair then went on to create an environment where conflict of interests were tolerated and “managed”. Minister Bains then went on to appoint two other controversial board members who engage in unethical behaviour in a breach of conflict of interest.

Now we are all the way to June of 2024. By the way, I skipped over five or six other points I could have made. However, in June of 2024, the Auditor General's report was released, finding severe governance failures of SDTC. Our colleagues asked a whole bunch of very direct, pointed questions at the committee. One of the testimonies on SDTC in committee was that:

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.

We also heard that:

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. It should never have taken two years for the issues to reach this point. What should have been a straightforward process turned into a bureaucratic nightmare that allowed SDTC to continue wasting millions of dollars and abusing countless employees over the last year.

We can look at those folks who are so busy trying to run their businesses, who are working overtime to try to make ends meet, those young adults who are trying desperately to figure out how they are going to afford a home, if they can afford a home, and those folks standing in lines at food banks who do not have time and/or the energy to watch the House of Commons. They are very busy trying to get their lives back in order after the failed Liberal-NDP coalition. Because of that, I want to give a quick overview of the privilege motion and why it is so important that we have this debate today.

To really bring us all back to kindergarten, the key mandate of SDTC, a federally funded non-profit, is to approve and disburse over $100 million in funds annually to clean technology companies. In a former life, back when I was in the world of business, we did exactly that: clean technology. Is it a good thing to have clean technology? Absolutely, it is. It protects our environment and creates great jobs. Exporting that technology is a lot of what our business did.

However, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, was established in 2001 by the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to fund the development and demonstration of new technologies. It is an arm's-length, not-for-profit organization that was created to support projects that develop and demonstrate new technologies that address issues related to climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil. It is responsible for the administration of the tech fund.

Here are the problems. The key problem is that SDTC executives awarded to projects, in which they held conflicts, over $330-million worth of taxpayer funds.

In 2019, the former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains began appointing conflicted executives to the board. The Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner initiated separate investigations after whistle-blowers came forward with allegations of financial mismanagement.

The Prime Minister, in 2015, spoke about sunny ways. What he really said was that we were going to have an election on transparency. Canadians not only deserve the documentation, Canadians want the documentation. They want it handed over so that the RCMP can do what it needs to do.

Why are we into, I believe, week four of this debate, if the government has absolutely nothing to hide and no conflict of interest and if there is nothing to see here, just like the many other conflicts of interest that we have seen the government, since 2015, be a part of?

Canadians do not forget. They do not forget about the Aga Khan. They do not forget about the WE scandal. It is getting awfully tiring to have to continue to hold the government to account, to hold its feet to the fire, when what we really should be debating in the House is how we are going to get Canadians' lives back on track. We cannot do it because we need to know the truth. We need to know where the slush fund dollars are going. We know who is ultimately responsible for this. We need to know for sure that these dollars were invested properly, that big corporations, big buddies of the Liberals, are not padding their pockets with this.

Why do we have people standing at food banks? Why do we have veterans lying in the streets? Why do we have an opioid crisis? Why do we have so much money that should be used to help everyday Canadians and their families, putting diapers on babies and pablum in their mouths, going to profit large corporations, only friends of the Prime Minister?

I was elected in 2019 and they just said to bring common sense to the House of Commons. I said that I would do my best. Sometimes, it really blows my mind when we hear the hypocrisy from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who want to talk about everything but the issue at hand.

The issue at hand is nothing more than the Prime Minister, who spoke about nothing other than transparency in 2015. We now have zero transparency. In order for me to represent the great folks of Essex the best, they deserve answers. Therefore, we in the House of Commons, the official opposition, deserve answers.

That is why I am very proud to speak about this today. We will continue to hold the government to account. It is the service and the job of the official opposition to hold the government to account. That is why it is so important, to those folks at home who perhaps wonder why we are spending so many days on this. Quite frankly, it is because we are responsible to them, ultimately, and we will not stop. We will be very steadfast in continuing the hard work that we do here in the House of Commons.

In closing, I just really want to reiterate one more time why this is so important. It is a question of privilege for all of us. We know that we cannot effectively do the important work that we are asked to do without the answers. We are not asking for anything other than the documents. It is as though I had a buddy and my buddy said to just show them, if we have nothing to hide. All we are really asking is for them to just show us. If they have nothing to hide, show us, and we will move on with government business.

As always, it is an honour to represent the folks of Essex.

I look forward to questions from my colleagues, but more importantly, I look forward to getting this resolved so we can get Canadians back on track, we can put diapers on the little ones, we can feed the little ones, our young adults can have a good-paying job and, probably most importantly, we can see some light at the end of the tunnel. We know where that light is. I am excited to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

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

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Conservative Party today was the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was the only prime minister in the Commonwealth who has actually been held in contempt of Parliament.

Fast-forward to today, and we have the leader of the Conservative Party continue to filibuster a motion that all other opposition parties and the government want to see come to a vote. This is nothing but a game to the Conservative Party of Canada. Conservatives know that, but they refuse to focus on the real issues.

I have raised the issue of why the leader of the Conservative Party has put his party ahead of the interests of the nation by not getting a security clearance. I am wondering if this member could provide his thoughts as to why the leader of the Conservative Party today refuses to join the other leaders in this chamber in getting a security clearance, so he is better able to deal with the issue of foreign interference. Can he justify that?

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been watching this debate keenly for the last three and a half to four weeks, and this question continues to come up.

I guess the real question is, if the member really wants to continue on with the government business, why does he not stand in caucus this Wednesday and ask his Prime Minister, his leader, to just release the documents? Then we could get on with another order of business.

It is kind of mind-boggling to me, and talk about duck and deflect, oh my goodness, that has got nothing to do with the motion that we are speaking about today. I do not know why he would ask the question. As a matter of fact, I believe it would be out of order. However, if the member really wants to move on with government business and get to the answers that he continues to ask, it is really simple. He could just ask the Prime Minister to release the documents, and we will get moving.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope you are feeling on top of your game because for the past few weeks, listening to these debates here, in the House, has been a test of strength. I am a strong person, but even I have had my moments.

We agree. We are examining a question of privilege because an order was made. Instead of lobbing questions from the other side of the House, as it is doing now, the government should take appropriate action.

Indeed, this is a complicated and dense program. Still, some businesses were counting on it because it had the potential to make a difference. Now that it has been tainted with scandal and corruption, however, we have to get to the bottom of things. That means we need the documents.

The Conservative Party also says that it has Canadians' backs and is looking forward to moving on to something else. What is the something else it wants to move on to? Could it be an election?

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the real, short answer, and I am pretty sure I speak on behalf of the majority of Canadians, is yes, we would love to move on with the carbon tax election. Absolutely.

That being said is, what do I want to move on to? I go back to my original statement. I want to go back to common sense for Canadian people. I want to move on to opportunities for Canadians. I want to go back to getting crime off the street. I want to go back to making sure that people are not $200 short each and every month to pay their bills. I want to go back to supporting small businesses.

However, if it means a carbon tax election, then I certainly hope that the Bloc Québécois will join our forces in getting to the polls.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit, while the member from Winnipeg North is stating that we are playing a game, this is $400 million on another one of their scandals with misappropriation of funds.

Could you please speak to this, that there are so many people in your riding who are struggling financially, and yet they see the government wasting another $400 million, even though the member says it is just a game that we are playing? Can you please comment on how this is affecting your residents and what you have heard from them?