Mr. Speaker, what a privilege it is to stand here, as I am preparing to do a speech in a completely different direction, and have the opportunity to reflect on a colleague with whom I had a chance to serve for many years in the House of Commons, Bob Sopuck. It was such a privilege to listen to my hon. colleague's fantastic speech and reflections. My thoughts are, as everybody else's are, with the family.
Moving to the issue we have been discussing for quite some time and will potentially discuss for quite some time, I imagine until there is a resolution, the best way to start my comments today is to read from the opposition motion that precipitated the conversation we are having right now. It was from back in June, and I believe it passed in the House on June 10, which is a key date, as members will hear when I read from the motion.
The opposition motion, which passed the House with the support of the NDP, the Bloc and the Conservatives of course, stated:
That the House order the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Auditor General of Canada each to deposit with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, within 14 days of the adoption of this order—
The order was adopted on June 10.
—the following documents, created or dated since January 1, 2017, which are in its or her possession, custody or control:
(a) all files, documents, briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or any other correspondence exchanged among government officials regarding SDTC;
(b) contribution and funding agreements to which SDTC is a party;
(c) records detailing financial information of companies in which past or present directors or officers of SDTC had ownership, management or other financial interests;
(d) SDTC conflict of interest declarations;
(e) minutes of SDTC's Board of Directors and Project Review Committee; and
(f) all briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or any other correspondence exchanged between SDTC directors and SDTC management;
provided that,
(g) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly thereafter notify the Speaker whether each entity produced documents as ordered, and the Speaker, in turn, shall forthwith inform the House of the notice of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel but, if the House stands adjourned, the Speaker shall lay the notice upon the table pursuant to Standing Order 32(1); and
(h) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall provide forthwith any documents received by him, pursuant to this order, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for its independent determination of whether to investigate potential offences under the Criminal Code or any other act of Parliament.
We are sitting here five months later and are continuing to debate this because the conditions in this opposition motion, passed by the House, have not been met. Of course, as soon as the House came back, our opposition House leader raised a question of privilege, and that question of privilege was debated at length.
In your ruling, Mr. Speaker, you referenced the adoption date of June 10, and we get a chance, from the speech you made when you made your ruling, to talk about some of the issues. As I was preparing for this speech, I took the time to read some of the comments you made. I have sat here and listened to government members, or future opposition members, hopefully in the near future, raise some of their concerns. I was not here for the debate when we were raising the question of privilege in the first place, but I did not realize that those concerns had been raised. You, Mr. Speaker, dealt with them and made the ruling that you made regardless. It is interesting to note that.
I will note that in the Speaker's ruling, the Speaker said, “The Chair cannot come to any other conclusion but to find that a prima facie question of privilege has been established.” He went on to say many other things, but he pointed out, even as he made some of the points the government has pointed to in its comments, questions and debate, that it is “ultimately for the House to decide how it wishes to proceed in the face of such objections”.
Here we are today as a House continuing to fight this situation.
We can take a look at some of the background, for folks who might be tuning in for the first time. Many people have heard of what we have referred to as the green slush fund, but we could refer to it with many different terms, all of which would probably properly focus on the scandalous nature of this situation. It goes back to the Auditor General of Canada finding that the Prime Minister turned SDTC into a slush fund for Liberal insiders, and this is the point we have made over and over again.
There is a recording of a senior civil servant talking about the “outright incompetence” of the Liberal government giving 390 million dollars' worth of contracts out inappropriately, at a time when the government is racking up unprecedented, and “unprecedented” is not a strong enough word for it, levels of spending, deficits and debt. We are spending more today on interest on the debt racked up by this government than we are spending on transfers to the provinces for health care. That is unheard of. I think that is uncomprehensible for most Canadians, and it is understandable that people would be infuriated by what they are hearing and that they would want answers.
What we are doing here, holding this place, temporarily, as His Majesty's official opposition, is getting prepared to clean up the mess the Liberal government has created. We are standing here on behalf of voters. I have the privilege to stand here on behalf of the voters of Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, who at every turn are asking me to level some form of accountability from the government, using the power I have, with the seat I have in the House, for the unbelievably and devastatingly wasteful spending we have seen.
In this case, we are talking about $390 million. The Auditor General found that SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that, on occasions, could not demonstrate any environmental benefit or development of green technology at all. We are talking about $334 million, from 186 cases, to projects where board members held a conflict of interest and $58 million to projects without ensuring contribution agreements were met. I believe the Auditor General also made it very clear that the responsibility falls on the Liberal government and the Liberal minister responsible.
We are here to get answers. We moved a motion so information could be made available to the appropriate authorities. I have to make it really clear that nowhere in the motion does the House order the RCMP to conduct an investigation. This is something the Liberals have said over and over again. The House is simply asking that documents be provided and have the opportunity to be scrutinized.
The whistle-blower who was at the public accounts committee had this to say: “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 trust the whistle-blower, and if the documents are provided, we have faith in the RCMP to decide what to do with them.
I will note, for history's sake, that the Auditor General gave a clean bill of health to SDTC back in 2017, so it is important to understand the timeline, with a government that chose Liberal insiders as board members since then. Liberal members have had lots of time to speak on this topic and make arguments. It was only after 2017 that we saw the board voting to give itself tax dollars from the fund the Auditor General is referring to.
It is interesting because the hon. member, the lead member in the House for the Liberal side who stands up so often in this place and who just heckled me, can go into caucus every Wednesday and, if he wants to, make the argument to have these documents produced so Canadians can make their assessment. Surely, if his argument is correct, the documents will bear that out and then he can stand up in the House and point to those documents. I am not sure whether he can get on the list to actually speak in the caucus meetings; I am not sure what the process is. It might be easier to get up on this topic. I am sure the Liberals are looking for anybody to get up and talk about anything other than whether their leader should step down right now, so maybe this is the time. I will give him some advice, if he is willing to take it, that maybe this is his opportunity to make the argument for the release of these documents so his arguments can be borne out.
I will tell members why Canadians are concerned. I host constituent round tables. We do something a little unique where we bring in 16 constituents on a rotating basis and do 40 or 50 two-hour round tables; people come in, we go around the table and everybody gets a chance to speak, which may be a bit foreign to Liberal members. Everybody gets a chance to speak and raise their issues, and then we have a really good discussion on the issues. I will tell members that at these round tables, people are talking about how they are trying to live their lives in the context of the unbelievable crises, on multiple fronts, that have been caused by the Liberal government. They bring up issues around housing. More and more people are showing up at my round tables. This is in Alberta, where the cost of housing is less expensive than in other parts of the world, but still constituents are talking about housing challenges.
The thing I have noticed more than at any other time, and I have been hosting these round tables for 19 years as a member of Parliament, is that I am seeing 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds coming to round tables talking about the fact that they are having trouble finding work. Then, when they find work and start working full time, they do not believe they are ever going to be able to afford a down payment for a house. In some cases, they are worried they cannot even afford rent for a house. Again, this is not something that I have seen before. However, I have actually seen the same kinds of concerns brought up as I have travelled the country speaking on other things to university students.
Another thing we are hearing a lot about is crime and safety. I am hearing more from young people who are going to university and do not feel safe on public transit anymore. It is an absolutely common concern brought up by constituents at my round tables. Also, I am certainly hearing a lot about budget balance and fiscal responsibility, and questions on who is going to pay for this massive bill incurred by the Liberal government; I do not even want to say it is with a lack of results.
Certainly, there has been a lack of results corresponding to the spending, but the worst thing about this situation is that the more the government spends, the worse the results are. Our outcomes are going down on almost every front that can be measured. The Liberals' response in the House of Commons day in and day out is to ask why we will not support their ever-increasing spending. They have introduced new programs. It is probably good that we are having this prolonged debate right now, in the sense that we want to get an outcome with some accountability; at the same time, while we are having this conversation, the Liberals cannot introduce a new $10-billion, $20-billion or $30-billion program they have cooked up with the NDP, in partnership, to drive us even further into debt. Day in and day out, that has been the Liberals' answer: “Why will you not spend more? Why will you not support us to spend even more money?” Taking a look at the numbers, over $300 million in this case, it is no wonder Canadians do not trust the government to spend their money.
I was elected in January 2006. When I got elected, I replaced someone who had sat on the Liberal side for four straight elections. The context at that time, the main issue, was the sponsorship scandal. The sponsorship scandal did not even come close to touching the numbers we are talking about now. We talked at that point about the long-gun registry that had been brought in by the Liberal government. That seems like ancient history, but we are seeing history repeating itself over and over again. Now we have a gun buyback, which is a complete misnomer because the government never owned the firearms in the first place. The government is talking about spending billions of dollars buying firearms from law-abiding Canadians while record levels of firearms are being smuggled into our country, illegal firearms being used by criminals on the street right now, and the government is doing nothing about it. Of course, back in those days, we also had the HRDC boondoggle and irresponsible spending.
At that time, those were huge issues that brought down a minority Liberal government, but the context is much different today. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars more in deficit spending over the years and our fiscal situation is on the brink of disaster. We have not seen it this tough since the Trudeau years of the 1970s and 1980s. The Trudeau legacy was very difficult for subsequent governments to dig out of. In fact, as I often remind my Liberal colleague across the way, it was the Martin-Chrétien Liberal government that had to cut record levels in spending for health care, social services and education. Because of the policies of the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties, there had to be 32% cut, absolutely cut, from spending on health care, social services and education, through government transfers, in 1995. That legacy has obviously continued and worsened today.
We are in a worse situation today because of subsequent governments within that same legacy. I believe that out of 25 budgets, there were 24 deficits. That is intolerable when we look at the context of what we are discussing today. We need to get to the bottom of this. As we work to get to the bottom of this, I think the one thing that would help right now would be, quite honestly, if the Prime Minister finally had a realization, if he listened to some of his caucus colleagues who are speaking out. If there is a lot of confidence over there, maybe we will hear that in their questions: declarations of confidence in the Liberal government's approach to things.
If the Liberals are so confident in their approach, maybe we could have an election. Maybe this would be the time. It is the longest-serving minority Parliament in history because of the support the NDP has given the Liberals, to prop it up. Maybe it is time we have an election and take it to the people. If the hon. member over there and his colleagues are so confident, surely their fortunes would turn around and they would be confident in having an election based on the policies of the government, a carbon tax election, which so many Canadians are calling for.