Debates of Oct. 3rd, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in this House on behalf of the great people of southwest Saskatchewan. It is particularly an honour to speak to the privilege motion that we are debating here once again today.

Back in 2019, when I ran in my nomination, the government was embroiled in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, and that was not the first scandal that the government was dealing with, either. We all know about the Prime Minister's lavish trip that he took with the Aga Khan that he did not even bother to check with the Ethics Commissioner on, and he was guilty of that. We know that trip is one of many of the Prime Minister's ethical lapses. The Aga Khan just so happened to be getting millions and millions of taxpayers dollars handed to him through his organization. Of course, the Prime Minister being closely connected to him put the Prime Minister in a direct conflict of interest, so we do know that he has an ethics report to his name because of that.

In the SNC-Lavalin scandal, we all remember how the Prime Minister was also putting pressure on the Attorney General at the time, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to give SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement so that the company could avoid having to go to court for its wrongful dealings. This led to the Prime Minister dismissing her from Cabinet because she would not bow to his wishes. This then led to Jane Philpott joining her on the sidelines because she stood up for her colleague. These are two very strong and competent females that the Prime Minister was all too happy to sideline because of their firm commitment to truth, transparency and doing what is right by Canadians. Conveniently, we later found out that the RCMP chose to not investigate the Prime Minister for his involvement in pressuring the Attorney General because there was an election upcoming and the RCMP did not think it was in the public interest to investigate him during that time. It was absolutely in the public interest for the RCMP to investigate criminal wrongdoing by the Prime Minister, if there was any in that particular case. The RCMP still have not investigated him, despite the fact that we all know that there is that cloud hanging over the Prime Minister's head with his dealings with SNC-Lavalin.

One of my first speeches in the House of Commons as an MP was in relation to the Peschisolido Report, which was a report from the Ethics Commissioner about former Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido. I talked then about how, as a new member of Parliament, it was unfortunate that this is what I was getting to speak about as a newer member of Parliament, because of the culture of corruption that was permeating throughout the government from the top down. That was back in 2019.

Why am I leading off with these three stories about ethics violations by Liberals? It all comes down to trust. Canadians elected each and every one of us with the hope that we would be in this place with the utmost integrity, that we would do what is best by the country and do so in a trustworthy manner. Can Canadians trust this Prime Minister? Clearly, they cannot. Today's debate gives them another reason to not trust him or his government. We are debating a privilege motion because the government has refused to produce documents that the House requested back in June with regard to the Liberals' green slush fund, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC.

The Speaker of the House has recognized that there is a prima facie case, which means that we are debating this privilege motion until no MP wants to speak any further, unless the government figures out a way to intervene. This is not the first time that the Liberal government has been found to have breached parliamentary privilege. In the case of the Winnipeg lab scandal, the government was in contempt of Parliament. I know several of my colleagues have talked about this earlier today as well and in previous days. They have done a great job of highlighting it, but it continues to provide context for the magnitude of the lack of respect and the amount of disdain that the Prime Minister and his caucus seem to have for this place and these institutions.

What was the Prime Minister's response to the Winnipeg lab documents and to the will of the House to have some documents produced? The Prime Minister decided to sue the Speaker of the House of Commons, which means that he effectively sued Parliament in his efforts to cover up whatever was going on in the Winnipeg labs. Conveniently, the Prime Minister called an election that just so happened to stop that production order. However, we will recall that, before Parliament ended that summer, prior to the election, the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada was brought to the bar of Parliament and formally reprimanded by the Speaker. Such a thing had probably not happened in around 100 years in this place, but it was not the last time we had somebody come and visit us at the bar of the chamber.

Along with the Liberal government's failure on the Winnipeg lab, there was a whole lot of other corruption going on at the same time with the arrive scam app. Members will remember that the arrive scam app was a $60-million boondoggle. The app could have been developed for substantially less, maybe in the tens of thousands of dollars. We found out, by looking at the arrive scam scandal, that there were other scandals attached to it. One of the scandals involved was GC Strategies and Kristian Firth, who was called to the bar and faced Parliament over his deliberate lying to a House committee. He was found to be in contempt of this place.

It is easy to lose track of all these scandals, especially because the list keeps growing, seemingly by the day. Right now, we have the green slush fund scandal before us. Liberal insiders got rich and were enabled by former minister of industry Navdeep Bains. Mr. Bains had removed the previous chair of SDTC and appointed a new one, Annette Verschuren. She was flagged as having conflicts of interest, but he appointed her anyway.

It is worth noting that SDTC had run without conflict for decades across both previous Liberal and Conservative governments. However, as soon as the current Liberal government took control of it, from day one, problems began. The Auditor General took a look at some of the contracts and found $390 million in inappropriate contracts. One of the whistle-blowers 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. 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.

They went on to say:

...I think the current government is more interested in protecting themselves and protecting the situation [from] being a public nightmare. They would rather protect wrongdoers and financial mismanagement than have to deal with a situation like SDTC in the public sphere.

That is a damning indictment of the government from a brave, common-sense public servant who recognizes the importance of integrity and honesty. We need more public servants of this type to serve the country.

What has happened so far as a result of this corruption? The Liberals had to freeze the SDTC funding to get a handle on what was happening and do some damage control, but we still do not know how much more there is to this story. However, the Liberals are ignoring the concern so that they can just move on and resume the funding for it again. They have claimed that they strengthened the contribution agreements that govern the rules over how SDTC can allocate funding. At the industry committee, we tried to get a motion passed that would produce the contribution agreement to see what was included in it. If they had made some changes, we wanted to see the contribution agreement to see what that framework would be like for SDTC to allocate funding. However, the Liberals blocked it, which leaves us wondering why. For all we know, the same companies that were conflicted when the funding was halted will still be conflicted with the funding flowing once again. Given the Liberal track record, they would not dare demand that the conflicted companies withdraw from the fund, and they definitely would not ask them to repay the misappropriated funds.

Now, do members remember Kristian Firth? He was the one called to the bar for grifting taxpayers out of a sum of $200 million from his basement company called GC Strategies. I was talking about that earlier. However, the Liberals were not willing to demand that he repay the money.

We are going to go back in history a little, probably a long way back in Canadian history, certainly before my time on earth. Centre Block used to have a jail cell in the basement for people like Kristian Firth who committed crimes against the Crown, and they were to remain there until their debts were paid.

Let us contrast that with the treatment that Kristian Firth actually got. He waltzed in through the door of the House, sat down at a desk behind the golden bar and had to face Parliament for two hours. He sat there and gave answers, offering some clarifications back and forth. The very last question that was asked him, by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was whether he had any shame. He said, “I am not ashamed.” Then he got up, waltzed right out the door, walked down the stairs and out to the street, hopped in his car and drove away.

I have done some searching and looked in a few places to try to see whether I can find it, and if it exists out there I will happily stand to be corrected, but as far as I know, the Liberal government still has not demanded that Mr. Firth pay back taxpayers for committing fraud against them. That is absolutely shameful.

The supremacy of Parliament used to mean something in this country. However, the Prime Minister continues to undermine its authority at every turn. Canadians see this, and they do not trust the government. After nine years, faith in our institutions is at an all-time low. Rather than work to rebuild trust, here we are once again debating the privilege motion because of the government's refusal to accept the will of Parliament and produce the documents for the RCMP.

It is clear that the government sees no wrongdoing in connected insiders' abusing taxpayer money to enrich themselves. In fact, it seems as though the government is even encouraging it to happen, because it happens so often with the current group of Liberals. Why else would former minister Bains be so comfortable with appointing a chair who was known to be, and he was even warned about this, in conflict of interest?

While I am speaking about former minister Bains, I will add that he was also part of the decision-making process in 2019 to award Telesat, a broadband satellite company that does not have any satellites or provide any service to households, 600 million taxpayer dollars in a contribution agreement that Telesat told stakeholders was part of its projected $1.2 billion in revenue over 10 years. Conveniently, Telesat had just had a drop in revenue of just under $600 million, from 2017 to 2018. It must be nice to have friends in high places.

I am going to quote from its 2019 year-end statement that it put out to the public. It said that the money was “to ensure access to affordable high-speed Internet connectivity across rural and remote areas of Canada through the development of Telesat’s LEO Satellite Constellation.” It is a company with no satellites and no broadband.

It did not stop there with Telesat, which is projected to have $5.5 billion in debt while struggling to return a profit. From 2017 to the current day, its revenue is on its way down. This is the same Telesat that the government just gave another $2.14 billion after having also given $1.44 billion to it in 2021.

We also learned that the CEO happens to be a good friend with none other than Mark Carney, or should we call him Mark “conflict of interest” Carney, who is the new adviser on all things financially related to the Liberal government. Mark Carney becomes the adviser of the government and Telesat gets a $2.14-billion handout. We can look at some of the stock shares, as the pricing has been changing. It is pretty remarkable how the timing seems to work.

This also happens to be the same Mark Carney who just recently sent out a fundraising request on behalf of the Liberal Party to it membership. There were already questions that needed to be asked about the best use of tax dollars, but once again it is starting to look suspicious. Today we are focused on the breach of privilege related to the green slush fund, because the Liberals have a pattern of covering up corruption. If there is something amiss with the funding for Telesat, it should come as no surprise to anybody.

With a deal like that, there should at least be some guardrails in place so that the benefit goes to Canadians who need it instead of corporate executives who are good buddies with current and future Liberal politicians. It all just needs to stop. We need a government that will follow common sense and bring home much-needed transparency, accountability and integrity.

The Conservatives are committed to restoring public trust in our institutions. When we say that we will stop the crime, this is an aspect of it. Robbing the taxpayer is a serious offence, and we will stop Liberal grifting, which has gone on for far too long in this place under the Prime Minister and under the members of his caucus. This is something the Conservatives take seriously, and we will make sure that we get it right.

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands spoke of transparency and has been in the media lately. For transparency, Canadians would like to know about that. The member has supposedly been on an all-expenses-paid trip to Florida on an anti-abortion speaking tour at southern churches. That may or may not be true, because when other members of Parliament stood up in this House to say that members being in the United States—

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

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I am not sure if the member knows where he is, but we are debating a privilege motion on the green slush fund, on SDTC and on the Speaker's ruling about the House's breach regarding the production of documents, not the issue the member noted.

[An hon. member]

He is very new.

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

Madam Speaker, I guess he is new, so I will help by informing him that this is a privilege motion and he has to be relevant to it.

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

It is not the House that is in breach.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, to go back to my point with respect to transparency, if someone wants to talk about transparency, they should also demonstrate some.

Has the member of Parliament for Cypress Hills—Grasslands been to Florida for all-expense-paid anti-abortion tours or not?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of points on that.

When the Prime Minister took his trip with the Aga Khan, he did not bother to consult with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. I went to Florida. I submitted to the commissioner where I was going and what I was doing. I filed that with him and got the approval to go. Guess what. I do not have a conflict of interest report in my name. The Prime Minister does.

The member is actively spreading misinformation, as is the government. Every single person who has talked about this in the chamber for the past week has been deliberately spreading misinformation. I did not attend an anti-abortion rally. That is fake news. The Liberals want it to be true because they are plummeting so far down in the polls that they are desperate to paint any kind of false narrative they want.

The member should be ashamed of himself and should be ashamed of spreading misinformation.

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

Madam Speaker, I was wondering whether my colleague has any ideas as to what measures could be put in place to prevent this kind of situation from happening again, to prevent the government from simply refusing to give access to documents and getting away with it as it is now.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, one of the most important parts to what is missing here is that the government should just operate in an ethical manner. We have seen this happen over and over again. This is not the first time the House has requested documents. It is not the first time the House has been blocked after a request for the production of documents. I am sure the member has been at committees, as it has happened multiple times, where the committee has tried to get documents but does not get them, or, if the committee does get them, they have writing on them with a black sharpie marker that goes straight across, etching them out.

Transparency, honesty and ethical accountability need to begin and end with the government. It needs to respect the will and supremacy of Parliament.

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

Madam Speaker, one of the easiest ways to avoid a conflict is not to appoint chairs to a government agency overseeing a billion dollars, in my view. They had a conflict and were doing business and should not have been appointed. The Prime Minister's Office and the former minister were warned by the organization and they ignored it.

I would ask the member to comment on that since he has sat in these hearings. Does he think that when we appoint an individual who has an admitted conflict and is doing business with an organization, it changes the tone and can result in the kind of cover-up we have now, with Liberal insider dealings and corruption?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, my colleague has done a lot of great work in getting us to where we are today with this production document. After nine years of this tired NDP-Liberal government, this is the continued behaviour that we seem to be getting from them. It is across multiple departments, it is across multiple members of their caucus, and it is up to the opposition to hold this government accountable. We are doing the best that we can to do that. We are happy to see that the other opposition parties are in agreement on this one to try to get to the bottom of this and really make sure that we hold the government accountable, but also make sure that taxpayers are getting a good deal and a proper deal, and that they are not being bilked out of their hard-earned money that should be in their pockets and not those of Liberal insiders.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wish we could have had a full RCMP investigation on the SNC-Lavalin scandal. One reason I will just throw into the mix for his consideration is that I do not think we actually have evidence that the Prime Minister pressured our former and honourable minister of justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould. The only person we know pressured her was our former clerk of the Privy Council Office, whose former immediate boss, Kevin Lynch, was, at that time, chair of the board of SNC-Lavalin.

I remain very dubious until we have a full investigation. I just share that for perspective.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I would encourage that member to read the book that Jody Wilson-Raybould wrote in regard to this. The clerk, Michael Wernick, was acting on behalf of the Prime Minister, but there are also some very interesting tidbits in her book about the Prime Minister's conduct toward her in regard to pressuring her to get the deferred prosecution agreement. There is actually substantive evidence that is out there, but I am not the RCMP.

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

Madam Speaker, when we talk about producing documents, there is often the issue of redaction, in other words, the fact that some of the information has been hidden. The rule of thumb is to hide people's names and their personal information. That is a matter of ethics, to prevent witch hunts that could result in erroneous analyses and misinterpretation.

Does my colleague think that any properly redacted document, which would hide information like names, telephone numbers and email addresses, would be acceptable and accepted?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I think there is a fine line here about naming individuals. If it is just the name of a public servant who was working on a certain case, but was not part of the conflict, then of course that particular individual would have the right to privacy.

Where I want to make sure that we get this right is if someone is applying for public funding, and like Kristian Firth, for example, found to be stealing money from the taxpayer and committing fraud to the taxpayer, absolutely their name should be published. People deserve to know that individuals have been committing wrongful acts toward this place and toward the taxpayer. In that case, those names should be listed.

However, when it comes to people who are simply doing their ordinary job, and they are not in conflict and doing good work, I do think they do have a right to privacy, but not if they are on the wrong side of the law, especially when it comes to taxpayers' money, because this is a public place. Anything that has to do with the public purse is an honour and a privilege higher than any other that we have in this country. It needs to be taken with utmost seriousness. This government has no desire to take it seriously.

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

Madam Speaker, the member made reference to when Centre Block had a jail in the basement and if Parliament did not like the results of the individual appearing before the House of Commons, that person would go to jail. Then, he brought up Mr. Firth and he said that Mr. Firth came to the bar and then he walked away. He clearly implied in his statements that he believes Mr. Firth should have been put into jail. That is what he was implying—

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, he says, “yes", and we get a Conservative member applauding from behind him. That is the slippery slope. The Conservatives feel not only that they can give any information to the RCMP, but also that they can just throw anyone that they want in jail, even though there was no criminality found as of today.

Does the member believe that Mr. Firth should have the rights provided to him under the Charter of Rights?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, every person, when found guilty, has the right to a fair trial. Mr. Firth was found guilty. If somebody was found guilty, they would have gone to jail. It is not just our opinion that Mr. Firth is guilty. I look forward to one day, hopefully, seeing some justice. Now, Canadians also want to see justice for their $200 million that was stolen from them.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the wonderful constituents in Calgary Midnapore. Today we find ourselves in a situation of privilege. I will just briefly review the timeline of events. On June 10, the House adopted a motion calling for the production of various documents related to SDTC to be turned over to the RCMP for review. Of course, we have also referred to this as the green slush fund. This is what those at home would know this as.

In response to the motion adopted, departments either outright refused the House order or redacted documents that were turned over, citing provisions in the Privacy Act or Access to Information Act. Nothing in the House order necessitated redactions. The House enjoys the absolute and unfettered power, or it should, to order the production of documents that is not limited by statute. These powers are rooted in the Constitution Act of 1867 and the Parliament of Canada Act. In a response to the failure to produce documents, our Conservative House leader, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, raised a question of privilege, arguing that House privilege had been breached due to the failure to comply with the House order.

On September 26, the Speaker issued a ruling on the question of privilege and found that the privileges of the House had, in fact, been breached. Now, I wish I could say this is the first time this type of privilege has been breached, but we have come to see that it is a practice of the government to withhold documents, not only from the House but in committee as well. It is a tactic of this government and it is an action that obstructs democracy because it does not allow us, the Canadian public and, in this case, the authorities' access to the documents so that they can review the information in full to act upon it, and for Canadians to decide upon it.

This is of course why the NDP-Liberal government, for the past nine years, refuses to hand over documents. Members want to withhold information. They do not want to be judged on this information because it would certainly be found damning. What other reason could there be? They are simply trying to hide something. This is not a new practice for the Liberal-NDP government.

One example is the carbon tax. We had a situation where the Liberal government was declining to release its internal analysis of economic impacts of carbon pricing and refusing to say why it was keeping the data secret, even as it criticized the federal budget watchdog for an error in its analysis of the policy. I have behind me our wonderful shadow minister for natural resources, the incredible member for Lakeland. I know that she has dealt with this specifically in her work. She has faced obstruction of information relative to carbon tax pricing and relative to the natural resources sector. She will remember that this has taken place several times before. That is just the first example where data was withheld on the impacts of carbon pricing.

It is the same reason we are not having the carbon tax election right now, which Canadians want so badly. The government has withheld information on the carbon tax because it does not want to be judged on it. It would just give Canadians more information and more reason to distrust the government, to not feel confident in how it is running this country. It is evident for Canadians when they go to the grocery store, when they go to the fuel pump, when they pay their heating bill every year, and it not just families, but businesses and community organizations, too.

This is just one example. The second example I will give of withholding documents is in the foreign interference review. Here we have an article that states, “Liberals blocking access to 1,000-plus documents, says intel-oversight panel reviewing foreign interference.” Another reason that the government wants to hide these documents is a result of, again, democracy and fairness in our elections. I am actually quite concerned about the carbon tax election when we have it.

The wonderful member for Wellington—Halton Hills was attempting to speak today, and members of the government were chastising him for speaking up against foreign interference when his family was targeted.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am getting sneers from the government benches as a result of me calling this out, but that is what happens when we have a government that does not want to release information to the Canadian public and to the House of Commons. It is disgraceful. We have another case with foreign interference in which the government does not want to release the documents, just as we are seeing here with the green slush fund, SDTC, and the handing over of those documents. It is very disturbing.

The next issue that is very close to my heart is the ArriveCAN issue. The previous speaker, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands mentioned some of the main characters in the arrive scam scandal. This is another situation where, in the committee on government operations, a committee that is accountable to overseeing the spending of the government and reviewing how funds are spent, documents were withheld.

I have a Globe and Mail article. I know that the government loves to quote Globe and Mail articles, so I will quote one at this time. It is titled, “Canada Border Services Agency misses deadline to hand over ArriveCan invoices, declines to identify subcontractors”.

Members may have seen, earlier in the House today, as I was very pleased to share the information with Canadians, that the procurement ombud has, in fact, decided to undertake a review of the bait and switch practices of the government to ensure Canadians are getting value for money and that subcontractors of government contractors are acting not only ethically but also for the best dollar value for Canadians. That is some other good work we are doing here in the House of Commons. Again, it is so difficult because this work is being obstructed in the effort to obtain documents.

I will expand upon the article. Bill Curry always does a wonderful job of covering these scandals of the government, and he writes, “The Canada Border Services Agency has missed a committee-ordered deadline to hand over outsourcing invoices, i.e. documents, related to the ArriveCAN app. The agency president told MPs Monday that she could not provide a timeline for handing over the documents.”

That is another mechanism that we see with the government. It is almost like a form of gaslighting, where someone will not come out and say, no, we are not getting the documents. Instead, they believe that the documents are coming, that if we are patient and if we wait, the documents will arrive, when in fact the intention is for the government to never actually deliver these documents. This is another mechanism that the government uses to obstruct democracy and obstruct the good functioning of the House and of committees in ensuring that Canadians have an opportunity to review the work that we are doing and to judge all of the information for themselves, as they will soon do in a carbon tax election.

I will move on to the next example where the government withheld documents from the House of Commons and Canadians: the Winnipeg lab. Who can ever forget that shameful NDP-Liberal cover-up? We had documents withheld from one of the most serious of national security scandals detailing Beijing's infiltration of Canada's highest security lab. The Prime Minister defied four orders of Parliament and took the House of Commons to court to block the release of these documents.

As the shadow minister for the Treasury Board and a former public servant, I am saddened, embarrassed and ashamed when I see public servants consistently having to wear the poor ethics and incompetence of the government. There was a perfect example of that with the Winnipeg lab documents. The government dragged a top health bureaucrat to the bar and admonished him, when, really, the government was trying to hide and trying to avoid handing over the documents, just as we are seeing with the question of privilege here today. This is another situation where we were denied documents as a result of the government not wanting to be truthful and wanting to obstruct. The SDTC situation today, the green slush fund, is another example of that.

There is another one. My colleague, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, referred to the horrible SNC-Lavalin scandal. As my colleague mentioned, I would really recommend for anyone to read the testimony of the former attorney general and justice minister of Canada, Indian in the Cabinet. I think that it would be very valuable reading for Canadians and give insight from someone who was an insider, who had to participate in the dirty work of this type of governance. She just decided that it was not for her and made the choice to leave the government. She could see the obstruction of justice, of democracy and of the functioning of the House. In that case, this was a result of many things, but today, it is a result of not handing over the documents.

We are in a new era of scandal now. However, another thing is relevant to that era. We can say that there is always a new scandal; it is like Taylor Swift's eras. We have exited the arrive scam era and are into the green slush fund era, but this is from the SNC-Lavalin era, when the government did not produce the documents. I was hoping that all members of the Liberal government would have a chance to hear this, particularly the minister who was most implicated. What I am getting to is the WE Charity; again, documents were not handed over, which was obstruction of justice.

An article states, “The government released thousands of pages of documents related to the WE matter as the committee requested last month.” I congratulate it. The article continues, “But rather than have the independent law clerk redact certain information, such as cabinet confidences and personal information, the various departments responsible for this...program did the blackouts themselves—an apparent contravention of the committee's request.” That is a key word, “independent” law clerk.

The committee requested the documents unredacted. This, again, is how we completely evaluate all the information. When there are no redactions, we are able to read, in its entirety, the information that is there to present it to Canadians. Canadians are permitted, in many cases, to read the documents in their entirety. However, here, we again have a situation where documents were presented and were redacted regarding the WE Charity scandal. It was information only known to public servants who red-pencilled the material. It is scandalous that they did not even use a sharpie, but a red pencil. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office told CBC News that the redactions were done by the parliamentary law clerk, who was following the committee's direction to remove documents and personal information. However, in a confidential letter of August 18 to the clerk of the finance committee, that law clerk said that the vast majority of the blackouts had been done by government bureaucrats, which is not a surprise at all. August 18 also happens to be my wedding anniversary and my father's birthday.

Again, it is no surprise that we find ourselves in this situation today, in which documents have been held back, because thais is what the government does. It holds back information because it does not want the collective members of the official opposition, or Canadians, to have it.

I have one more example of the government holding back information. This is relative to the Governor General's scandal, although not even the latest one. That was the trip she recently took to Quebec, where it seems that she was not able to achieve a level of competence in our second language, despite committing to taking classes. I am referring to her predecessor, Julie Payette, who was mired in even more conflict and more scandal.

I will say that when I served as consul to Dallas, Texas, I did audit Ms. Payette's invoices because she was based out of Houston. There was a problem at that time, and I do not ever recall any discrepancies, but it was information relating to documents that were held back in relation to the former governor general.

A National Post article says, “The public accounts list the $277,592 figure”, which is an easy number to say because I am used to reading them in the millions and getting to the billions now, “as going to five claimants whose names are withheld due to “‘publication exemption.’” That is another excuse to withhold information and another excuse to not provide information, like we are seeing here today with withholding the documents. The article continues:

The document provides no comprehensive breakdown of how the money was spent or even what type of claim was settled.

“Further details are not available for the line item in question,” said a spokesperson for the [Office of the Governor General].

The Privy Council Office also declined to comment and referred all questions to Rideau Hall.

That is not surprising.

Again, I wish I could say that this is just the first instance where documents have been withheld, but no; this is a pattern we have seen time and time again, where information has been withheld from Canadians and from the official opposition because the government does not want us to have the information to further examine it and to bring light to the issues for Canadians.

The irony is incredible, because the Prime Minister has always said, “sunshine is the best disinfectant”. Let the sun shine in and allow the documents to be brought forward to the RCMP, to the House and to whatever committees and bodies require them for evaluation and use, so the correct actions can be taken and the Canadian people can decide.

Another tactic we have seen the government use, and which is being used here again in this situation, is saying that the organization is an arm's-length one. The government just washes its hands of the situation because it is an arm's length organization. There is no mea culpa. However, we we have seen this before. We saw it with, for example, the former minister of transport when there was resumption of travel after the the pandemic.

The minister refused to take responsibility, as the minister of transport, for the actions of CATSA. We all know CATSA. We go through the airport and do what is required to allow safe and productive travel within our nation as Canadians. However, not only did the former minister blame Canadians; he actually said that CATSA was an arm's-length organization so he did not have to worry about this.

We have seen this type of behaviour time and time again, and in addition to withholding documents and saying organizations are arm's-length, we could go on and on about the situations where the government has avoided responsibility: sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, wildfire risks to Jasper, informing the public about Luka Magnotta, or the passport onslaught, which I would love to talk to the government House leader more about.

Aristotle said that character is revealed through actions. Government members, through their actions, have revealed their character. They want to obstruct democracy. They want to obstruct oversight. We are not going to let them do it.

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

Madam Speaker, the member of Parliament for Cypress Hills—Grasslands made a fairly revealing comment when he indicated that Kristian Firth should have actually gone to jail once he had left the bar here. I am wondering whether the member opposite believes that her Conservative leader supports that thought, and if she does not know that, does she support that thought?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is a wonderful thing about the official opposition, is actually our leader gives us, shadow ministers and women, the agency to act on our own, to respond on our own. He does not throw us under the bus and we do not have to consult with him on every single decision. He trusts us. He allows us to speak for ourselves, to think for ourselves and to act for ourselves. I will leave it there. I guess the last thing I will say is that it breaks my heart to see public servants, contractors, anyone who needs to be thrown under the bus will be thrown under the bus by this government. As for me, and I am looking at three female shadow ministers around me, we have voices and we have agency as members of the official opposition.