Madam Speaker, as I stand in the House today to discuss the corrupt Liberal $400-million green slush fund, the former Liberal minister Mr. Navdeep Bains is literally across the street before the public accounts committee. He is continuing what has been a long-standing pattern of ducking, dodging and diving to avoid any accountability and avoid answering any questions about the Sustainable Development Technology Canada scandal, the $400-million Liberal green slush fund. He is avoiding questions from my Conservative colleagues. It is not hard to see why when we dig into the rot that has occurred at SDTC.
As I begin my comments today, I would like to recap some of the background, because a lot of Canadians may not be aware of just how horrible the SDTC scandal really is. SDTC started in 2001, and for years operated without any cloud of concern, but with the Liberal government in charge, it became a $400-million slush fund for Liberal elite insiders.
The Auditor General conducted an investigation and found that SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that could not demonstrate environmental benefit or the development of green technology. There was another $58 million to projects without ensuring that carbon contribution agreement terms were met. A whopping, staggering $334 million went to over 186 projects in which board members held a conflict of interest. Now, as I stand here, the former Liberal minister who was supposed to be overseeing this and making sure the SDTC ran properly is across the street denying any knowledge or awareness of the 186 projects with conflicts of interest.
The reason the public is able to know what went on is that a whistle-blower came forward from SDTC and testified that “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 [this]”.
Certainly, everything from the Liberal government since the whistle-blower's testimony seems to be backing up the assertion that there is a cover-up in place, that the Liberal government will go to any extent possible to avoid having a real, transparent conversation about the corruption that occurred at SDTC. Conservatives are asking for basic accountability and for documents to be released and turned over so the relevant law enforcement authorities can make their own decisions about what to do with all of the evidence. However, currently all of the evidence is being withheld because the Liberals refuse to comply.
A question that I think is natural to ask is this: What do my constituents think about this? Liberals have gone to great lengths to downplay the issue as if it were not a matter of broad public interest in our country. I have, thankfully, had the chance to speak with residents of Durham about the scandal. It is pretty clear why my constituents are upset, because $400 million is a lot of taxpayer money to waste, to dish out to Liberal elite insiders in a corruption scandal when there are very serious problems in this country that would benefit from taxpayers' keeping more of their money and not giving it to the Liberal Party so it can then send it out the window.
Let us put into perspective what $400 million means in real economic terms for the average Canadian. First, if we do the math, 400 million bucks works out to about $9,700 per person in this country. That is an enormous amount of money for the average Canadian. It would make getting through life the rest of this year a lot easier. However, Canadians were not able to keep that tax money for themselves. No, they were overtaxed so Liberals could take their money and then give it out to their friends. It is no surprise that Canadians are frustrated and upset.
What else could be done with $400 million? We are in the middle of a housing crisis in this country. I am a renter who dreams of owning a home one day. As a millennial, I am part of an entire generation of Canadians that is now looking at a housing market that looks increasingly unlikely for us to ever participate in.
There was a time in this country when that could be taken for granted. People would do everything they are asked to do: finish school, work hard, get a job, pay their taxes. Then home ownership would be a realistic, attainable goal. That is not now the case. What would $400 million mean in those terms? In my community of Durham, $400 million could buy over 440 homes.
That is again putting into perspective the value of the taxpayer dollars that the Liberals took from the public and dished out to their elite insider friends. In a housing crisis, that is completely inexcusable, yet a generation of Canadians continues to have a government turn its back on them at a time when home ownership is a distant dream for many.
What else could $400,000 do for the Canadian people? If Canadians were able to keep that money, based on the average amount of groceries that a family of four buys, according to “Canada's Food Price Report 2023”, $400 million is the equivalent of over 24,000 families buying groceries for a year. Again I will put this into perspective. Two million Canadians are lining up at food banks right now. People going to grocery stores are increasingly feeling the strain of not being able to purchase the things they used to be able to afford just a couple of years ago.
Every time I go to the grocery store, I notice people who put produce or meat into their cart and then second-guess whether they should put it back on the shelf, because they are not sure they can afford what they are used to feeding their family. At a time like this, $400 million of taxpayer money being wasted is infuriating because people are making real compromises on what they purchase from the grocery store every day. The money amounts to over 24,000 families' grocery bills for an entire year.
What else could be done with $400 million? Many people in this country are struggling right now with car ownership because the Liberal government is increasing a carbon tax that makes it harder to pay for fuel and to make use of a vehicle to go to work, go to school, get around and take kids to soccer practice, hockey practice, piano lessons or whatever. The cost of car ownership has gone up under the government.
What could taxpayers do with a car if they could keep the $400 million? That is the equivalent of 24,000 Canadians being able to pay for gas, parking, insurance and car maintenance for an entire year. That is what $400 million would mean to taxpayers if they were allowed to keep that money; instead, it was taken from them to be dished out to Liberal elite insiders as part of a $400-million green slush fund.
What else could be done with $400 million? One of the things I hear a lot from moms and dads in my community is that there is an increasing number of kids who need more services and support. We have, Lord knows, in my province of Ontario, an epically failing Ministry of Education that puts an increasing number of children in a position where the day-to-day supports offered by schools just are not enough to help kids get over the adversity and challenges they are facing. I recently heard from a mom and dad who were concerned about not being able to afford speech therapy for their kids. The $400 million would provide one hour a week of speech therapy in an entire year in the greater Toronto area for over 48,000 children.
When we put this in terms of what the money means for the average taxpayer, taking the money away from people has real consequences. When they hear what was being done with the money, it is no wonder they are frustrated by the current government and the status quo in this country.
The last one is an important one, and I say this as a cancer survivor and someone who has great admiration and appreciation for health care workers in this country. I say this because the government constantly points fingers, as if Liberals were the only people who care about health care in Canada. If they care so much about health care, where is their apology to the Canadian public for spending $400 million of taxpayer money on Liberal elite insiders, which would have been the equivalent of over 60,000 people being able to stay at a hospital?
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, $400 million would cover over 60,000 hospital stays in the health care system we have right now. The $400 million of taxpayer money being wasted is incredibly concerning for someone who looks at the numbers, knows all of these problems are stacking up across Canada and then hears what is being done with their tax money. Of course taxpayers are frustrated; that is just an inevitability. I am just putting what is a real Liberal scandal in clear economic terms.
I would like to touch on why some of the residents of my community of Durham are also frustrated with what is happening with respect to the SDTC scandal, which is that they are big believers in making real, genuine investments in technology. Many of my constituents in Durham either work at or have family members who work at the Darlington nuclear facility. It is an incredible facility in Durham region that powers our local economy and generates a tremendous amount of energy for our community.
There have been tremendous technology investments at the Darlington nuclear facility, including medical isotopes, which are now used to help with cancer treatments. There is also the development of small modular nuclear reactors, which will make low-carbon-emitting energy more accessible to rural and remote communities. This technology is being exported across the world. These are incredible innovations and they are happening in my backyard in Durham.
My constituents know that technology investments are actually very important. The Liberal government claimed that was what was happening with the SDTC, that the $400 million was going to go to technology investments like the kinds of investments that we know could happen with that money in Durham. However, that is not what happened.
In fact, we have an industry that employs 89,000 Canadians and adds $17 billion to our GDP each year, but none of the $400 million was used to support our technology developments. None of it was used to support the nuclear industry. In fact, the money was dished out to Liberal elite insiders who, I recap, were engaged in over 186 conflicts of interest, with $58 million going to 10 ineligible projects that could not demonstrate environmental benefit or the development of green technology.
I can assure members that the Darlington nuclear facility could have used some of that money to continue the great work that is being done there. It is developing green technology and does have very clear, measurable environmental benefits. Again, people in Durham understand that technology investments matter, but that is not what we are getting from the Liberal government. Instead we are getting a cover-up of a scheme that took the money away from projects that could have benefited from it and gave it to Liberal insiders.
I would like to continue by also addressing some concerns related to the police. We have heard from Liberals ad nauseam over the last few weeks that they are somehow doing the will of the police by opposing a basic request for accountability. On that, I would like to say that I believe that this is part of a broader trend with the Liberal government of, frankly, not respecting or trusting police officers.
Just recently, police associations across Canada, including the Toronto Police Association and the Vancouver Police Association, have come out and criticized the Prime Minister and his Liberal policies for increasing crime in our country. There has been a 116% increase in handgun crime under the current government. Police associations have rung the alarm and are openly asking the Liberal government to listen to what their members have to say. They are on the ground and are seeing the consequences of Liberal policies every day.
What are they being told? The Prime Minister and the Liberal member for Pickering—Uxbridge have stood here in the House of Commons and accuse the police associations of somehow mimicking talking points from gun lobbyists. It is absurd. It is disrespectful to law enforcement in this country; however, it is more than just that.
The Minister of Justice has before him, right now on his desk, a report that makes a series of recommendations about the criminal justice system. One of those recommendations is cutting police budgets. Yes, it is a recommendation that would take away 25% of the grant dollars from public safety, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General that police organizations are currently able to apply for. They would no longer be eligible for that money.
If the Liberals were as supportive of the police as they claim to be, they would have just come out and said this recommendation is absurd, that they trust the police and that they think the police do a good job and are an important institution in our communities. The Liberals should have said they do not want to even entertain that recommendation, but that is not what we heard from the Liberal Minister of Justice. In fact, what we got from him is a celebration of that report. He called it “history-making” and “an important milestone”.
This recommendation is absurd at face value. The more we look at it, the more we cannot even believe the Liberals would celebrate these kinds of policies. However, what we are asking them to do is turn over documents to the police and trust them to make their own decision about what to do with them. That is what basic accountability means. That is all we are asking for. We are not directing the police on what to do. We trust their judgment to make a decision. The Liberals do not share that trust in law enforcement, and this goes to a long track record of anti-police bias.
When we have a government that has this view of law enforcement, has an antagonistic relationship with police unions and has a Minister of Justice who is celebrating policy recommendations that will lead to the cutting of police budgets, it is no wonder the Liberals do not have the confidence to let the police decide. They should turn over the documents and let the police decide what they want to do with them. This is basic common sense.
I will return to what is happening across the street right now. Former Liberal minister Navdeep Bains, one of the people who were supposed to oversee SDTC and prevent a stacking up of conflicts of interest and the misallocation of funds, is continuing what we have been seeing for months and months, which is that the government does not want to answer questions, does not want to submit to any form of accountability and barely even wants to acknowledge there was wrongdoing. This has been a pattern that we continue to see, literally happening right now across the street, of thinking the Liberals can misuse $400 million of Canadian taxpayer funds and not even have to answer questions on a potential investigation. They vilify a whistle-blower who dares to speak up about what is going on, a whistle-blower who pointed out and called it right that the government would not want to hold itself accountable and would do everything it possibly could to downplay this and avoid answering any questions. For the Liberals, the PR side of this is a bigger problem than the taxpayer accountability side.
This entire debate we are having right now about the $400-million Liberal green slush fund really comes back to taxpayer accountability. The government is not entitled to everyone's money, no matter how much it likes to raise taxes and oppose our attempts to lower taxes. The Liberals can play those games all they want, but the reality is they are not entitled to people's money.
They introduce policies, and policies should be based on some mechanism of trust with the taxpayer so that every time we pay taxes, that money is used for a good purpose that benefits our communities, our families and our country. However, what we are seeing is a betrayal of that trust at a time when we have very serious problems that deserve attention and that could be benefited by taxpayers' having more of their own money in their pockets. Instead, we are seeing people get overtaxed, and the spending that comes from that overtaxation is being done in a way that is entirely reckless. Now there is a chance to have some accountability in that process for the Liberals, but on this side of the street, they are trying to downplay the problem, holding Parliament up and refusing to release the documents, and on the other side of the street, they continue to not answer any questions we have at committee.
