Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to rise in the House today and speak to this question of privilege, which has been going on for a month now. Nevertheless, I rise with a deep sense of frustration over the fact that today, as always, we are again discussing a scandal of alarming proportions.
It is a scandal that once again highlights the Liberal government's irresponsibility, corruption, and contempt for the people of this land. It has paralyzed the House of Commons for a month now. It is the scandal involving Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC.
Once again, the Liberal government has broken trust with Canadians by misappropriating nearly $400 million of public funds for its cronies, only to later try to sweep its mistakes under the rug, as usual. Those days are over. There will be no more cover-ups. We will not allow it to carry on with utter impunity and disdain for Canadians, for all my colleagues here, and for the House.
The House ordered that the documents be produced in order to expose all of SDTC's practices. All of us, including the Speaker, demanded that essential documents be handed over so that the RCMP can thoroughly investigate the current Liberal government's questionable activities. We are not asking the Liberals to do us a favour. We are not asking them to do this out of the goodness of their hearts. We are simply asking them to respect Canadians and the authority of the House, especially that of the chair, and to respect the authority of all the Canadians we represent. It is a demand that is part of the legitimate and necessary exercise of the powers of the House. It is a demand that represents the interests of Canadians.
What is this Liberal government doing in response? It is doing what it does best, what it always does: It is shirking its responsibilities and trying to circumvent decisions that make it uncomfortable. It refuses to provide the RCMP with the documents in their entirety, meaning unredacted. That is essentially what we are asking. It is not complicated. This is a serious breach of parliamentary privilege. More than a breach, it is a real shattering of our privilege. It is a direct affront to our democratic institution. It is an attack, a threat, a disgrace.
What is important to understand about SDTC is that we are not talking about a few omissions or administrative errors. What we are seeing is a deliberate strategy, a finely tuned pattern of manipulation to protect all those profiting from this corruption at the expense of honest Canadians.
Let me digress for a moment. This is not the first time I have spoken on this issue in the past month. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, where my colleagues and I heard a wide range of testimony. I know that some of my colleagues on other committees have also heard testimony. Just yesterday, we heard from the former industry minister, who was responsible at the time for this fund, a so-called “independent” organization. The current minister was forced to shut down the fund last June because the scandal had broken and all the corruption had been uncovered. Inevitably, thanks to us, the minister had no choice. The Liberals say that the fund is independent, but in reality, it was the minister who made the decision to shut it down. They obviously do have a responsibility.
I want to recap the facts so everyone can fully grasp the scale of this scandal. This is not a recent affair, nor is it an isolated event. The Auditor General's report published last June reveals damning details. SDTC gave hundreds of millions of dollars to projects that either were ineligible or represented a conflict of interest. The ineligible projects were those that demonstrated no environmental benefit. SDTC is a program that has been around for a very long time. Its goal was to use new technologies to find—
Mr. Speaker, someone's telephone is ringing. It is not mine.