Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I want to wish you a very happy birthday today. Are you one? Are you two? Okay, it might take up 20 minutes of my speech if I were to continue.
Normally, I would stand up in this place and say it is an honour to rise on behalf of the people of Barrie—Innisfil, but the reality is such that we have an effective standoff going on in this place because of Liberal obstruction through not providing the documents that were requested back in June by Parliament. It was an order of Parliament that was reaffirmed by the Speaker. The privileges of its members have been violated by the government because there are, quite literally, tens of thousands of documents that were not submitted for them to be moved on to the RCMP.
We know that there are that many documents because, publicly, we have heard from the justice department, for example, that it has over 11,000 documents that it has advised the parliamentary law clerk that the Liberals have not submitted to them. It begs the question of how many of those documents from industry and science have not been following the order of Parliament, or from Environment and Climate Change.
There could be, quite literally, tens of thousands of documents that have not been submitted, as per the order of Parliament, so we can get to the bottom of this scandal. How much of that information is being hidden? How much advice from the Department of Justice, ISED and Environment and Climate Change to the board of SDTC is in those documents? What was the cost of that advice to taxpayers, and what were they discussing? How much were they trying to suppress the information for parliamentarians to not become aware of just how deep the rot and the scandal goes of $400 million being allocated by the board of directors of SDTC in 183 circumstances of this money being funnelled and approved, which we already knew were conflicts of interest?
The Ethics Commissioner had already deemed it a conflict of interest. I have had a front row seat to this whole thing. It was over a year ago this very issue came to the ethics committee, and as the chair of ethics, I recall we had Annette Verschuren and Leah Lawrence appear before the committee. We actually had the minister appear before the committee, and we could tell, based on the responses to the questions from parliamentarians, with these people who were appearing in front of the ethics committee, that something stunk. Something was not right.
Through the course of time and further investigation by parliamentary committees, and through an Auditor General's report that showed hundreds of millions of dollars being funnelled to board of director members who were not declaring a conflict of interest, we are now just scratching the surface on this thing. This is why it is so important for Parliament to invoke its will and its constitutional right to have these documents go to the RCMP, not to a committee.
It is well known that committees are places where things go to die around here. This is criminal, I would suggest. There are many people who would suggest the same thing. This is why the RCMP needs as many documents as it can to do a proper investigation. As I said earlier, there are literally tens of thousands of documents right now that have not been provided, either through the justice department, or other departments, contrary to what Parliament's order was. That was reaffirmed by the Speaker's ruling.
When we go back and we look at this over the last year, the Auditor General of Canada found that the government, led by the Prime Minister, had turned Sustainable Development Technology Canada into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. We heard this at committee when we had Doug McConnachie in front of us, who was the subject of the recording. Mr. McConnachie had said that this slush fund was on the level of the sponsorship scandal.
However, we found out that we are looking at $400 million, and the sponsorship scandal, not to diminish it, under the Chrétien government was $40 million. So, this scandal is 10 times more. The Liberals knew they had a problem, they knew that the oversight was not being done in a manner that protected taxpayers, and that people were actually benefiting and gaining as a result of their involvement on the board.
The Auditor General found out that SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that, on occasion, could not demonstrate an environmental benefit or development of green technology. There was $334 million over 186 cases to projects in which board members held a conflict of interest. Can members imagine if any of us operated in that way? Not only would our professional careers be ruined, but our personal reputations would be too.
I would expect that there would be some criminal investigation into this when we have that level of rot and corruption going on, with $58 million to projects without ensuring contribution agreement terms were met; they were just giving it away. Of course, one of the companies that was a beneficiary of that was Cycle Capital, which we now know the Minister of Environment and Climate Change was a shareholder in. I checked his registry under the conflict of interest commission tonight, and although he has it in a blind trust, he is still listed as a beneficiary of Cycle Capital, and we know that it received quite a substantial amount of money as a result of what went on.
The Auditor General made it clear that the blame for this scandal falls on the industry minister who did not sufficiently monitor the contracts that were given to Liberal insiders. In fact, we had, as I said earlier, the industry minister appear before our committee, and he told the ethics committee, at the time, that measures were taken to ensure that SDTC was aligned with policies. We subsequently found out that was not the case. It was implied by a whistle-blower that the industry minister had not been truthful in his testimony with the ethics committee. In fact, the whistle-blower had told us that the industry minister was well aware of what was going on within SDTC and that he turned a blind eye to what was going on. It was not until this became public and became a political issue for the government that the Liberals started actually dealing with the rot and corruption that was going on in there and, in fact, hired outside consultants to come in.
At the time, the ethics committee had asked for the unredacted report. Well, guess what we got? We got a redacted report, the very thing that we are standing here today arguing against. The Speaker ruled in favour of making sure that these documents were given to Parliament in an unredacted fashion.
Again, this is a government that, in 2015, came in and said that it was going to be transparent and open by default, and the Liberals have been anything but over the course of their government. In fact, we see that nobody is abiding by the freedom of information, FOI, laws anymore. At the ethics committee, we did an FOI study. We had witness after witness come in front of us telling us that it has taken years to get access to information and that the access to information system has effectively been broken, which is another thing that has been broken as a result of this government.
However, we are talking about $400 million. What could $400 million go to? It could go to a lot of things right now. There are families hurting all over this country. In my community of Barrie—Innisfil, similar to what we are seeing across the country, food bank usage is rising and people are stressed. Moms right now are wondering, with mortgage renewals coming up and the cost of groceries, how they are actually going to look after their family. Much of the security blanket they had in the past under previous governments is being ripped from them as a result of the cost of living and the housing affordability and attainability crisis that is going on in this country right now. These moms, and many of them are single moms, are worried about their families. They are worried about their kids and their kids' future, and about their ability to be able to afford a home.
With respect to food bank usage, we now know that two million people are visiting food banks per month. What could the $400 million that went to Liberal-connected insiders and cronies have been used for? Food bank usage has increased significantly as a result of the economic policies of the government. Two million people a month, according to a food bank study that was released just the other day, are going to food banks in Canada, a G7 country.
Before I stood to speak today, I pulled the latest statistics from the Barrie Food Bank. Interestingly, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit has done a study, and 30.7% of people in Simcoe County are experiencing food insecurity right now. The Barrie Food Bank had 400 first-time visitors. There are 7,000 individuals every month using the Barrie Food Bank. To put that in context, with the population of the city of Barrie, that represents 5% of people in the city of Barrie who are using the food bank right now, in a supposedly prosperous country, a G7 country like Canada. Of the 7,000 people who are using the food bank in Barrie every month, 37% of them are children.
I spoke earlier about moms who are worried about affordability, about how they are going to put food on the table and about paying their mortgage and keeping a roof over their head. The numbers are an indication of just how difficult it is for families in this country. I know from speaking with representatives from the Innisfil Food Bank that its demand has increased significantly as well and is proportionate to what we have seen not just across this country but also to the city of Barrie.
It is not going to get any better, because mortgages are due for renewal; roughly 900,000 are due for renewal in the next little while in this country. Mortgage rates have increased by about 30% to 40%. That means more and more families are going to continue to be under the cost of living and affordability crisis that is a wound inflicted by the government's economic policies.
The other aspect is the carbon tax. We have stood here and put forward, what was it, 12, 14, 20 or 24 motions to axe the carbon tax. We are doing it not because of a political ideological advantage; we are doing it because the carbon tax is impacting people in a negative way. It is impacting the cost of the necessities of life. Everyday things people are buying, such as groceries, gas, consumables and other things, are all subject in the cascading effect of the carbon tax through the supply chain.
We are hearing about the people who move the food and the goods, and about the increased cost they are seeing as a result of the carbon tax. We are seeing it among municipalities. The member from Belleville stood up today and talked about $1.5 million in additional costs to the City of Belleville based on the carbon tax alone. It does not get a rebate.
I have asked the mayors from the city of Barrie and the town of Innisfil to provide us with the cost to their municipalities of the carbon tax, the impact it is having on heating recreation centres, on putting gas in police cars, putting fuel in fire trucks and heating city buildings. It is significant, and all of those costs end up getting passed down to the consumer.
I know the government will say that it gives rebates. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has already shown the difficulty in that argument. Nobody has ever answered this question for me: If I were to take a dollar from somebody, only to give them a dollar back or maybe less, why am I taking that dollar in the first place? It does not make any sense, and it is just costing Canadian families from an affordability standpoint.
The carbon tax is not going to stop. We are at at $80 a tonne right now. The carbon tax, according to the government, is going to go up to $170 a tonne; it is going to more than double. It is going to add 61¢ a litre to the cost of fuel.
This is a government that, during the election campaign in 2019, said the carbon tax was not going to go past $50 a tonne. The Liberals and their Prime Minister stood there and said that during the campaign. Now we are at $80, on our way to $170 a tonne.
The information that the Liberals provided Canadians at the time, along with the reassurances they gave them, was not the truth. There was concern at that time about the cost of living crisis and the fact that the carbon tax was going to go up. They did not tell Canadians the truth. The truth is that they have gone beyond the $50 a tonne that they said they were going to go to, and it is on its way to $170.
The necessities of life, groceries, fuel, goods that are shipped, and the cost to our agriculture community are all things that will have a material impact on the cost of goods going forward. They will work their way through the market as a result of the carbon tax.
The other challenge that is going on right now is the housing crisis. I touched on that a little. Again, we are talking about $400 million in a scandal that went to Liberal-connected insiders and cronies. A lot of that money could have been used to offset the cost of housing.
Our Conservative leader came out with what has been universally called a game-changing plan this week, which is going to see the GST taken off homes. This is among other plans in our building homes and not bureaucracy program. That would have an effect on people. It is going to have a great effect, because that saving is going to be passed on to the people who are buying the homes, the ones who can least afford it.
There is a generation, right now, of young people who do not just feel lied to and let down by the government, but who are actually despondent. Ninety per cent of them are saying they do not have any hope of owning a home. That despondency is a direct result, again, of the economic policies that have been created by the government.
This is one step in a multistep approach that is going to lead to the building of more homes in this country, to working with municipalities and incentivizing them to build more homes. This is not just for the short term, for two or three years, but also for the long term. This is a program that will be instituted to benefit municipalities and homebuilding for a long time to come. That is what we need to do.
I am going to wrap up with the fact that this scandal and the standoff that is happening in Parliament can be resolved. These things can be resolved if the Liberals follow the will of Parliament, their constitutional obligation and the constitutional right that we have to compel documents. That was reaffirmed by you, Mr. Speaker. We could then get those documents to the RCMP so that we can truly understand and give them the investigative ability to understand just how deep and rotten the corruption is.
The other thing that $400 million can do is buy subscriptions to the National Enquirer and maybe buy tinfoil hats for Liberal members who are peddling conspiracy theories in this place. They have been doing so over the last month. They know they are part of a government that is failing, that has run out of ideas and whose time is up.
We not only need a carbon tax election in this country, but we also need to get back to some sense of normalcy for the sake of all Canadians. This would be a country where people are not divided, where region is not pitted against region, race against race, faith against faith, with the apparatus of the government being used to divide Canadians.