Debates of Oct. 7th, 2024

The House resumed from October 4 consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the first thing to ask today is why we are here and why the House is seized with this matter. It is actually not very complicated. The House ordered documents to be produced that the government has not produced. That is it. I could sit down right now and everything would be done if the government just gave the documents.

There are all kinds of convoluted arguments, like the Conservatives are talking about this too much, but the people who have the answers are all sitting right over there on that side of the House. The Liberals could end this entire thing by producing the documents. These are not documents that the Conservatives have requested, let us make that very clear, but documents that the House of Commons has requested. The government is not doing it and that is why we are here.

It could be over in literally five seconds. A member of the government could stand up right now to say the government is going to produce all the documents that Parliament has requested and we would all resume our normal duties. However, they will not, so we have to ask ourselves why we are here. It is probably because the documents contain many things that the corrupt Liberal government does not want to be released. I do not use the term “corruption” lightly, but when we look at the specifics of this particular incident, we know there was corruption. It is unequivocal.

On June 10, Parliament adopted a motion compelling the production of documents about the green slush fund. Of course, that was supported by all parties other than the Liberal Party, the government, because it has something to hide. The government did produce some documents, that is true, and government members are going to stand up during questions and comments to say that they produces some documents. However, the Prime Minister's personal department, the PCO, redacted those documents. For those watching who do not know what “redacted” means, it means they took a big black marker and covered up all the juicy parts. For anything that could get the Liberals in trouble, they said, “We better not release that.” That is where we are.

The motion that Parliament adopted did not say that the Liberals could pick and choose which parts of the documents to disclose, nor that the Prime Minister's personal department, the PCO, could go through them and take out anything that might hurt the government's reputation. The government's reputation is not so good right now, so it must be really bad if they are afraid that the documents would hurt the reputation of the government.

Let us remember that the redactions done by, again, the Prime Minister's department, the PCO, were for a Prime Minister who has been convicted not once but twice of ethics violations. Also, when the PCO was redacting those documents, let us be clear that it was not redacting that fund members met, had a couple of coffees, decided a company was at arm's length and had no conflict of interests, and gave it some funding. That was not what was redacted. What has been clearly redacted are things the Liberals know will be damaging, which is why we are here.

Parliament is supreme, and Parliament does not take on these powers on a whim. As I said before, this was supported by all of the parties, so it is not about one party trying to gang up on another. This is by the will of Parliament. Parliament has said that it wants the documents produced and that it does not want them to be redacted, because that was not in the order of Parliament. Parliament said it wants all of the documents.

We had to fight to get here. It is not as though the Liberal government agreed that the fund did not operate well, that there were some problems and that we should get to the bottom of them, and then provided the documents. No. There was a long, painful process where we had to continuously push and push to get the government to where we are today. It is the Liberals' continuous refusal to produce the documents, whether at committee or any other time, that has led us to where we are today, with Parliament adopting a motion.

Parliament does not take this lightly. We do not do this all the time. It is a rare and exceptional circumstance when Parliament demands the production of documents, and when it does so, the government should respect Parliament to follow the order. The order was not for redacted documents that the Prime Minister's personal PCO chose to redact. It is a flagrant violation of the will of Parliament.

That is why we are here. That is why this is going on, and it could all end in five seconds. The Liberals could just produce the unredacted documents. Members have now been pushing this issue for three days in Parliament. At any time, they could have done that, but they are not, and we have to ask ourselves why. These documents must contain so much evidence of corruption by the Liberal crony-appointed board members who rewarded themselves and other Liberal insiders. These documents must be so bad that they are willing let this debate go on for days and days without producing them. We can get to no other conclusion.

Now that we know the summary of why we are here, let us talk about how we got here and why we are requesting the documents.

This stuff is stranger than fiction. If we tried to make up a scandal, we could not make this up. Way back in the day with the sponsorship scandal, which I am old enough to remember, a bunch of Liberals were handing out money in brown paper bags and $400 million of taxpayer money disappeared, most of it handled by Liberal insiders and given to Liberal insiders. That was nefarious and secret and we can maybe understand how it went on for a while without being detected. However, this is very different. This government program, which I will call the green slush fund because that is what it effectively became, gave away about a billion dollars of taxpayer money. When we talk about taxpayer money, we have to think about who is paying these taxes in a really difficult time in Canada. There are single mothers working two jobs just to make ends meet. Their taxes went into this green slush fund and were abused by Liberal insiders. Let us unpack that.

The Auditor General reviewed 50% of the contracts given out, and of that 50%, 82% had a conflict of interest. When I was in high school and university, I was really happy when I got 82% because that meant I did a heck of a job. This is corruption 82% of the time on half of the contracts. If we extrapolate that, we are looking at 82% of 100%, or pretty darn close, because I do not think it was just a strange coincidence that 82% of half of the contracts had conflicts of interest. Every dollar that this fund spent had to be approved by the board. Who was on the board? It was a whole bunch of Liberal government crony appointees. What did they do? The unequivocal truth of this is that they lined their pockets.

When we think about that, we can think about the million everyday Canadians in Ontario going to food banks and the tent cities we have everywhere because life has become so unaffordable under the NDP-Liberal government. What does that mean? It means that all of this money could have been used for far better purposes. If we told single mothers working two jobs and paying taxes that a bunch of crony capitalism went on worth a billion dollars, they would be absolutely outraged. They would tell us to get to the bottom of this, because this money could have made a difference in their lives and their friends' lives. It could have been used to build housing as opposed to tent cities.

However, this is what happens with Liberal governments. I mentioned the sponsorship scandal, so none of this is new. The sponsorship scandal was about Liberal cronies giving money to other Liberal cronies, all of this insider stuff. Some 400 million dollars' worth of taxpayer dollars evaporated, much of it handed around in shady meetings in brown paper bags. What the Liberals learned from it is that they did not have to hand money around in brown paper bags in shady meetings. They can just appoint a whole bunch of their friends to a board who can approve contracts for themselves and their buddies so that everyone gets rich and it is all legal.

Corrupt Liberal government members do not care about corruption. They told board members to do whatever they wanted while they were on the board, and there were no checks and balances. This went on for years and years. It was not until the hard work of Conservative members of Parliament that this corruption was discovered. Only then did the Liberals start to do a couple of things, but this is what has happened from the Prime Minister's Office appointing Liberal insiders to run a fund where members gave each other money.

Some people are getting an A+ in corruption. An example is Cycle Capital. One member of the board ran Cycle Capital, which got $250 million from the green slush fund. That is outrageous, and Canadians are rightly outraged by it. Imagine someone gets appointed to this board by a Liberal friend and decides they are going to give $250 million to their own company. Why not? The money has to go somewhere, so why should it not go to one of their companies? This is unbelievable.

Did the director declare a conflict of interest and recuse herself from the deliberations on these things? No, she was not going to do that, because then the money would not have gotten to her company. This was all under the watchful eye of the corrupt Liberal government. I use the term “watchful eye” with great derision. There was no watchful eye; the government just let it happen.

The Liberals had to know it was happening because they knew who they appointed. When someone gets appointed, the government looks into that person. The Liberals would have known the interests these people had in various companies. They would have seen the money going out to these companies, so they must have known and just did not care. We cannot draw any other conclusion from this.

Also, this was not a one-off. Let us talk about another incident of this, which involved the former chair of the board, Annette Verschuren, who resigned from the board in 2023 following the opening of the Ethics Commissioner investigation into the agency. Boy oh boy, we know how well companies affiliated with her did. They did exceptionally well. She did not recuse herself from decisions to award money to early-stage companies that were nominated by two institutions in which she was a member. The conflict of interest is unbelievable. During her time on the board, seven out of 25 companies invested in by the venture capital firm Cycle Capital, in which she had an interest, were funded by the green slush fund.

When we listen to this, we have to give our heads a shake. This cannot be possible. How is this happening in Canada? This is the kind of corruption we would see in countries where there are real problems with corruption. The only time we have real problems with corruption in Canada is when the Liberal Party is in government, as with the sponsorship scandal, when everybody was making it rain for Liberal insiders. Now, of course, we have the green slush fund, where, once again, Liberal insiders are getting rich.

Guy Ouimet was also on the board. He is a venture capitalist on the board of Lithion Technologies, which received almost $4 million from the green slush fund.

We can go on and on and talk about this, but the fact is that this is corruption on a massive scale. We have to get to the bottom of it. How do we get to the bottom of it? We get to the bottom of it by the Liberals producing the documents.

One thing I am concerned about is the question of where the NDP is going to be on this. I know the NDP. It talks about fighting crony capitalism all the time. We need the New Democrats to stand strong with us in the demand for these documents. Two days from now will they say that they think we should move on and give up on this? That would be a tragedy. That would be defying the will of Parliament and the Canadians who want to get to the bottom of this, and get to the bottom of it we will. We will get these unredacted documents. I just hope the NDP will choose to be on the right side of this, as opposed to going back into the unholy coalition with the Liberals.

What we will hear from the Liberals is a whole bunch of what I like to call gobbledygook. They are going to say that we are disrupting the normal course of Parliament because of this. When we hear that, automatically remember that this could end if they release the documents. Whenever they say that this is taking up too much time in the House of Commons, we just ask them to release the documents and it will be over. However, they will not, because they know how damaging those documents will be.

The Liberals also say that this will be some kind of charter rights violation and that we should not give the documents to the RCMP. This is also a bait and switch. They are trying to deflect from the fact that they do not want to produce the documents. They are coming up with this grandiose scheme, and we all know this. When we say that they need to do something and they start making up all these gigantic excuses, such as the dog ate our homework, we got caught in traffic, there was a massive pileup on the highway, we start realizing that they are just explaining why they are not going to do something, that they never had an intention of doing it.

We are going to see it in the questions they are going to ask me. They are going to try to make the claim that somehow what we are doing is a charter violation, that the RCMP should not get these documents or that the RCMP already has these documents. It is all smoke and mirrors. It is all just an attempt to deflect from the fact that the Liberals will not produce the documents. No matter how many little circular arguments they try to make, when they try to go through that maze and it goes through 17 different things, trying to explain why we should stop, just remember that if they produced the documents, all of this would stop.

The RCMP does have some documents, the redacted ones. It should get the unredacted ones. We all know why the documents were redacted. Let us think about it again for a second.

Why would the government fight so hard to not release the documents? If it has nothing to hide, the truth is very simple? The truth is very simple on this, and that is to release the unredacted documents. Everything else the Liberals have to say is smoke and mirrors. It is an attempt to deflect. It is an attempt to rationalize their absolutely unacceptable behaviour, their assault on Parliament and the supremacy of Parliament. This is what they are doing. They are going to try to justify it. We are going to hear it in just a couple of minutes. No, produce the unredacted documents. That is where this all finishes, no matter what they say.

The Liberals have been going on a barrage of this. They are all over social media saying that what we are trying to do is outrageous, as if we are in control. They are in control. They should release the documents and the truth shall set them free.

The truth actually feels good. They should just get it off their chest and then beg the forgiveness of Canadians. They should say that the people who they appointed to this board engaged in severe corruption, that they are ashamed of themselves, apologize to Canadians and resign. They will not do that. They should also promise to never to do it again, except they will. It is like the story of the scorpion and the frog swimming across the river. The frog asks, “Why did you sting me; now we're both going to die.” In reply, the scorpion says, “Because I am a scorpion; it's what I do.” Why do they keep doing these corrupt things? They are Liberals; they are corrupt.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have some advice for the member across the way. He says that the truth will make people feel good. Let us talk about the type of garbage the member is talking about. He talks about SDTC and the chair, how corrupt and bad she is, and all that kind of stuff. That is character assassination of the individual. He says that she is nothing more than a Liberal hack, a Liberal appointee.

Does the member not realize that Stephen Harper appointed her to the economic advisory council? She also advised Brian Mulroney. I understand there was even one member who said that she actually donated to his party, yet he classifies her as a Liberal hack.

Why does the member continue to be so dishonest with Canadians in the comments he says in the House of Commons?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Members should be very careful about the language they use.

The hon. member for Dufferin—Caledon.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had worse things said about me by much better people, so I am not really concerned about what the member has to say.

On the specifics, the real problem is that corruption seeps onto people. There are no claims this person had any problems when doing other things with other parties. A few years with the Liberals and the rot just spreads. Therefore, all this crony capitalism was engaged in, taking taxpayer money.

What does the member say when he speaks to a single mother in his riding about the government behaving like this? It let 82% of a billion dollars be given away to Liberal cronies by other Liberal cronies. What does he say to that single mother?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question for my colleague will be quite simple.

I am troubled every time contempt of Parliament occurs. Today we are talking about a failure to comply with a relatively simple request from the House. It makes no sense for us to receive documents that are almost entirely redacted.

In my colleague's opinion, what is so bad about those documents that the Liberals do not want us to see them before the election? More importantly, what dangerous precedent will it set if we do nothing to address this lack of transparency?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an excellent question and one that the Liberals never want to answer. They will not answer why they are redacting the documents. They will not answer about how they could make it happen in a second. Instead, their questions are to my authenticity because they have nothing to say on this. They know the documents are going to be very bad for the Liberal government. That is why they are trying to hide them and cover them up. It is a very serious issue. They are defying the will of Parliament.

This is a very serious issue and the Liberals do not even care. They do not say they are really sorry that they are defying the will of Parliament, but they have a good reason. They do not care. They are defying the will of Parliament intentionally. Why? Because to release the documents would be bad for them. It is disgraceful conduct.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during the course of his speech, my colleague asked where the NDP was. We are right here and we will await patiently the day when Conservatives stop enjoying the sounds of their own voices, so Parliament can actually vote. We will vote in favour of both privilege motions as they stand before the House. I just want to put that on the record.

I did read that the RCMP has these documents and that an investigation is ongoing. When will Conservatives allow us to execute a vote on this so we can get the business going and get this investigation under way?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased the NDP is going to vote in favour of this motion. When we do, we will be there as well, but there is a lot that needs to be litigated in the chamber.

Why does it have to go to the vote? A Liberal member is laughing because this is all funny to him, corruption is funny. All the Liberals have to do is release the documents.

I ask my NDP colleagues to use whatever influence they have left from their supply and confidence agreement and tell the Liberals to release the documents, and then this all ends.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the House can vote on this question of privilege, but the government still can refuse to hand over the documents. I would argue it cannot legally or constitutionally, but what we have seen in every other case is that it will still refuse to hand over the documents. This is why it is critically important for us to take this stand and tell the government that, at this critical point, the corruption must come to an end and the documents must be handed over. When the documents are handed over, then this whole discussion ends.

Fundamentally, it is not about a vote; it is about getting the government to hand over the documents. The NDP has a choice in it. Will its members stand with us in insisting that the corrupt government hand over the documents and be transparent or will they facilitate a way out for it, whereby it will avoid handing over the documents? This is the question before the House.

I wonder if the member can reflect on just how critical this point is and the steps we need to take to fight back against Liberal corruption once and for all.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I analyze it this way. There is one way that this ends, which is that the deputy House leader or deputy whip, whatever his position is, could stand right now and say that the government will give us the documents unredacted. Then we all go home. It is literally that simple.

The challenge we have is this. The Liberals are going to try to say that we should just stop talking about it. In fact, the only reason we are talking about it is because they will not release the documents. That is the problem. We know they are not releasing them, because the documents are really bad. We hope the NDP will stand with us on this and ensure we can put pressure on the government to release the documents. That is what this debate is doing, putting pressure on the government to release the documents. We are going to keep that pressure up until it does, and we hope the NDP stands with us on this.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we support the motion and we believe in getting to the bottom of the Liberal scandals.

We also believe that we should have been able to get to the bottom of all the Conservatives' scandals that happened on their watch: the ETS scandal, the G8 scandal, the F-35 procurement scandal, the Phoenix pay system scandal, the anti-terrorism fund scandal. All of those were blocked by Conservatives in the House of Commons and at committee, so we could not get to the bottom of them.

Now we have recently heard of a new scandal in Manitoba among the Conservatives. Manitoba's Conservative Party paid $3,800 for services from an intimacy coach. This is according to documents acquired by the Winnipeg Sun. This was hidden as rental car fees, but according to the website, it states that “Somatic sex education...is a form of sex therapy that individuals can engage in alone or with a partner”. These are taxpayer-reimbursed funds.

My question for the Conservatives is quite simple. They are always saying that they do not think about sex. However, the reality is, in this case, that it is an absolutely inappropriate use of taxpayer-reimbursed funds. Would the member agree that the use by the Conservative Party in Manitoba of an intimacy coach is absolutely inappropriate?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I often say it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, but this is no pleasure.

If the member wants to talk about issues in Manitoba, perhaps he should run in Manitoba. Perhaps he should talk about the B.C. NDP scandals, because there is no shortage of them. This is not relevant.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I am trying to understand this, Mr. Speaker. The NDP's contribution to this is whether the Conservatives think about sex. This is how serious the NDP is. That is the member's question.

The New Democrats are talking about an invoice from a province and a provincial party. When we are talking about how the government is engaged in corruption and a cover-up and will not produce documents, we get that kind of a serious question from the NDP. It is really sad and pathetic. I am not going to talk about something that allegedly happened in a provincial party that has nothing to do with this issue.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, why do the Conservative Party and the leader of the Conservative Party not respect what the RCMP and the Auditor General are saying, that this particular motion, or what the Conservatives are asking for, is making them feel highly uncomfortable? That is one of the reasons why there is a great deal of concern.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again, I go back to my speech where I said, whenever they come up with this sort of thing over here, we know that the answer is they could just produce the documents. That is the simple answer.

The smoke and mirrors coming from the government is that it is a violation of this, this person is concerned, or this, that and the other thing. It is like when people are trying to solve a little riddle, and they take their pen and go through a maze to get somewhere. That is basically what the government's answer is. It is some complicated, hazy, mazy thing that no one quite understands. It is to try and distract.

Produce the documents, and everyone here will stop speaking.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, and this instance is no different, although I wish it were a different circumstance. I wish we were not speaking about Liberal corruption.

Before I begin, I do want to recognize a couple of things. This is my first time, outside of an emergency debate, to rise substantially in this chamber. I would like to recognize a marriage. One of my esteemed staff members was married this summer. Jesus and Jenna Bondo are now one. It was a beautiful ceremony. It was such an honour to attend and I wish them all the best in their marriage.

I also want to give a shout-out to an Olympic gold medallist from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. He was born in Nanaimo but we will forget about that for the moment. He was trained in Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo and currently resides there. He was coached by Beijing Olympic medallist Dylan Armstrong, whom I went to high school with. He was double my size when we were in high school, despite being younger than me. We are very proud of Dylan and his contribution to Canadian athletics. Dylan coached Ethan Katzberg to an Olympic gold medal in the hammer throw. Ethan was also one of the two flag bearers for Canada at the closing ceremonies. We are incredibly proud of him. On the floor of this chamber I want to give him congratulations.

We hear the New Democrats talk a lot. I have often said that if this were a radio station, it would be all talk, no rock because that is really what we are dealing with. If I could actually pose a question and, who knows, the New Democrats may answer this, it would be to ask whether they will eventually support a closure motion from the government. If this were the old NDP, the pre-coalition NDP, I would say no. That was a party that historically fought for the underdog, that historically fought for Parliament, that recognized Parliamentary supremacy with its limits, though not many, but all of its effective exercises of discretion. That was the NDP, often known as the conscience of Parliament, a party that would challenge other parties to think about the ramifications of their decisions. That is what opposition parties are supposed to do. Opposition parties have a constitutional obligation to provide that conscientious and thoughtful opposition, but opposition nonetheless, when things are not going right. However, here we stand on the floor of the House of Commons looking at a scandal in which insiders got rich.

As a kid from North Kamloops whose parents immigrated to Canada without two pennies to rub together, when I see the enrichment that took place on the backs of taxpayers, I am disgusted. There are people out there who are lining up at food banks as we speak, and Liberal insiders got rich. If that is not repugnant enough, the Liberals here will not provide the documents to tell us exactly who got what, when and why. The New Democrats have said that they will vote in favour of this motion. Will they vote in favour of a closure motion from the government?

I have heard before, and I am still trying to wrap my head around this, about charter rights. Now, it is no secret I was a lawyer. Perhaps the government members can enlighten me and I am certainly open to hearing it, as maybe there is something I am missing about the charter. The charter is meant to protect people from government action. It is always interesting because the Liberals like to use it as a sword. The charter was always meant to be a shield, to shield the people from the government. This is basically what is taught to us in undergrad courses or first-year law; and yet, the Liberals are talking about protecting themselves from the release of these documents. The government is protecting itself, coming in here and saying that it does not want to release this because of the charter. Perhaps the government can connect the dots; I am certainly open to hearing that.

Even if there is an ongoing investigation and there are questions about that, and I understand the integrity of the investigation, Parliament has a job to do, notwithstanding an investigation. That is just a fact. Investigations of this magnitude typically take years to complete. Then we have to go through what is called a charge approval process, where somebody has to look at this and they have to get all the disclosure. We have the Jordan decision, which we know well in this chamber. With all the disclosure it could be years before we actually see any charges if they are merited, which is for someone else to determine. Far be it from me to say whether somebody must be charged. That is for an independent prosecutor to determine.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us with a scandal where insiders, presumably people who are fairly well off, in positions to further their own interests as they own companies, can further that interest. People got richer on the backs of taxpayers. This is so disgusting. As I say it, I feel myself getting more and more angry that we are standing here asking why the documents are not just tabled.

Is there anything more repugnant than stealing from the state? When I say from the state, it is actually stealing from Canadians and from me. Whether somebody is like the 104-year-old veteran whom I awarded a King Charles III's Coronation Medal to, who fought for freedoms, they are stealing from him and his taxes, and stealing from a newborn.

These are the allegations that are before us, and frankly, a lot of them are substantiated. Whether it is criminal is another question, but what we know here is that there was a complete and utter misappropriation of funds, so much so that, if I understand the Speaker's ruling, we are dealing with nothing until we deal with this.

The Liberals do not like that. There is a pretty easy solution. They can put forward the documents. When we get into politics, obviously we think about pros and cons of any course of action. I ask myself, what is going through the Liberal machine right now? What is going through their heads? They can put forward the documents and bring an end to this, or they cannot.

What are the pros of doing that? This is openness by default. I will get to that in just a minute. Why will they not do this? I am thinking out loud here. There has to be something so damning in those documents that they refuse to put them forward and that grinding Parliament to a halt is worth it. They are prepared to put aside their legislative agenda because there is something in those documents that somebody in a Liberal back room or front room has said they do not want to be revealed. What could possibly be that bad?

I always make reference to my parents, and I apologize for those who watch my speeches, although I think it is just my mother. I always think about the common person, and I often will reference my father. He started loading wood in boxcars by hand at a sawmill when he was 17 or 18. He did that until he could no longer medically do it, for about 40 years. What does this say to him?

What does it say to the person who is newly immigrated to Canada, and is looking at their pay stub? They are working any job they can, often because the Liberal government has been so slow to allow people who have immigrated to this country, who are trained in fields that we need people in, like doctors, nurses and other fields, to work in their field. They are forced to work any job that they can take and see their paycheque evaporate into rising taxes, and then what is left evaporates into inflation.

What does it say to them when the government, which is talking about the middle class and those hoping to join it, will not even tell those people who got rich off their backs? This is utterly shameful. It is disgusting. The Liberals will stand up, invoke the ghost of Stephen Harper and talk about how terrible things are right now because of him. Stephen Harper has not been here for nine years. We can talk about a lack of accountability. The government is not taking any sort of accountability. I am sure the member from Winnipeg will stand up and ask a question for the 1,624th time in this place. At the end of the day, where are we? They should just release the darn documents.

I will pause here because it is an appropriate time to recognize two people in Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo who were recently engaged. One of them is a young man whom I have spoken with regularly; I know his father. My mom actually worked with his father when she was beginning as a legal assistant, and my sister went to school with his aunt. His name is Spencer Paul; he is a terrific young man who is beginning his teaching career. I want to salute him and wish him and his fiancée, Yulia Voloshenko, all the best on their engagement and a life of prosperity together.

Let us talk about a website founded by Professor Matt Malone, Open by Default, which looks at various government Order Paper questions, things like that, and compiles them. Professor Malone has done great work. However, for a government that said it would be open by default, it has been anything but. We are standing here today because this is the height of a lack of transparency. This is a government that promised sunny ways, openness and transparency. We have been here four or five days because the government is choosing to obfuscate. This is not just the deflection that a lot of politicians do on all sides; more than obfuscation, this is deliberate stymying. The Liberal government has chosen to ignore the will of the House because there is something bad in those documents. I question why the Liberals will not just put them forward.

The Liberals will stand up and say, “Oh, but this person really isn't a Liberal; they were Conservative once. Did members know that?” I do not care who they are. They could have been my campaign manager, but if they got rich off the backs of taxpayers, they should be held accountable in the House and through whatever independent mechanisms there are. The buck stops here when it comes to Parliament. We should see those documents, and they should be tabled. It is the same when it comes to the 11 who have either wittingly or unwittingly helped hostile states. I do not care if it is the person sitting next to me; they should be named. If they cannot be named here, then where can they be named?

This is a Liberal government that has much to hide, but it is getting tired. The expectation is that people will run defence for it and do different things. However, people who stand here and who sit in the balcony at question period ask this: “Why aren't the questions ever answered? Why do we have to ask the same question over and over again?” I would say, rhetorically, to the Liberal members who are here that I wonder what their response would be if this were a Conservative scandal.

For those at home, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, is supposed to be an arm's-length, not-for-profit organization; it is meant to support projects that develop and demonstrate technology. Here is the problem: SDTC executives awarded projects in which they held conflicts, equalling over $330 million of taxpayer funds. Let us go back to the middle class: How many middle-class families does it take for their federal tax burden to equal $330 million? We all know that the Prime Minister has lavish tastes, and he has no problem pontificating about carbon taxes while he jet-sets all around the country and tells people about how they have never had it so good with their carbon rebates, which really do not make up the complete picture. They really do not tell people how much they are actually paying, especially when we think about tax upon tax and how it is levied at each and every single step.

How did this happen? In 2019, the Liberal industry minister, Navdeep Bains, began appointing people who would have conflicts of interest to SDTC. These are Liberal appointees. To those people who talk about Stephen Harper and say that “this person served under Stephen Harper”, as I heard earlier today, they were appointed by the Liberal government five years ago. If we know one thing about Liberals, it is that they help Liberals, appoint Liberals and want to fund Liberals. What did they start doing? They started giving themselves contracts: “You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”

We are here in Parliament. I talked about my roots as a kid from North Kamloops, the child of immigrants, thinking I would probably never be in a place like this; however, if I ever had envisioned it 20 or 30 years ago, the last thing I would be thinking is that a government would be stymying the production of documents over people who got rich. I will make this clear: If anybody who works for me used their position to get rich, or to steal $20, I would have no problem terminating them on the spot. That is what is expected, period.

In contrast, when it comes to the Liberals, when it comes to them having to deal with this scandal, they put up roadblock after roadblock. Why is this? Why are they hiding something? The reason is that there must be something substantial, something explosive. I invite people to watch question period and watch the answers. Watch how little of substance is said. We have these vague references to charter rights. We have, “Well, the RCMP are investigating, so we have nothing more to do.” Last time I checked, we are not the RCMP; we are Parliament. Parliament should have the right to figure out its own processes, and we do. The people and the Liberals, they do not understand that there are actually separations. They say that, as Conservatives, we want to meddle. They do not realize that Parliament controls its own destiny, while the RCMP controls its own destiny. These are the documents that need to come.

In my view, our whistle-blower legislation should be enhanced. There were whistle-blowers who came forward and said, “This is wrong. This is so wrong that I am prepared to put my career on the line for it.” What do they get? The people who bravely came forward got stymied. I am sure the member for Winnipeg North is just going to stand up and tell us the reason. This should not happen when whistle-blowers put their necks on the line so that Canadians can know the truth. The Liberals should release the documents and give us the truth; it will set us free, especially the Liberals.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not a lawyer, but the member opposite is. Having said that, I think of how Annette Verschuren was an appointment of Stephen Harper and an adviser to Brian Mulroney. She was appointed indirectly as the chair of SDTC; she is no longer the chair. If she goes to court, as we all believe that she ultimately will, and we do the work the RCMP has indicated to the House that it is not comfortable with, could we be compromising the trial? In terms of what the Conservatives are calling for, we could collect information inappropriately and hand it over to the RCMP. The defence lawyer for Annette, for example, would be able to cite that, which could cause problems in terms of issues related to the charter.

Putting on his lawyer hat, does he believe there is any merit to that whatsoever?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely not. What charter right is compromised by what he is saying? A person has a right to a free trial, and I will fight for that right for anybody. I do not care who worked for Brian Mulroney. As I said, I do not care if it is the person sitting next to me. Canadians deserve transparency. The member wants to obfuscate. I do not care who they are. The RCMP will do their thing. If somebody is entitled to disclosure, they will get that disclosure as part of the criminal process. In Parliament, we have the right to do our thing, and we should do it; we should not have people from the Liberal government standing in our way.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, from what I understand, 10 out of 58 projects were ineligible. About $59 million went to projects that do not meet the requirements of the agreements between the government and the foundation. That is my understanding.

I hear the Conservatives emphasizing that. They are right, and this requires an investigation. The government needs to face the facts and ensure that the documents are produced. I would like to ask my colleague if he could explain the difference between a conflict of interest, possible negligence and corruption. What I am hearing this morning is that this is corruption. We do not have the documents and we do not know why.

I agree that the government is wrong to refuse to do what is being asked, but I am just wondering why the Conservatives are emphasizing the word “corruption”.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question on the difference between corruption and conflict of interest. A conflict of interest arises when somebody can benefit themselves. I think corruption is actually much more wholesale, and that is not to say the two cannot have any overlap; I think they have substantial overlap here. In my view, when we have a Liberal government that is providing contracts to its friends, or allowing its friends to provide contracts, that is not just a one-time thing where they line their own pockets. This was a decision to systematically fleece taxpayers and to do it in a way that would be covered up.

That is corruption. I do not know how that is not corruption. If a person or a party, in this case the Liberals, deliberately decided to ensure that people get rich off the backs of taxpayers, they were in a conflict of interest. Even an apparent conflict of interest is enough; if it looks bad, they should be recusing themselves. This did not just look bad. This was bad. They should hand over the documents.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will put it on the record again, so there is no doubt, that New Democrats will be supporting both of these privilege motions. However, given that my hon. colleague is a lawyer, when is the Conservative Party prepared to make its closing arguments so that the House can actually arrive at a decision and we can start executing some action on this?

From 2011 to 2015, the Conservative majority government had no qualms about using its legislative muscle in the House to quash numerous investigations, some of which were actually seeking documents. My follow-up question is this: Does my hon. colleague think maybe the Canadian public would see a bit more legitimacy in Conservative arguments if their record were not just as bad as that of the Liberals?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the question really fascinates me. It implies Canadians do not have an appetite to investigate scandal. It is like the people of Canada are asking the government to please take their $330 million and give it to Liberal insiders as it sees fit, that they just do not care. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I will stand here as a Conservative, but more importantly, as a parliamentarian representing the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, look into the camera and tell the member that I will make my closing argument when the Liberals hand over the documents.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP, an independent institution in Canada, and the Auditor General, again an independent institution in Canada, are both expressing concerns with the Conservative tactic, which all of us should be sharing. Those in the Conservative Party of Canada are throwing up their hands, saying they do not care about those institutions; they want what they cannot have, even though Stephen Harper never ever provided these types of documents, but they have a right and civil liberties do not matter.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would invite the member to expand upon his point about what is going to be compromised by the release of these documents. At the end of the day, Parliament controls its own destiny, and if there are articulable bases on which these documents should in some way be safeguarded, I am confident Parliament can work that out. However, the Liberals refuse to do it.

They talk about Stephen Harper time after time. It is like the ghost of Stephen Harper is hiding under the member's bed, spooking him every single night, and the member does not want to give out the documents because the ghost of Stephen Harper is going to haunt him. Give me a break. The Liberals should hand over the documents.