Madam Speaker, while it is always indeed an honour and a privilege to rise in this House and address it on important matters, it is with some disappointment that we find ourselves once again in this place debating a question of privilege. I have lost count of the number of times in this Parliament and recent parliaments that this House has had to debate questions of privilege related to the actions of the Liberal government. This particular question of privilege is very serious. It relates to the government's failure to produce the documents that were required to be produced by an order of this House.
On June 10 of this year, a majority of members in this House passed a motion that ordered the production of important documents related to Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC. These documents were to be deposited with the law clerk, who would then have them forwarded to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The key word is “order”. This was not an ask, not a request, not a “pretty please, if you have time would you be so kind as to provide this information”, but an order of this House that has great constitutional and legal weight.
To talk about this we need to go back and look at the principles and privileges of this House. The House of Commons has the authority to order the production of documents and that authority comes from our Constitution. Section 18 of the British North America Act, now known as the Constitution Act, 1867, states:
The Privileges, Immunities, and Powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons and by the Members thereof respectively shall be such as are from Time to Time defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada...
That power includes the time-honoured ability to send for persons, papers and records.
Bosc and Gagnon, at pages 984 and 985, explain:
The Standing Orders do not delimit the power to order the production of papers and records. The result is a broad, absolute power that on the surface appears to be without restriction. There is no limit on the types of papers likely to be requested; the only prerequisite is that the papers exist in hard copy or electronic format, and...they are located [with]in Canada.
Very clearly the documents requested in this case qualify under those provisions.
Bosc and Gagnon go on to state:
No statute or practice diminishes the fullness of that power rooted in House privileges unless there is an explicit legal provision to that effect, or unless the House adopts a specific resolution limiting the power. The House has never set a limit on its power to order the production of papers and records.
I know all members have their preferred authorities, their favourite green books. Mine is Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, which, citing again Erskine May and others at paragraph 24, for those following along at home, states:
Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament, and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals. Thus, privilege, though part of the law of the land is, to a certain extent an exemption from the ordinary law. The distinctive mark of a privilege is its ancillary character. The privileges of Parliament are rights which are “absolutely necessary for the due execution of its powers“.
I remind the House that it is necessary for the execution of the powers of this House that our right, as the House of Commons, is to order the production of documents. We are the grand inquest of the nation. Documents have been ordered by this House. Those documents were not provided as stipulated by that order. That is why we are here today on this question of privilege.
Let us take a step back and look at some of the issues involved with SDTC. It has become known as the green slush fund for obvious reasons. The Office of the Auditor General made several key observations during the audit period, which go from March 2017 to December 2023. I want to include a few key points from that report, which was tabled in the House on June 4 this year.
First, 10 projects were approved, for more than $59 million for funding, that should have been deemed ineligible. There was $59 million that went to ineligible recipients. The second point I want to focus on is that SDTC's conflict of interest policies were not followed 90 times. Those 90 times, the organization failed to follow its own conflict of interest policies. Third, the board approved $58 million for projects without ensuring that they met the terms of the contribution agreement.
At the same time, the government's responses to these issues could be summarized in one word: pathetic. Of all the responses I have heard in relation to the Auditor General's report, I cannot say I have ever heard such absurd responses from the government. In fact, SDTC, in some cases, made false and outright preposterous claims. I want to highlight a few of these responses.
SDTC claimed that each project proposal goes through rigorous due diligence and evaluations that are “robust” and “highly credible”. That is simply not true. If it were true, we would not be facing a multi-million dollar corruption scandal. Unless that due diligence being referred to is simply SDTC insiders looking at who on their board is getting their money, it simply did not happen.
SDTC also claimed that it was subject to an innovation, science and economic development evaluation, and that was in 2018, before this scandal happened. It was six years ago, outside of the Auditor General's audit period, and outside of the period when they were clearly ignoring the audit and the findings.
SDTC said that it does not fully agree with the Auditor General's recommendations because SDTC “delivered strong outcomes against these objectives.” Unless those objectives were to push more money into companies that the board members had financial interests in, that is simply not true.
In fact, the Auditor General herself found that 82% of the funding transactions approved of by the board of directors during the audit period were conflicted. Therefore, 82% of the time that funding was approved, there were members of the board who were benefiting from the decisions being approved.
SDTC also wrote that “written records did not fully capture the robust deliberations made,” and, “SDTC is of the view that these projects met the eligibility criteria set out...but acknowledges that the [Auditor General] reached a different conclusion”. Yes, the Auditor General did reach a difference conclusion. She found that money was misspent. She found that there were conflicts 82% of the time.
The corrupt operators of the green slush fund are saying the Auditor General got it wrong, but any day of the week, I will put my money behind the Auditor General as opposed to the directors at the corrupt green slush fund.
SDTC also claimed that it had “clear processes for staff and directors to declare real, potential and perceived conflicts”. Again, this claim completely ignores the findings of the Auditor General and, frankly, the public accounts committee, of which I am proud to be a member. We know conflicts were not declared, and even when they were declared, they either voted for their own projects or took turns voting for each other's projects in the same room without even exiting themselves from the room. The idea that there were clear processes for conflicts of interest would be laughable if it was not so concerning that these things were happening under the watch of the current government.
SDTC also claimed that it further, “strengthened its conflict of interest policies” in November 2023, well after these allegations came to light. More than that, it shows that it only cared about these problems after these terrible abuses and corruptions were found.
By November 2023, it knew the Auditor General's report was coming because that audit period was from March 2017 to December 2023. Claiming that policies have been strengthened and implying nothing further needs to be done after the corruption has already happened is simply disingenuous.
There is a word for this kind of arrogance: entitlement. Such entitlement comes when any organization is so used to getting vast amounts of money for their own projects that it disconnects them from the realities of honest, hard-working Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
This matter has been raised in at least two parliamentary committees, the public accounts committee and the industry committee, both of which are doing exceptional work studying this matter. However, there is still a lot we do not know about SDTC and the green slush fund.
What we have learned so far through the industry and public accounts committees is truly alarming. Those of us on the opposition benches are determined to find out the full story; to ensure that, we need to make sure that the appropriate authorities are made aware of the documents in question.
Interestingly, it is often cited that this is not a new entity. Indeed, SDTC was created in 2001; it has been in existence for over 20 years. However, the problems did not occur until it came under the authority of the Liberal government. In fact, in an audit in 2017, no major concerns were raised. The conflict of interest culture only emerged after board members were hand-picked and appointed by the current Liberal government and then minister Navdeep Bains. He, I might add, is appearing at the public accounts committee tomorrow.
What is more is that the most concerning of these appointments was in 2019, when Annette Verschuren was appointed as chair, despite clear conflicts of interest on this file. Those warnings turned out to be warranted; this past July, the Ethics Commissioner found that the former chair had violated the Conflict of Interest Act with her participation in decisions to benefit organizations that she herself had a financial interest in. It is not me saying that; our Ethics Commissioner noted that she had violated the Conflict of Interest Act.
We also found out through testimony at committee that former assistant deputy minister Andrew Noseworthy was responsible for keeping watch over SDTC but apparently failed to do so. On December 11 of last year, he appeared at the industry committee and said, “To my knowledge, I am not aware of any decisions to allocate funds to projects related to board members where they did not recuse themselves.”
However, the Auditor General's report released just two months later clearly informed us that the system was filled with conflicts of interest; we can go back to that 82% number. ADM Noseworthy's claim that there was no awareness of these conflicts of interest is clearly at odds with the actual facts found in the case by the Auditor General. Either he told an untruth to the committee or he was willfully blind to the corruption that was going on in the institution for which he was responsible.
We also know that, if there was any semblance of good governance, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology would have or should have been notified of these lapses in conflicts of interest rules and of the fact that accountability was absent in this matter.
What is more, we found out in shocking testimony at the public accounts committee that at least one Liberal MP was informed of these allegations more than two years ago. The Liberal member of Parliament for Calgary Skyview was informed of these decisions, but perhaps his response to the matter got lost in the mail.
When the whistle-blower known to the committee as Witness 1 appeared at the public accounts committee last month, they stated that they had informed the Liberal member of Parliament for Calgary Skyview in May 2022. The whistle-blower stated that the Liberal Member “assured me that he took this situation seriously and guaranteed that he would facilitate contact with the appropriate people in the federal government and the Auditor General's office.” However, the Liberal member was not true to his word and subsequently refused to engage.
We also know that Liberal-friendly directors were appointed to the board. A key example of this is long-time Liberal operative Stephen Kukucha, who was appointed to the board in February 2021. This is after he had a long-time career as a Liberal donor, a ministerial staffer in a Liberal government, a regional organizer for the Liberal Party of Canada and a secretary for the 2016 Liberal convention.
Interestingly, shortly after the Prime Minister came into office, that Liberal insider became a lobbyist and advocated for certain energy and transportation businesses. However, he was still appointed to the board of the SDTC, the green slush fund, which is exactly where the companies he had a personal financial interest in could receive financial contributions from the very same government.
Furthermore, as my good friend and colleague, the member for South Shore—St. Margarets, has very ably explained, we also know that the current Liberal minister of environment has had an interest in a venture capital firm called Cycle Capital, which also received funding from the green slush fund.
Finally, I have learned from a current member of the new board that since the scandal broke, none of the money, not one penny nor one dollar that was wrongfully spent, has been recovered. Despite the fact that 82% of decisions were made by conflicted board members, not a dollar has been recouped for Canadian taxpayers. This is but one more reason why the production order for the papers must be fulfilled, as was ordered by a majority of the House.
Let us refresh what we are looking for. As the grand inquest of the nation, this is not only a matter of parliamentary privilege for the House but also a moral obligation to Canadians. In order to meet that obligation, the documents must be fully provided to the parliamentary law clerk and thereby sent to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
I sit on the public accounts committee, which is still waiting to receive a number of documents. This is separate in part from the motion before us. We do not yet have the communications that would indicate if or when the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry was informed that the money was going out based on the decisions of conflicted board members. We do not yet have contribution and funding agreements showing the requirements and obligations of recipients. We do not have the conflict of interest declarations of board members and former board members.
When we put this all together, simply put, we do not have the transparency required, the oversight needed and the accountability required and expected of us as members of the House.
As I mentioned at the outset, this is not the first question of privilege we have dealt with in recent times, but it seems like we are doing this time and time again. Earlier this year, on yet another privilege debate on yet another scandal, the ArriveCAN scandal, I stated that this is a slow erosion of rights and privileges, and that it is not a small matter. It is an absolute threat to parliamentary democracy.
We saw this in the previous Parliament with the Winnipeg lab scandal, which caused tremendous hardship for the scandal-plagued Liberal government. In fact in that case, the then president of the Public Health Agency of Canada was called to the bar to be admonished for failing or, perhaps more accurately, refusing, to provide documents that had been ordered to be provided to the House. In that case, the Liberal government itself took the former Speaker of the House to court to avoid accountability.
On the same topic of withholding documents, just earlier this month, the Speaker ruled that there was another prima facie question of privilege in which the business partner of the Liberal member for Edmonton Centre failed to disclose documents he had been ordered to provide. His business partner is disregarding an order of Parliament, and we will certainly deal with that question of privilege once this one has been dealt with.
The issue before us is not simply a question of niceties about respecting parliamentary privilege; it goes to the heart of our democracy. The scandal is about a tremendous waste of money, where hard-earned taxpayer dollars were used by the board of SDTC to benefit government insiders. There need to be clear and accountable records for Canadians to know who got rich and who is at fault.
We must pass the motion. What is more, and what is equally important, is that the documents must be turned over to the parliamentary law clerk as required by the order of the House.
