Debates of Nov. 21st, 2024

Committees of the House

[Alain Rayes, Independent, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree to apply the vote and I will vote in favour.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Greens agree to apply the vote and will be voting yes.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #890

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I declare the motion carried.

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 17 minutes.

Business of the House

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it being Thursday, I thought it would be a good opportunity to ask the government House leader what the business might be for the rest of this week and for next week as well.

We have been debating a privilege motion, with which the government has chosen to paralyze Parliament through its refusal to comply with a lawfully passed production order wherein the House of Commons demanded that all documents related to the $400-million green slush fund be handed over to the RCMP so it can conduct a criminal investigation. The government has refused to comply, and as a result of its decision, Parliament has been seized with this question of privilege over that refusal.

As such, my question to the government House leader is this: I understand that she made a big show of some documents being handed over to the law clerk. The law clerk then informed the Speaker and other House officers that some documents were still being withheld and many of the documents that were handed over were still redacted, so I wonder if the government House Leader would tell us if she is finally ready to comply with the House order and allow this gridlock to be solved, and whether there will be any other legislation coming next week or if the Liberals will continue to keep Parliament paralyzed with this privilege motion.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague well knows, it is him and his party members who are keeping Parliament paralyzed because they are obstructing their own motion of instruction. The Speaker very clearly ruled that this matter should be sent to the procedure and House affairs committee for further study. We agree with that. We are just waiting for the Conservative Party of Canada members of Parliament to do the same. In the interim, they continue to filibuster their own filibuster, and we have seen that, because they continue to amend their amendments on this matter, but when they are ready to get back to work, we are here to work for Canadians, and we look forward to that.

As I mentioned last week, we look forward to the Conservatives putting an end to their political games so that the House can move on to studying Bill C-71 on citizenship, Bill C‑66 on military justice, Bill C‑63 on online harms, the ways and means motion on capital gains and the ways and means motion on charities.

I also want to inform the House of our government's announcement regarding upcoming legislation to put more money in the pockets of Canadians through a tax break and a working Canadians rebate. We would be giving a tax break to all Canadians and putting more money directly into the pockets of the middle class. These are important measures to help Canadians pay their bills. We encourage Parliament and all parties to get this legislation passed quickly and unanimously, so workers and working families can get more money in their pockets. We are committed to getting things done for Canadians in Parliament. Important legislation is before the House, and we believe the Conservatives should stop playing obstructionist, partisan games so that MPs can debate those bills.

I would also like to inform the House that the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth will deliver a ministerial statement on Monday, November 25, which is the first day of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.

Business of Supply

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The Chair would like to make a statement regarding the current supply period ending December 10, 2024.

Since September 26, 2024, the House has been seized with—

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, interpretation is not working. Even from the time the House leader was speaking, there has been no interpretation on Zoom.

Sitting Suspended

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

We will suspend for a moment while we investigate this issue.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 3:52 p.m.)

(The House resumed at 3:55 p.m.)

Sitting Resumed

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

We will resume.

The Chair would like to make a statement regarding the current supply period, ending December 10, 2024.

Since September 26, 2024, the House has been seized with privilege motions. As stated in Standing Order 48(1), “Whenever any matter of privilege arises, it shall be taken into consideration immediately.” Accordingly, any potential breach of privilege or contempt of the House must be examined without delay.

Our practices and traditions also give a privilege motion priority consideration over other orders of the day, based on the long-standing principle that for our House to carry out its work effectively and authoritatively, its rights and dignity must be upheld at all times.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, explains at page 151:

A privilege motion once under debate has priority over all Orders of the Day including Government Orders and Private Members' Business. However, the debate does not interfere with Routine Proceedings, Statements by Members, Question Period, Royal Assent, deferred recorded divisions or the adjournment of the House.... Should debate on a privilege motion not be completed by the ordinary hour of daily adjournment, this item will take priority over all other Orders of the Day at the next sitting.

Members are now familiar with this principle.

The House also has an undoubted responsibility to grant supplies, which are the sole gift of the House to the Crown, as outlined in Standing Order 80(1). This is the reason estimates are tabled in the House periodically. On Monday, November 18, 2024, the President of the Treasury Board tabled the supplementary estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. The Standing Orders, notably Standing Order 81(17), prescribe a mechanism to dispose of those estimates no later than December 10.

In addition, the responsibility for the estimates must be balanced with another fundamental principle, that of allowing the opposition to present its grievances, through motions examined during supply days, before the House can adopt supplies. These days are commonly referred to as opposition days. Four more opposition days must be held during the supply period ending on December 10.

Without presupposing how or when the House will deal with its various questions of privilege, as we get closer to the end of the current supply period, the Chair wishes to encourage the House leaders to keep these various principles in mind. I am confident that they can find ways to reconcile these important responsibilities.

I thank all members for their attention.

The hon. member for La Prairie on a point of order.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to ask for your interpretation of the impending conflict with our Standing Orders and procedures that you just raised.

Normally, the Chair does not intervene on hypothetical questions, but this one is becoming more and more likely every day and could have very real implications. As we know, we have two privilege motions before the House and probably a third one coming up. However, we also have to vote on the supplementary estimates that the government has tabled for consideration during the supply period ending December 10, not to mention the four remaining opposition days.

For some time now, many people have been wondering what will happen to the opposition days and the estimates this fall. On the one hand, Standing Order 48(1) states:

(1) Whenever any matter of privilege arises, it shall be taken into consideration immediately.

As you mentioned earlier, page 151 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, explains what this means:

A privilege motion once under debate has priority over all Orders of the Day including Government Orders and Private Members' Business.... Should debate on a privilege motion not be completed by the ordinary hour of daily adjournment, this item will take priority over all other Orders of the Day at the next sitting. It will appear on the Order Paper under Orders of the Day before all other orders.

In fact, this has been our reality for the past two months. On the other hand, however, Standing Order 81(10)(a) provides the following:

In any calendar year, seven sitting days shall be allotted to the Business of Supply for the period ending not later than December 10....

Although we think of them as opposition days, they are actually intended for supplies that are, of course, listed in government orders. The use of the word “shall” in the Standing Orders implies that it is imperative that we have opposition days, and here is what we read at page 857 of Bosc and Gagnon:

If the government fails to designate the prescribed number of allotted days, the remaining days in that period will be designated by default.

That statement is important. It echoes Speaker Fraser's rulings on March 22 and 26, 1990, at pages 9628 and 9758 of the Debates. In the second ruling, he said the following: “The Standing Orders list the number of allotted days there will be in each supply period and where the Government has failed to designate sufficient days to meet the requirements of the Standing Orders, by attrition those days left in the period must become allotted days, when no other alternative is possible in order to comply with the Standing Orders.” That is what happened in this instance.

The events of 1990 are not identical to today's circumstances. In fact, there are a few distinct features to consider. First, Speaker Fraser's ruling was about the order of precedence for Government Orders. It was essentially intended to limit the government's usual flexibility in scheduling Government Orders. Today, we are dealing with motions of privilege that are different from and procedurally superior to Government Orders. Second, the old principle underlying our supply procedures is described as “grievances before supply”. It would be unwise for the government not to respect the power and authority of Parliament.

Consequently, we will only take up the matter of supply if, and only if, the House succeeds in adopting Government Orders on the scheduled dates. Page 151 of Bosc and Gagnon explains the following: “However, the debate does not interfere with Routine Proceedings, Statements by Members, Question Period, Royal Assent, deferred recorded divisions or the adjournment of the House”. We experience this on a daily basis, too.

Simply put, under our Standing Orders, all these things need to happen, and they are happening. Standing Order 81(10)(a) states that four more opposition days need to be held this fall. By way of analogy, does that mean that even if the privilege motions remain outstanding, we will debate opposition motions on December 5, 6, 9 and 10?

Mr. Speaker, I understand that these matters are important, and that is why I wanted to raise them immediately, both to give you time to reflect on them and to give the parties time to make arrangements in response to your decision.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I thank the hon. member for La Prairie for his intervention. We seem to be on the same wavelength. I encourage all my colleagues, especially those responsible for conducting negotiations between all the political parties here in the House of Commons, to make arrangements to reconcile these two fundamental aspects of the House's duties.

I thank all members for their attention.

The House resumed consideration of the motion, of the amendment as amended and of the amendment to the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise today for this debate, there are a lot of things I could say, but what I would like to focus on, at least in the initial part of my remarks, is what is at heart here. Sometimes what happens in this place when we debate issues is that some members lose sight of what exactly is at the heart of the matter. It is not just, as in this case, a privilege motion. It is not even just about a scandal. What we are talking about, at least in my view, is $400 million of taxpayers' money. It is important that we remember that. It is something we should always have at the very top of our minds when we are looking at issues in the House, whether it is a matter like this of privilege, the litany of scandals of the Liberal government, government legislation or any legislation for that matter. We should always be mindful of who pays for all of this, and it is the taxpayer.

In this case, at the heart of the matter is $400 million of taxpayers' money that has been forcibly removed from their wallets. That is the reality of the situation. Anytime a taxpayer sends their hard-earned money to Ottawa to the CRA, or what I refer to as the place where people's tax dollars go to die, the money is being forcibly removed from their wallets. They do not have a choice in the matter. They have to pay tax dollars, whether they like it or not and whether they think they are being used wisely or not.

I hear from a lot of my constituents, and a lot of people from all across this country when I am out in different parts of it, about their feeling that their money is not being used even remotely close to wisely by the current government. There is a lot of frustration in this country about the fact that people see their money being treated like it is some kind of personal slush fund for the Prime Minister, his friends and Liberal members of Parliament and their friends.

I can understand why people would be frustrated about that. They work incredibly hard for this money. There are many people across this country who strap on their work boots, throw on a hard hat and get their hands dirty. They do it for long hours, and in some cases it is back-breaking. Then they watch their money get forcibly removed from their wallet and sent to Ottawa, to be used as some kind of private, personal slush fund for Liberals.

It has to be tough some days when the alarm clock goes off at 5:30 in the morning. Maybe someone was out with their buddies a little late the night before, maybe had a beer league hockey game or something and only managed to get a few hours of sleep. They have to get out of bed, and then they realize they are going to work until probably two o'clock in the afternoon, just for the government to take all of that money. Then after two o'clock comes, maybe they work until six or seven o'clock, working hard on a construction crew or something, and that is the part of the money they get to take home to their family. All of the other stuff they got out of bed at 5:30 in the morning for until sometime early in the afternoon is sent to Ottawa so that these guys over here, these Liberals, can give it out to their friends.

This is exactly what we are talking about when we talk about this green slush fund. It is $400 million of the money those people have worked hard for, doing back-breaking work, to try to provide for their families. Instead, it has gone to Liberal insiders. It is important to have that in mind, and it is important to have some context around that.

I would like to get to that, but first, as I mentioned, people are paying taxes and sending dollars against their will to a government that wastes them. Ten days ago, every single Canadian, I hope, spent some time remembering and commemorating the sacrifice and service of the men and women who serve this country in our Canadian Armed Forces. When we talk about having to do hard work, there is no one in this country who not only works harder but also makes more sacrifices and puts more on the line than they do.

On November 11, I hope we all paused in remembrance. I love that we do that as a country and I love that in the lead-up to that day, there is now Veterans Week and Indigenous Veterans Day. These are all opportunities for us to commemorate and remember veterans' service and sacrifice, but it is something we should do 365 days of the year. Veterans have sacrificed so we all in the chamber can have the opportunity to stand and debate issues like we are doing right now and so we can represent our fellow community members here in Parliament. There is huge gravity that goes with that, and it would be good for some members to remember that.

When we talk about issues like the one we are talking about today, a slush fund for Liberal insiders, that is not what men and women in service sacrificed for. They sacrificed so we could all come here and try our best to better our communities, our provinces and our country, and to do things we believe are in the best interests of Canadians to try to make their lives a little better and a little easier, and to provide hope and opportunity.

That is the kind of thing we should be debating; however, there has not been much of that in the last nine years. In fact, I do not think there has been any of it. There have been people who have come here to enrich their friends and have forgotten about the taxpayer I talked about, who gets up and packs their lunch in a plastic bag and goes to work for 12-hour to 14-hour days doing backbreaking work. The very epitome of that, of course, is the men and women who serve in our Canadian Forces.

Service members are asked to go to places in the world that, in some cases, they may never even have heard of before to defend the freedoms of people they do not know. When they do that, all they ask in return is that we do our best to ensure that those freedoms are protected and to ensure that we use our democracy to make sure there are the opportunities and the security we talked about. Instead what they have received over the last nine years is a government that, following the Prime Minister's lead, just looks for what is in it for them. What can they do to enrich their friends?

The SDTC fund is an example of that. In some cases, the $400 million went to companies that SDTC board members were involved in personally. If we look up “conflict of interest” in the dictionary, the board would be pictured there. That is not right. That is not what this is supposed to be about. The men and women who served our country just wanted us to show them good government.

On top of all that, imagine what we could have done for our veterans and their families with the $400 million. I have a number of other examples that I want to share with the House in a moment, of what could have been done with the $400 million had it not been spent to enrich the personal interests of people who were involved. Imagine, just for a second, what we could have done for our veterans and their families.

As the Conservative shadow minister for veterans affairs, I hear heartbreaking stories every single day from veterans, from their families and from the families they have left behind in some cases, of just a complete and utter lack of support. I have often heard this referred to, by veterans and their families many times, as a triple-D policy. The policy entails delays and denials, and the third D stands for “die”.

There are long delays in trying to get the benefits or services that veterans and their families are entitled to by virtue of the service they gave this country. They deserve the benefits and services. It is the least we can do. However, they face not weeks or months of delays, but we are literally talking years of delays. I hear every single day from veterans who have waited years.

I would like everyone to stop and let that sink in. Veterans served this country. Then they come back home and want to be able to get on with their life after a transition out of the Canadian Armed Forces. There are things they need in order to be able to do that. There are benefits and services they are entitled to, that they have earned, in some cases with their blood, but they wait years and cannot get those benefits. That is absolutely ridiculous.

In some cases, veterans are denied over and over again, and they have to fight tooth and nail. They fought for this country. They should not have to come back and fight with the government to get what they deserve. That is what they have to do, and it becomes so difficult. In some cases, this is where the third D comes in. Many veterans tell me they believe it is actually intentional and there is an effort to try to delay and deny for so long that a veteran will give up. They will lose all hope.

It does not matter whether that is actually what happens or not. If it is the perception a veteran has, and many of them do have it, then it is the reality. It is not right and it absolutely must be fixed. We have lost far too many veterans. Too many veterans end up homeless in this country. Veterans are using food banks to such a level that some veterans association food banks are telling me that they actually are having trouble keeping the shelves stocked to be able to help our veterans.

We should never even be uttering those things in the same sentence. The idea of a homeless veteran should not exist. The idea of a veteran using a food bank should not exist. The idea that a veteran has to give up hope because they have fought with their government for years for something that they fought for and deserve should not exist. It should be simple. The effort should be to try to make sure we are there and to make it easy for them.

Instead, I hear stories every day of veterans being asked to prove something. For example, I heard the story of someone having lost two legs because of a roadside bomb, and then they have had to prove every single year that they are still missing limbs. That is just one example of many I have heard. Veterans fought for this country. They literally gave life and limb for this country. The injured ones then have to fight to prove they were injured serving this country.

I might have the figures slightly wrong, but they would not be off by much. The Veterans Review and Appeal Board is an agency to which veterans who have gone through all of the possible different channels can take an appeal. I have heard many times that on certain types of claims, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board often ends up, if the veteran persists long enough and fights long enough to get there, approving well over 90% of the claims at that level. Why did it have to take years of fighting with the government to get there? Why could we not approve the claims and let veterans have what they need to move on with life?

On top of it all, I could get into the fact that situations come up in this country where, in the last few years under the Liberal government, veterans have come looking for help to live their life. The words that have been used by officials at Veterans Affairs to veterans are that if living their life is so hard they could offer them assisted death. That has actually happened; I have heard it from a number of veterans. I have heard of cases like this numerous times. It causes what is called sanctuary trauma, where the institution that is supposed to help someone actually causes more trauma.

I was talking to a veteran last week who told me that his wife knows before he even tells her when he has been on the phone with Veterans Affairs, because he is agitated. He said that the worst days he has are the days he has to talk to Veterans Affairs on the phone. Before she even asks him whether he has been talking to Veterans Affairs, she knows the answer, because it affects him that badly. I can only imagine what a veteran like that, after all of that, must think when they hear about stuff like the SDTC fund on top of it.

The government is fighting tooth and nail to ensure that it does not pay out benefits to a veteran who has earned them. Then $400 million is given to its friends through a green slush fund. Can members imagine what that must feel like to a veteran who has fought for years, and in some cases has had to take the government to court, to get what they are entitled to? I think it is important we remember that.

I have heard Liberal members talk about the fact that they feel like the debate is a big waste of time and that we should be doing all these other things here, and so on. I do not disagree; it would be nice to be doing those things. However, at the end of the day, the heart of the matter is about the $400 million that was forcibly removed from the pockets of taxpayers and given out to their friends, Liberal insiders.

Veterans have had to scratch and claw to try to get what they have coming to them, what they deserve and what they are owed by virtue of the service they gave to this country. Then they watch the Liberals steal it for their friends. I can only imagine how horrible that must make a veteran feel. It is disgraceful and shameful.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I was listening very intently to the member opposite. He mentioned 11 days ago, and I have a number for him. In seven days, my daughter-in-law is deploying to the Middle East for the next six months. I have two sons in the military and a daughter-in-law in the military.

I agree with the Speaker's ruling that what happened needs to be looked at. I sit on the procedure and House affairs committee, and I want to find out what happened. I think the member opposite knows that I am a pretty straight shooter on files with respect to Veterans Affairs and the military, and I want to know. However, there is also a very important piece of legislation that is stalled right now and that all members in this House support, Bill C-66, on our military justice system, which would protect members of the Canadian Armed Forces. We all agree with this, but it cannot move forward because we are continuing to debate a privilege motion, which is important, and I do not disagree, but the Speaker just ruled that he is urging the parties to come together and move forward. I am asking the member, who cares so much about military and veterans: Can we agree to get this piece of legislation back in front of the House? Can we come together for veterans, for the military and for families like mine?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Speaker, first of all, let me say how much I appreciate the service of the member's family members and of herself. I have had conversations with her about the military and our veterans, and I appreciate the sincerity of those conversations, I always have. I will work with anyone who is willing to be there for our veterans.

The unfortunate part, of course, is that what we have seen over the last nine years has not been a government that supports our men and women in uniform, and has not been a government that supports our veterans. We see the effects of that every single day. We have a recruitment crisis. We have veterans who are struggling with homelessness and with food banks. It is disgraceful.

In terms of working together, yes, there is no question. The simple answer to what is being requested here is that the government should simply comply. It is the right thing to do. If it is the right thing to do, then why can the government not just do it? We could then all work together on a number of important things. I would be thrilled to be able to do that. This government just simply needs to comply with what is being required here. Also, while I have the floor, I may as well say that it needs to start showing some respect and appreciation for those who serve this country and have served this country, because right now, it is not happening.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I can well understand my colleague's indignation about the fact that veterans are not being prioritized. I was particularly moved by his story about the veteran who is missing two legs and has to prove over and over that they are still missing two legs. We are not talking about a liver, we are talking about legs. Legs do not grow back.

This story reminded me of an email I received from a doctor, who told me that doctors have to fill out 16 pages of paperwork in order for a person living with a disability to receive the benefits owed to them by the Canadian government. If we multiply the time that takes by the doctor's salary and by the number of people living with a disability, it costs Quebeckers and Canadian taxpayers approximately $1 billion a year to prove that a person is living with a disability.

We see what is happening with the red tape. In my colleague's opinion, would it be possible to cut back on the paperwork and ensure that the government, when asked, can provide paperwork that is actually useful?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member that there is a big problem in this country when it comes to all this red tape. It is absolutely necessary to find solutions to this situation.

Common-sense Conservatives will offer many solutions to Canadians.

While I have the floor, she did mention the story of the soldier who tried to prove over and over about missing legs. For her benefit and for the benefit of everyone in the House, I want to tell another story, briefly, about a veteran in Quebec. She has a back injury as a result of her service and she requires a wheelchair lift to be able to get out of her wheelchair and into her home. Right now, she has to literally drag herself across a gravel driveway to get into her home. The Liberal government has been fighting with her for years trying to deny her that wheelchair lift. She was actually one of the individuals I mentioned who, when she was begging for help, was told that, if it was so difficult, they could offer her medical assistance in dying instead. She said she was not looking for help to die, she was looking for help to live.

I will happily report that this veteran is getting her wheelchair lift, but sadly it is not because the government finally stepped forward. It is because her fellow veterans went out and found private contractors who were willing to do this pro bono for the veteran because the government refused.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague brought up some very important items about what we could have done with the money instead. In Edmonton West, there is an organization called the Veterans Association Food Bank. There is one in Calgary as well, a sister organization. We have a food bank just for veterans and we struggle to keep it stocked. It is disgraceful in this day and age in Canada that we have veterans going to a food bank. The sister scandal of the green slush fund, instead of the other Randy, we have the other green slush fund, the net-zero accelerator, which the Auditor General reported on, showed $15 million of taxpayers' money went to a large corporation worth $30 billion that was funding ISIS.

I wonder if the member would care to comment about the government's priority of funding massive billion-dollar multinationals that are siphoning money off to ISIS.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Speaker, let me first comment on the comment my colleague made about the Veterans Association Food Bank in Edmonton. I have visited that food bank on a couple of occasions to just check in with them to see how things are going for veterans. There are actually two veterans food banks in Edmonton. They both have trouble keeping the shelves stocked. I see that in communities all across this country. It should never be the case that we even need a veterans food bank, let alone that we cannot seem to find ways to keep the shelves stocked because the demand is so great.

To the point he raised, those who serve and have served see things like he mentioned, and they see that they are so underfunded. In some cases they are buying their own helmets. Can we imagine the ridiculousness of that? They are having to buy some of their own equipment because they cannot get it provided to them. We hear stories like the ones I have told about veterans who cannot get the benefits they are entitled to for years. Then we hear that the very thing those people went to fight against is receiving funding. There is so much more we could do to ensure our military members have the equipment and resources they need, so much more we could do to ensure our veterans have what they deserve. Instead, we send this money away to places.

It is just disgraceful. It is time we start to rechannel that into making sure our forces have what they need, into ensuring our veterans have what they need. That is going to have a big impact not just on the morale, which is an incredibly important thing, not just on our ability to be operationally ready in this country to do the job we need to do to defend this country, but also on our ability to work with other governments and to have Canada have a place of influence in the world. Right now, with the Prime Minister we have, Canada is not at the table at all. It is time for us to change that.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, here we are, five weeks in, and we are still debating the Liberal government's refusal to produce documents relating to the latest scandal, the green slush fund scandal, as ordered by Parliament on June 10. This is the third time that I am rising to speak on this issue, so I want to take a slightly different approach. I want to talk about the legal principle of subsequent remedial measures, in the law, of evidence.

That rule says that evidence of a defendant or a possible defendant in a civil case effecting repairs to some obstacle that injured a person in order to avoid future similar injuries is not admissible in the court of law. The principle behind that is that we do not want to disincentivize people from actually making repairs to prevent future injuries. The example that is often given is when a homeowner repairs the steps up to the front door on which the postal delivery person was seriously injured the day before. Is doing the repair effectively an admission of liability? The answer is yes, probably, but here is the point. That evidence is not admissible in a court of law for the basic public policy principle that I stated before.

How does that apply to the current case relating to the green slush fund? A little bit of background is in order. The Auditor General revealed some shocking findings in her June 2024 report, which was tabled in Parliament on June 6, I believe, about how the Liberal government had turned SDTC, a federally governed and owned business, into a green slush fund for Liberal insiders.

Here are some of her findings. She found that SDTC gave out the following in taxpayer dollars: $58 million to 10 ineligible projects without even ensuring that contribution agreements were in place and the terms met. On some of them, the applicants could not even demonstrate the development of green technology or any environmental benefit at all. The purpose of SDTC was just ignored. There were $334 million and over 186 cases where there were clear conflicts of interest. This is board members at SDTC voting for each other's applicant grants, clearly a conflict of interest.

One of the whistle-blowers had this to say:

Just as I was always confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement at SDTC, I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.

This is very serious, not just mismanagement, but allegations from a credible source that there is criminal activity under way. Where there is smoke, there is fire. We, the opposition, did what we are supposed to do, which was to hold the government to account. Back in June, the Conservative Party put forward a motion in the House of Commons shortly after we received the Auditor General's report. That order reads, in part:

That the House order the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Auditor General of Canada each to deposit with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, within 30 days of the adoption of this order, the following documents....

There was then a long list of documents that had to be produced.

The Conservative motion passed on June 10 with the help of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. I thank them very much. It was only the Liberal members of Parliament who voted against it, because they were worried. They did not like it. They did not like the order. Over the summer months, they just ignored it. They delivered some of the documents but clearly not all.

When we got back here in September, things got ugly pretty quickly. Our House leader, the opposition House leader, on the first day back, rose on a question of privilege “concerning the failure of the government to comply with the order that the House adopted on Monday, June 10.”

That was presented to the Speaker, and the Speaker agreed with us, confirming that the Prime Minister's Office and all relevant government departments had not fully complied, but that they must comply with this order made in June for unredacted documents. At the time, the Speaker said, “The Chair cannot come to any other conclusion but to find that a prima facie question of privilege has been established.” In parliamentary terms, that is a serious allegation. There was a breach of privilege and that should have embarrassed the government.

It is pretty clear and easy to understand what the Speaker meant, so why are we still here, five weeks later, debating this question of privilege? The answer is simple. The Liberal government is still not complying with it. Why not? We do not know. The government has raised some smokescreens and innuendo, but it has not come clean to say why it is not complying. As long as that goes on, the longer this fiasco drags on, the more suspicious we become that perhaps the aforementioned whistle-blower is right that there was criminal activity going on here.

I want to get back to my original comments about the principle of subsequent remedial measures. Such evidence, as I said, is generally not admissible in a court of law. Did the Liberals actually take remedial action to try to fix SDTC after they claimed they were as surprised as the rest of us were that this corruption and mismanagement was going on? The answer is no, they did not do anything. As a matter of fact, they just wound up SDTC. There was so much corruption, so much smoke, so much contamination that even the Liberals were embarrassed by it. Rather than trying to fix it, they just wound it up altogether.

Now we are really suspicious, along with Canadians. What are the Liberals hiding? What was going on at STDC? Why are we not getting the documents? Canadians want to know. What does the Prime Minister's Office know? What is in those documents that the Liberals are refusing to produce? What are they hiding? Was there criminal activity? Can we recover some of the taxpayer money, $400 million altogether? Canadians deserve to know.

The total amount of money, as I said, was $400 million. What could we do with that money? We could do a lot of good, positive things, as the previous speaker, my colleague from Banff—Airdrie, just said. It could certainly help veterans and parents. It could help people who have been going to food banks who cannot afford groceries in these high inflationary times. Four hundred million dollars goes a long way to solve many problems. It could have been much better used than having it distributed by Liberal insiders among themselves.

I would like to compare this to the scandal of some years ago, the sponsorship scandal that brought down the previous Liberal government. That was only $40 million. This is 10 times as large. This is very significant and taxpayers, I think, need to understand what is going on here.

Things were not always corrupt at Sustainable Development Technology Canada. It had a great reputation at one time. It was created by an act of Parliament back in the Liberal days of former prime minister Jean Chrétien to promote investing in green technology, a laudable goal. It continued its work under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and likely it would still be thriving today if the current Prime Minister had just resisted getting his fingerprints all over it. However, he just could not resist the temptation of putting his own friends in there. He and his industry minister at the time, Navdeep Bains, could not resist putting their own close friends in charge.

They fired the old board and put in their own friends. Many of them owned businesses that were applicants or potential applicants for grants under this program. Maybe somebody could have raised a red flag to say there was a lot of potential for conflict of interest, but that did not seem to concern anybody on the government side of the House. The result was that the Liberal-appointed board created an environment where conflicts of interest became the norm. Conflicts of interest were tolerated; they were managed.

In that orchestrated manner, these Liberal-appointed board members were able to, nicely, award grants to each other. This is the way it went: “Hey, you vote for my project, and I'll vote for your project.” That is what the whistle-blower told us. That is what the Auditor General uncovered. The Liberals broke SDTC, as they have broken so much else in Canada. I just want to raise a couple of examples.

Recent statistics from Statistics Canada about crime in Canada are really quite shocking. During nine years of the Liberal government, violent crime has increased by 50%. Homicides are up 28%. Sexual assaults are up by 75%. Gang violence has nearly doubled, and auto theft is up by 46%. Extortion is up by an astonishing 357%. Recently, the Liberal government has been forced to admit that 256 people were killed in 2022 by criminals who were out on bail or other forms of release.

This all happened under the Prime Minister's watch, with his Bill C-5, which eliminated many of the mandatory minimum sentences for serious crimes, and Bill C-75, the catch-and-release bill that puts accused people out on bail on the least restrictive conditions possible. Canadians are concerned.

This is what our police are saying about the Liberals and how they have been mismanaging criminal law responsibilities and, specifically, their record on gun crime. The Toronto Police Association had this to say, speaking to the Prime Minister: “Criminals did not get your message. Our communities are experiencing a 45% increase in shootings and a 62% increase in gun-related homicides compared to...last year. What difference does your handgun ban make when 85% of guns seized by our members can be sourced to the United States?”

The Vancouver Police Union had this to say about the Prime Minister's record on managing gun crime: “Guessing he’s not aware of the ongoing gang war here in B.C. which is putting both our members and public at risk on a daily basis.”

The Surrey Police Union, right next door to my community of Langley, says, “The federal handgun freeze fails to address the real issue: the surge of illegal firearms coming across our borders and ending up in the hands of violent criminals.”

It is not just the police who are concerned about the drastic rise of crime in our streets and our cities. I heard from a group of CEOs and other directors of a group of downtown business improvement associations from across British Columbia. I am familiar with the work that business improvement associations do because I sat on the board of the Downtown Surrey BIA for a few years before I was elected to Parliament. That is where my law office was, so I am very familiar with the area and very familiar with the work the BIA does. I was happy to meet with this group to hear their concerns and their solutions to some of Canada's toughest problems.

I found it remarkable that this is what these community organizations are asking for. Number one is to invest in mental health, addictions and homelessness support across Canada. Indeed, homelessness is a problem right across Canada, but particularly so in our downtown cores. I am thinking of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, which at one time was a beautiful place but is not anymore because of homelessness, crime and chaos.

The second ask is this, from the community organizers of our downtown cores: to ensure Canada's downtowns and main streets are safe and inclusive spaces by initiating a systematic review across the country concerning the bail system and implementing further changes to the system by reforming Bill C-48, which is a bill that went through the House not too long ago that took a small step in the direction of bail reform. They are saying it needs to be extended, not just for serious repeat violent offenders but also for theft offenders.

They are saying we need to stop the easy bail practices that have become the norm in Canada with the introduction of Bill C-75. The Vancouver Police Department talks about the same 40 individuals having negative interactions with the police 6,000 times in one year; that is every second day for 40 people. Imagine what the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver would look like if those 40 people were not on our streets. This is the message we are getting from community organizers.

The third thing they are asking for is to incentivize local entrepreneurs and commercial entities to form businesses in downtowns and on main streets. This is what they are asking for: give people shelter, keep repeat thieves off the streets, and create an environment where businesses and entrepreneurs come flocking back to the downtown core. This is what ordinary Canadian citizens want.

People are reporting that they feel less safe on our streets. Those fears are now being supported by evidence from Statistics Canada and from credible and, I would say, non-partisan organizations like police unions and business improvement associations.

The Attorney General should meet with people like that instead of just left-leaning law professors from Liberal-friendly law schools who teach their criminal law courses from a pro-accused perspective instead of from a pro-victim perspective. Our Attorney General would benefit, indeed, all of Canada would benefit, if he and the Prime Minister would listen to the concerns of ordinary Canadian citizens.

These are the things we should be talking about, or would be talking about if the Liberal government would just comply with the order so we could get down to business again. We should be talking about stopping the crime, building homes, implementing a fair and competitive tax regime by axing the tax, and fixing the Liberals' out-of-control, never-ending, inflation-producing deficit budgets.

Until the Liberals come to their senses and comply with the order, I guess we are just going to remain in this holding pattern. Here is a better idea: The Prime Minister could walk to the Governor General's house and acknowledge what everybody knows, that he has lost the confidence of this House and that the 44th Parliament should be dissolved and we should call an election. I spoke to many people when in my home community last week for Remembrance Day, as well as in the neighbouring community of Cloverdale—Langley City, where there is a by-election going on because the Liberal member of Parliament resigned.

I am hearing from people on the street that they are very anxious and eager to have a general election. They are happy with a by-election, but they want a general election. They want to stop the corruption, they want to fix what the Liberals have broken and they want a government that is going to have common-sense solutions.

Canadians deserve a government that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Canadians deserve a government that does not play favourites for Liberal insiders but creates an environment where non-insiders can work and get ahead. They deserve a Canada that delivers on its promise to all who call it home: that hard work earns a powerful paycheque and pension, and buys affordable groceries and affordable homes on safe streets, in beautiful neighbourhoods, where anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything.

This is all achievable, but first, we need to have a general election and a common-sense Conservative government that will start working seriously on these issues that concern ordinary Canadians.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, The Environment; the hon. member for Calgary Centre, Innovation, Science and Industry; and the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, The Environment.

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

Madam Speaker, the member across the way gets a lot of gold stars. According to the CBC article, this is what Conservative MPs are saying: “If the leader invents a new slogan, ‘we know we'll have to use it’”. The good news is, “‘If you repeat the slogans, you get rewarded,’ said a Conservative source.

“‘You are celebrated in front of the entire caucus for being a good cheerleader.’” The member said a lot of slogans there.

The article continues:

Conservative MPs' words and actions are closely scrutinized by the leader's office. Partisanship is encouraged. Fraternizing with elected officials from other parties is a no-no.

Those who follow these rules are rewarded. Those who don't often have to suffer consequences.

I want to compliment the member opposite because he repeated a lot of the bumper stickers and the slogans. Does he also believe that he has to report to the leader? Is it okay for the Conservative members to be followed and stalked by staff and others who report to the leader of the Conservative Party?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is amusing that that question is coming from the only person on the Liberal side of the House who is allowed to comment and be involved in these debates.

I am very proud to be a member of this caucus and to have the member for Carleton be our leader. I am happy to get gold stars from him, but what I am really looking forward to is getting gold stars from the Canadian citizens in the next general election. Bring it on. It is time.