Mr. Speaker, I appreciate rising in this chamber any opportunity I get. However, I wish I could say it was a pleasure to rise. Unfortunately, it is not this time. This is now my second opportunity to speak about the green slush fund scandal through SDTC, and frankly, I am hopeful the government will finally come to its senses, listen to the will of the House and release the documents unredacted, as it has been called on to do, so that Parliament can move on.
As mentioned many times throughout the debate, this has led to a gridlock in Parliament. There are many things I would rather be discussing, such as our plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, but unfortunately these issues are now being halted because the government refuses to show transparency. I believe this process shows how little the Liberal government cares about this institution and the democracy it represents.
Just to highlight the situation from a broader lens, this democratically elected House ordered on behalf of Canadians that the government hand over all relevant documents related to the green slush fund scandal within 30 days of the order passing. That was on June 10 of this year. By my count, it is 166 days later, and the government still has not done so.
In my last speech on this matter, I raised a couple of issues. I will not repeat all of them, of course, but I do want to highlight some key points.
All of our constituents elected us to represent them and fight for their best interests. I believe that one of the paramount aspects of that is ensuring that we are spending tax dollars wisely. Unfortunately, we have not seen that from the NDP-Liberal government. We have not seen that in the way that it has run up deficits. The Prime Minister has added more debt than all previous prime ministers before him, which threatens the sustainability of social programs and government services for future generations. We have seen it in the way the government has continually hiked taxes on Canadians and driven up inflation, to the point where people are struggling to fill their gas tanks, heat their homes or put food on the table. Of course, we also see it with the green slush fund scandal. The government has shown no regard for the massive amount of taxpayer money that was given out inappropriately.
Instead, the government has worked very hard to try to cover up its scandal and has refused to hand over the documents we mentioned, violating the collective privilege that we as parliamentarians have to order documents to be revealed. This privilege is a crucial function for ensuring that the legislative branch of government can meet one of its main objectives, which is holding the government accountable. I spoke about that just a couple weeks ago. With this privilege comes extraordinary powers to ensure the government cannot interfere with us meeting that objective, and it means the House can order all documents it deems necessary to carry out its duties.
As I noted previously, and will again for the benefit of government members, there is not a similar privilege afforded to the government to refuse an order for the production of documents. We are here debating this motion because the government seems to believe that it has such a privilege.
I will re-emphasize to the government that in the Speaker's ruling, he noted:
The procedural precedents and authorities are abundantly clear. The House has the undoubted right to order the production of any and all documents from any entity or individual it deems necessary to carry out its duties. Moreover, these powers are a settled matter, at least as far as the House is concerned. They have been confirmed and reconfirmed by my immediate predecessors, as well as those more distantly removed.
That was from the Speaker's ruling directly, just for clarity.
The Speaker also went on to quote page 985 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, which I will quote for the benefit of Liberal members of the House: “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. I believe that is an important aspect. It is clear that the government is violating one of the collective privileges we have as members of the chamber. We are all sent here by residents in our own ridings from all corners of the country to make sure their voices are heard. The government is continuing to completely disregard that authority we have as members of the House.
We are also here because the government failed to protect the Canadian taxpayer. According to the Auditor General's report released on June 4, the government turned SDTC, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. She found that SDTC had awarded funding to projects that were ineligible and where conflicts of interest existed. In total, 123 million dollars' worth of contracts were found to have been given inappropriately, with $59 million being given to projects that should never have been awarded any money at all.
I mentioned that the government seems so careless with money. Two million people in a single month are lined up at food banks. People are struggling just to afford basic necessities because of the inflationary policies caused by the government, yet $59 million has been given out to projects that should never have been awarded any money at all. I think that is staggering, and it shows that the government has no regard for the taxpayer.
I go back home to my riding and travel around northwestern Ontario, and nobody likes taxes; I think that is pretty clear. Maybe the Liberals and the NDP like taxes, but most people do not really appreciate paying taxes. When I talk to my constituents, they say that they have no problem chipping in their fair share if they know where it is going, and if it is going to go somewhere to help benefit their community and their country.
That is the big issue with the government; Liberals are raising taxes, and what are they doing with the money? They are funnelling it to Liberal insiders. They are taxing Canadians more, and Canadians are getting less as a result. It is completely unacceptable.
I want to get back to the Auditor General, because she discovered that conflicts of interest were connected to approval decisions. As a consequence, at the green slush fund, nearly $76 million of funding was awarded to projects where there was a connection to the Liberals' friends appointed to roles within Sustainable Development Technology Canada, while $12 million of funding was given to projects that were both ineligible and had conflicts of interest.
In fact the Auditor General discovered that long-established conflict of interest policies were not followed in 90 cases. In one instance, the Prime Minister's hand-picked chair siphoned off $217,000 to her own company.
I believe that the Auditor General has made it very clear that the blame for the scandal lies directly at the feet of the Prime Minister's industry minister, who “did not sufficiently monitor” the contracts that were being awarded to Liberal insiders. The industry minister utterly failed in his duty to protect the Canadian taxpayer, but what else is new with the Liberal government?
There is much more, and I do not want to repeat too much of what members have already covered, but I do want to note for the record that if the government had managed taxpayer dollars responsibly, we would not be discussing a privilege motion here today. Of course if the government had handed over the documents, we would not be here debating the privilege motion. We could be discussing one of the many other issues that are impacting Canadians in their everyday lives.
It is very important to note that only the government has the power to end the gridlock. If it complies with the House order to hand over all the documents related to the green slush fund, we can then get back to normal programming. Instead, the government is trying to protect itself and withhold what I would imagine is very damaging information. It must be very damaging information if the Liberals are willing to put their entire legislative agenda on hold.
As I mentioned, we could be talking about everyday Canadians and the fact that we have a plan to axe the carbon tax to bring down the cost of living and make life more affordable for people who are struggling. We could be talking about our plan to remove the GST on new home builds or our plan to make housing more affordable and get young Canadians out of their parents' basements and realize the dream of home ownership.
We could be talking about our plan to stop the crime by bringing in jail, not bail for repeat violent offenders, fixing the broken bail system the government has created and ensuring that we can restore safe streets across the country. We could be talking about many issues impacting first nation communities and about reconciliation across the country.
All of these issues are tremendously important and require our attention, but the government would rather drag out the debate to prevent the documents from being released. I think that speaks for itself. It speaks to the fact that the government clearly has something to hide.
It is also unfortunate that the incident is not an isolated one. Many members have mentioned this. It is a culture, a pattern, with the government. There has been scandal after scandal. Whenever one scandal is in the rear-view mirror, another one comes to light. We have talked about SNC-Lavalin of course, the WE Charity and the Bahamas vacation the Prime Minister took. The list goes on.
One scandal in particular that has come to light recently is the one involving the former minister of employment, workforce development and official languages, who is still sitting as the member for Edmonton Centre but is no longer in cabinet. This is a very interesting one.
It has been reported that the member is tied to a lobbyist who received a staggering $110 million in federal contracts. He was the director of the company that received a further $8 million of government contracts. He is engulfed in allegations of fraud and wire fraud. He also tried to hide that he was getting payments from the lobbying firm while he was lobbying his own government and even sometimes his own ministry. However, he was caught by Global News, which reported this, thankfully, to highlight the issue for Canadians.
It does not stop there. As if that were not bad enough, earlier this month we found out that there were more text messages in addition to the ones obtained earlier, that showed a Randy, perhaps another Randy as the member for Edmonton Centre maintained. This Randy was in regular contact with his co-owner while he was the minister. It turns out that there is only one Randy, and we all know who it is.
On top of all this, because again it does not stop there, the member made false claims about his own ancestry, pretending to be indigenous in order to advance his own business interests, hoping to use that as an opportunity to access government funding for his business. It is absolutely despicable for anyone, let alone a member of the government and a minister of the Crown, to do such a thing.
Any one of those issues would have been serious enough for the member for Edmonton Centre to be fired from cabinet, but for some reason the Prime Minister continued to show support right up until the point the former minister resigned in disgrace. It really makes one wonder what it takes for an unethical Liberal minister to be removed from cabinet.
I guess the problem is there are too many ethical scandals on the other side. The Liberals would have to get rid of almost the entire cabinet at this rate, including the Prime Minister. Again, I highlight the issue because although it is not directly related to the SDTC green slush fund scandal, it is important to note that there is a repeated pattern with the government.
Coming back to the last issue, as the member for Kenora, I represent 42 first nations. I also represent part of the Métis homeland in northwestern Ontario. The scandal that I just highlighted with the member for Edmonton Centre particularly hits home for residents in my riding. Roughly half of my riding is indigenous. We know that first nations and indigenous people across the country experience a number of challenges and that a number of well-intentioned programs have been created to help rectify some of the past wrongs. To have a minister of the Crown use that to his advantage, to fake indigenous ancestry, is something that is especially concerning and disgraceful. That is what I have heard in my riding from residents, both indigenous and non-indigenous.
I have lots of questions about the priorities of the government. We have seen in the case of the member for Edmonton Centre that the Prime Minister has continued to stand up for him, to have his back. However, if we look at past Liberal ministers, taking Jody Wilson-Raybould as an example, she is an indigenous woman who spoke the truth and was punished. She was removed from cabinet and kicked right out of caucus. The question I know a lot of people have is why the government is so quick to remove an indigenous woman from its benches when she speaks the truth and also so quick to support a non-indigenous man pretending to be indigenous and trying to advance his own interests.
It is perplexing to me that no members on that side seem to be asking that question. I would think they would also want to know. Maybe they do not care. I would like to think that they do, that they would take issue with this, but it does not seem that they do. These are very serious allegations. It is incredible to me that it has become normalized on that side of the House that one would use a ministerial position to advance one's own interests and even go as far as doing what Jody Wilson-Raybould described as “play[ing] ancestry wheel of fortune.”
There is much more I could go on about, but it is very important to note that this green slush fund scandal really is just one domino in a series of events of ethically challenged Liberal governance. It is very important to know that we could get back to debating the issues everyday Canadians are facing if the government were to comply with the House order, if it was able to show some transparency. It is supposed to be transparent by default, but that really has not worked out. The government must hand over the documents instead of trying to cover this up. It is unacceptable that it has paralyzed the House for two months instead of doing what was ordered and that it is preventing us from addressing the many issues this country is facing.
I want Canadians across the country who may be watching at home to know that this really is not how a government should be run. A government should not be caught up in scandal after scandal, improperly spending taxpayer dollars, trying to cover it up or rewarding insiders. That is why Conservatives will keep fighting to get to the bottom of this scandal. Canadians deserve to know what is in those documents, and those who broke the law should be prosecuted.
Above all, it is clear that the government is not worth the cost or the corruption, and only Conservatives will take action to clean up this mess. It is time for a carbon tax election so that Canadians can elect a common-sense Conservative government that will end the corruption, axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime and get things back on track for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.