Debates of Nov. 22nd, 2024

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

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

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, “call in the cops”. That is the stage we are at in this most recent Liberal scandal. Why are we here? There is evidence that the Liberals have on the SDTC green slush fund. They are refusing an order from Parliament. There is no higher power than the 338 men and women who get sent here to represent the 40 million Canadians. With how our Constitution is written, there is no higher power than the majority will of this space. This space has voted that the Liberals have to turn over the evidence to the RCMP. They are refusing. That is why we are here today.

If anyone is tuning in for the first time and wondering what this SDTC is all about, it is about Liberal insiders getting rich. We are now at the point where they are getting caught, because the evidence is out there. We know that there is a stink around this fund. We know that the chairperson of the fund was caught funnelling money to her own company. We know that the environment minister has funnelled money to the company that he owns as well, which stinks, but it does not shock anybody.

Anyone who has been watching this place knows that, in the end, the Liberals got caught funnelling money to Liberal insiders. When the Liberals got elected, they got rid of the board and appointed members they support, or, more importantly, members who support the Liberals. Then the money flowed. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars. On the scale of all the scandals that the Liberals have been involved in, the $40-million sponsorship scandal, all the other scandals that the government has been known for, this one takes the cake because of the whistle-blowers. This is where, I think, the Liberals are the most concerned about evidence going to the RCMP. We know some of the evidence that has been released, which has been pretty bad.

For the people who are tuning in, we know how corrupt the Liberals are. Some of the people they put in place, obviously, are put there to influence and to enrich fellow Liberals. We then have the bureaucrats out here who are trying their best to minister to the will of the government. It does not matter who is in government. Their job is to minister to the will of whoever is in government or whatever majority decisions come out of here from members. These people have been around. They have been around scandals before. They have been around the town. They have been around Liberals before. It should not shock us but we would not believe what some of these whistle-blowers have been saying about these Liberals.

We have one whistle-blower who said, “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.” When we have whistle-blowers making a statement that the RCMP will find acts of criminal misbehaviour, it is telling. This whistle-blower also said that “if you bring in the RCMP and they do their investigation...they [will] find something”.

That is it. That is what the Liberals have shut this place down over. They cannot hand over any more evidence to the RCMP. That set off alarm bells throughout the Liberal government and party. They were concerned about which of their relatives got rich in this scandal or which minister, while sitting at the cabinet table making decisions on where to spend Canadian taxpayers' dollars, decided to spend it on his own company. How criminally, morally and ethically bankrupt are these Liberals?

Let us hear another quote from people who work closely with the Liberals:

I think the Auditor General's investigation was more of a cursory review. I don't think the goal and mandate of the Auditor General's office is to actually look into criminality, so I'm not surprised by the fact that they haven't found anything criminal. They're not looking at intent. If their investigation was focused on intent, of course they would find the criminality.

We have long-serving servants of government of all stripes in Canada ringing alarm bells on what happened here. This is a pattern where Liberals get themselves into a pickle; they find a solution for their troubles, not for what troubles Canadians; and they utilize their power of position to sweep it under the rug. We have seen this before on foreign influence. We have seen this on other scandals. We are bringing this up because the scandal is $400 million, but it is just the latest of the new scandals. I think of some of the times we have caught these Liberals in questionable activities.

I think of the Liberal WE scandal, where they gave half a billion dollars to a children's charity that turned around and gave half a million dollars to the Prime Minister's mom. This is at the top. This is where Liberals get their lessons on morals and ethics. It is from the Prime Minister. We have a Prime Minister who has been caught breaking the law on conflicts of interest. We all know of his famous trip down to the islands to party it up on the taxpayers' dime.

The Prime Minister is a man who spends his whole day preaching to Canadians on how we have to change our lives for our carbon emissions and we have to change our footprint. Meanwhile, he jet-sets all over the world, exposing his hypocrisy on the emissions of his plane out the rear end of it. It is so hypocritical of him to lecture regular-day Canadians: “How dare you turn the heat up in the middle of winter? How dare you even think you need to feed your family before you pay your carbon tax?”

This is the ridiculousness of what has transpired in Canada over the last nine years. We are a farce of the country that we used to be. There are real problems in our country and our society. I go back to the motion at hand: all this criminality and theft from SDTC. I go back to the purpose of this fund. It was to help with projects around Canada that would bring more sustainable, environmental and technological solutions. I have met with dozens of organizations and projects that would qualify for this, fabulous projects.

I am just going to update the House on a couple of them. Their response from the green slush fund was, “No, you cannot have support for your initiative.” I think of the Calgary Co-op and Leaf. The company Leaf brought to market a consumer bag that has no plastic. It is decomposable just in one's garden. The company brought it to Ottawa. The bureaucrats said, “We cannot have this. It looks wrong. It does not look right for what we are trying to do.” It is not the science, but looks. It is always about looks with these guys.

What did that corporation do? It thought, “Why do we not bring a consumer bag to the market that is biodegradable, that people can use however many times they want, but when it gets wet and thrown in the compost bag, it decomposes?” That is a way that we think we should be tackling some of our challenges in the environment. It is through technology, not taxes. Now, we had a technology fund, SDTC, that should have been funding just that. It should have been funding technology so we got those answers, and instead, it was funding Liberal insiders, who were getting rich. This is what happened in Canada over the last nine years.

I know my time is almost up. I believe I have five more minutes. That is fabulous because we have some more scandals to go over.

Another one was the arrive scam. Why this is important is that these are real taxpayers dollars. Think of the people waiting at a food bank, maybe right now. Maybe right now they do not have the means to provide for their families. We know there are lots out there. Over two million Canadians are relying on a food bank because the Liberals have made the cost of living so expensive in Canada. It did not have to be this way. There are tens of millions, if not billions, of dollars of waste in Ottawa that could be refocused into helping Canadians get through this terrible time we are suffering as a country.

One classic scandal had to do with the $54 million wasted on the arrive scam. That was an app that could have been built in a weekend with under $50,000. That is what the private sector would have done. Do colleagues know what these Liberals did? They had to make sure their Liberal insiders got paid. In that scandal, numerous tech companies did zero work but billed for tens of millions of dollars.

That was just the tip of the iceberg of things we have kind of wasted money on. This goes right to the ministers of the Crown. It has been highlighted how the environment minister secretly funnelled money into his company. We have the international trade minister, who gave over a $16,000 contract, sole-sourced, to a friend, just a friend. “You know what, we will just make that $16,000 payment go to whomever we would like.”

Nickels and dimes make dollars. It all adds up. We talked about $10 million here, $54 million for ArriveCAN and $400 million for the green slush fund. The waste goes on and on.

At committee, we have been studying some of the waste in post-secondary education. We have some silly studies we have funded as Canadian taxpayers. If someone is struggling right now in Canada, they should know their tax dollars went to UBC to study gender politics and Peruvian rock music. That was $20,000. If someone is one of the working poor, barely getting by and wondering why they have to pay all this federal income tax, it is because someone has to study gender politics and Peruvian rock music. Another study is “Reframing Gender and Race in Music Theory and Its Pedagogy”. It is unbelievable that we are spending this kind of money out there.

There is a new study entitled “Suitably Dressed: Finding Social Justice through Distinctions in Modest Fashion for Men, Women and Transgender People”; that is $35,000. If someone is struggling today and wanting to know what is their government is doing, this is some of the stuff it is spending money on. Another one is about large-scale archaeological video analysis, out of the U of C, for $280,000. Here is another one, kind of timely: “Narco-Animalia: Human-Animal Relations in Mexico's Narco-Culture”. That was $9,266.

I see my time has wrapped up. I thank everyone for paying attention and look forward to questions and comments.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are so off topic. If the member wants to talk about corruption, all he needs to do is reflect on Stephen Harper; the current leader of the Conservative Party played a pivotal role, whether as parliamentary secretary to the former prime minister or as a member of his cabinet.

If he wants to talk about corruption, what about the $3.1 billion for anti-terrorism corruption? What about the $2.2-billion Phoenix scandal; the G8 spending scandal; the ETS scandal; the F-35 scandal; the Senate scandal; and election scandals, as in plural scandals? In fact, I have a booklet here called “Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power” that lists the scandals and corruption. There are 70 plus in here, so there is not enough time to quote them all.

Why is it that the leader of the Conservative Party has not changed his behaviour and still feels that he can thumb his nose at Canadians? Why will the leader of the Conservative Party not get the security clearance to deal with the serious issue of foreign interference?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is very telling that the Liberals get triggered by this. The member brought up the $16 glass of orange juice, and he is right; it is an outrage. The expensing of dollars that are not owed to oneself is wrong, and we had wall-to-wall coverage on this. He brought up the F-35 and the monies the former government looked at spending for that plane. Guess what happened. Liberals bought it years later for more. That is how the Liberals' scandals go. They find more ways of pissing away taxpayers' money at every chance they get, and the latest one is this green slush fund for $400 million.

[The Acting Speaker, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

The hon. parliamentary secretary on a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not too sure how that was translated. I do not know, and I bring it up because I think it should be reviewed, if that is an appropriate thing to be saying as parliamentary words. I suggest we take a look at that.

[The Acting Speaker, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

We will look into what was said and discuss it if necessary.

The hon. member for Saskatoon—University has 15 seconds to finish his answer.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this, in a nutshell, is about Liberals getting rich. They like to protect their own. Any time they are questioned or there is the demand that evidence be turned over to the RCMP, Liberals clam up. They attack and do anything but provide the evidence to the RCMP.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my Conservative colleague a question about the Liberal government's latest announcement. It has announced a temporary, two-month tax holiday on certain products, and it is proposing to send out $250 cheques to people earning $150,000 or less. I view this as sheer opportunism or cynicism. The government is handing out gifts to buy votes. There are well-worn tactics that have often been roundly condemned.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the fact that the government, which was already struggling to deal with its deficit and rein in its spending, is once again indulging in frivolous spending to curry public favour.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, a two-month temporary tax trick is all it is. For two months, the Liberals are going to do a little trick and save a bit of money. The problem they have is the comments they made, and that the finance minister made last year, that driving up the deficit is only going to make inflation worse.

What a surprise; we are in a cost of living crisis because the Liberals kept spending more and more money, driving inflation up higher and higher. We were very happy last year when they had seen the light, understood that having deficits would drive inflation higher and said they would not run a deficit more than $40 billion. Guess what; they are. They are massively overblowing their targets. The temporary two-month tax trick is going to cost billions of dollars, which is going to drive up inflationary pressures on Canadians when they can least afford it. Bah, humbug.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciated how much the member focused on the importance of whistle-blowers in coming forward and calling out the government of the day when it is breaking laws. I absolutely agree. I find it very difficult when those whistle-blowers are attacked and discredited.

However, in 2012, a special adviser to the justice department, Edgar Schmidt, raised concerns that the department and the Conservative government were not upholding their obligation to notify Parliament regarding concerns they had about their bill at the time, the Fair Elections Act, saying it was unconstitutional. The member's leader, the member for Carleton, was trying to ram it through Parliament at the time.

Schmidt blew the whistle on the instructions he received from the government to cook the legal analysis and cover up for the blatant attacks on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Schmidt was suspended without pay and barred from office for speaking out. I am eager to ask the hon. member whether he would stand up today to apologize to a public servant like Edgar Schmidt for being a whistle-blower and standing up for what is right, or will he just continue to stand in the hypocrisy that seems to be such a large part of the Conservative Party?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank every man and woman who works in our public sector. Public service is an honourable calling, and I thank all the men and women who work in our public service.

I especially thank the ones that call out corruption and improper management of funds. That is what we had at SDTC. We know that these workers are feeling abandoned by the NDP. The Conservatives have a plan to bring back common sense and powerful paycheques so that they can finally provide for their families.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it would seem to me that, with the declining per capita GDP, Canadians are getting poorer, and with $400 million going out the door to Liberal insiders, Liberal insiders are getting richer.

This happened because of the deliberate choices the government made. It was Navdeep Bains who made the choice to clear out the existing board and appoint his own hand-picked chair, and then, under the noses of the senior bureaucrats who were in the room, these Liberal insiders voted to give public money to themselves at a time when Canadians' per capita income was declining.

I wonder if the member has more comments on exactly what happened here and why it is important to Canadians that we get to the bottom of it.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, what is going on here is the pain that Canadians are feeling because of the NDP-Liberal coalition and a cost of living crisis that is out of control because the Liberal-NDP government is finding new and creative ways to blow taxpayers' money.

This one is $400 million, and that is gone. It is actually not gone because we never had the money to start with. It is on the credit card, and someday this credit card bill is going to come due. Just like it is for everybody else in Canada who might feel like they are richer than they think when they fire it on their credit card, in a month's time, that bill comes and the other bills come. This is the crisis that we are facing in Canada. There is no money left to pay the bills.

Out here, what governments do when they run out of money, and the government has done it a lot, is print money, quantitative easing, to the tune of $700 billion. As we know, every dollar that Ottawa prints makes a dollar in Canadians' pants worth less.

Unfortunately, the Liberals continue to make things worse for everyday Canadians. The motion we are debating right now is not just talking about a $16 glass of orange juice. It is $400 million of Canadians' money, which these guys funnelled into their buddies' pockets.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is just not true.

The Conservatives talk about Liberal insiders, but the chair they are referencing was an adviser to Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty, all of whom were Conservatives. She is also a major donor to the Conservative Party, yet they call her a Liberal insider. Like many of the things that they say in the House, it is just not true.

The question I have for the member is this: When will the Conservatives recognize that the motion we are talking about is to have the issue go to the procedures and House affairs committee, and it is a motion that the Conservative Party introduced. When are they going to allow it to go to a vote?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, here is the difference: The NDP-Liberals want this to go to the committee, and Conservatives want it to go to the RCMP.

Canadians can be the judge. If there is a crime that happens in their house, do they call a town meeting or do they call the cops? We want the cops brought in. This is what the Liberals and the NDP are hiding.

[Kevin Vuong, Independent, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating an issue that goes to the core of our country and our democracy, which are built on the foundational pillars of transparency and accountability. I have been listening to this debate, and the Liberal responses have often been to deflect or to attack the messenger. We only go personal when we cannot defend something based on its merits, when we cannot defend the indefensible. Unfortunately, this seems to apply to multiple issues raised with the government.

Recently, I asked the Prime Minister a question related to Chinese foreign interference. Again, we heard a personal attack. Instead of focusing on the very important matter of foreign interference, he attacked me, and it was so blatantly and sadly transparent. In the latest example, we heard yet another pathetic personal attack from the immigration minister during question period earlier today.

I do not care about what he called me because I have been called worse by better, but I do take offence to the personal attacks that he has levied against my staff. My Toronto constituency office is proud to serve not only my constituents but also other Torontonians who have been failed by the immigration minister's Toronto Liberal colleagues. I could not be more proud of my team for stepping up where the government has failed. All four of my team members in Toronto are former immigrants, and one is a former refugee. Unlike the immigration minister, we actually care about immigrants, who are the people who choose to make Canada their home, who want to work or study here, or who want to visit, often because their families call Canada home and they want to reunite with them.

Far too many people have been failed by IRCC, the department under the immigration minister's watch. People have been caught in some sort of weird purgatory, which has been inhumane while they are separated from their family or missing funerals to say their final goodbye to loved ones. I do not know if it is because of incompetence, ignorance or something else that is driving the immigration minister.

Unlike the immigration minister, those in my office actually care about the integrity of Canada's legal and immigration systems and would never abuse our power to make a mockery of Canada's courts and the professional immigration staff by overruling a deportation order issued by our own department and upheld by the federal court to save a five-time criminally convicted foreign national who boasted of foreign financing to blockade Canadian roads and infrastructure, such as building pipelines. No wonder the government does not take the issue of foreign interference seriously when it is actively abetting it and saving those who are proudly boasting of it.

How can we have a country where there is transparency, responsibility and accountability when we are protecting foreign nationals who are boasting of foreign interference? Under the immigration minister's watch, and that of his predecessors, it is letting in ISIS terrorists, who are in videos dismembering the bodies of the victims they have murdered, and granting them citizenship.

I take the issue of immigration seriously because my parents were refugees who were welcomed to Canada at a time when other countries were closing their borders to people in need. I knew of no better way to honour that incredible act of compassion by Canada then, 40 years ago, than to serve. I volunteered to join the Navy nine and a half years ago because there is no better way than to give back and serve the very country that gave my family everything.

Last year, during my honeymoon, my wife very kindly allowed us to take a detour to South Africa so I could meet with Canada's High Commissioner in Pretoria, because there also is racism there. Racism is perpetuated by locally employed staff hired by the department of immigration. People are perpetuating the injustices of apartheid in Canada's name, and it continues under the watch of the immigration minister. Nothing is being done.

There are Black doctors and nurses from South Africa who want to come here and help heal Canadians to relieve the backlog of patients and surgeries, which are so bad in British Columbia that they have to send Canadian patients to the U.S. What a shame and what a sham. They are being discriminated against, and that continues under this immigration minister's watch.

This is why I have been so adamant in ensuring that we uphold the highest standards of Canada's legal and immigration systems. Again, this goes back to the heart of the issue that we have been debating in regards to SDTC because it is clear that, when we turn a blind eye to corruption, when we turn a blind eye to perhaps, at best, incompetence, we see what happens. We see how it permeates different departments in this country, and it is failing Canadians.

I will use my last few moments to simply address a matter that was also raised with the immigration minister, which was when he attacked the competence of my staff. He said that my office never sent his department anything.

Well, minister should go back to his office to ask his team about the case that was escalated on September 14, 2024. He should ask his office about another case that was escalated to him on October 23, 2024. He should also ask his office about a more recent one, sent just last week, on November 13, 2024, about the Australian doctor I referenced during question period. This Australian doctor of Iranian heritage left the evil regime because she did not want to live under the gender apartheid regime. She went to Australia, got trained and wanted to come to Canada to help heal, but now she is stuck in IRCC purgatory.

When the minister attacks the integrity and competence of my team, and he is pointing at us, he seems to forget that there are also fingers pointing back at him. He should ask his team: Did they intentionally keep it from him, or did they miss it?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I was astonished by what I saw in question period today. I have seen a lot of personal attacks and a lot of vitriolic debate, but that was quite exceptional.

To get to the point, I think that this member needs to be given a further opportunity to really address that and to call it for what it is. Those were the actions of a deeply insecure bully that we saw this afternoon in question period.

[Kevin Vuong, Independent, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Conservative colleague for standing in solidarity with me and for the opportunity to elaborate a little bit more.

Like I said, I have been called worse by much better. People make personal attacks in this place because they cannot defend the indefensible. It is indefensible to try to protect a foreign national who boasts of foreign interference when the country is in the grips of trying to understand the full scope of foreign interference in this country. It is indefensible that citizenship was granted to an ISIS terrorist, and it is indefensible at a time when Canadians need to be healed and are hurting that doctors are being prevented from practising in our country and building a life here when we need them more than ever.

Those actions are indefensible, and what that minister did disgraced not only himself but also his office as a minister of the Crown. I think it was a disgrace to everyone in this place.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member can indicate whether or not it is offensive and disrespectful for the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada to not get security clearance. If the member looks around, every other opposition party and the government have made it very clear, and all other leaders have the security clearance. However, the leader of the Conservative Party has something that is hidden in his background that he does not want to share with Canadians and, as a result, is refusing to get the security clearance.

Does the member feel like the rest of the Conservative caucus? This is maybe where he could get a gold star from the Conservative caucus. Does he feel that the leader of the Conservative Party should get a security clearance? Yes or no, should he or should he not?

[Kevin Vuong, Independent, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope this member gets a gold star from the Liberal Party for trying to deflect so obviously. I said this in my remarks, knowing that this was going to come up: One deflects from the core issue because one cannot defend the indefensible. That is why the Liberals deflect as much as they can. They try to make this big thing about the security clearance when it is the Prime Minister who is sitting on intelligence of 11 parliamentarians who have been noted as having betrayed this country. These 11 parliamentarians are in the protective custody of the Prime Minister. Why is that? What is he so afraid of?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Spadina—Fort York for his excellent talk today.

I would like to ask him to comment on the member for Winnipeg North's obsession with security in light of the fact that the Liberal government gave taxpayer money to an illegal Chinese police station in Montreal not once but twice. Not only did the Liberal government fund these illegal police stations, but it extended them charitable tax status.

Can my colleague comment on that?