Debates of Nov. 27th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yesterday, we had an emergency debate on the issue of trade between Canada and the U.S. Now, the Conservatives have finally decided to have some discussion, when late last night there was no one around from the Conservative—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

We cannot indicate whether someone is here or not.

I will remind the hon. member to just tie it back to the topic at hand, probably a couple of times more.

The hon. member for Bay of Quinte.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, have no fear, I will get back to markergate. The government seems to be sponsored by Sharpie because it only produces documents that have black ink. There is so much black ink on these documents that the printers have stopped working until they get an apology from the government. It comes back to the point that there are documents the House required and we have been sitting here for six weeks. With the amount of time that this member across the way speaks, I would think that he would love an opportunity to speak about something other than this privilege debate in the House.

Of course we can go back to privilege, but that means we are not dealing with the bigger issues today, including tariffs. What is happening outside these borders does matter. Maybe the member would be delighted to know there are bigger things we would love to be talking about, including the fact that these tariffs on our most important trading relationship in the whole world are going to affect this economy, the Prime Minister does not have a plan to deal with the President-elect and he is weak when it comes to standing up for Canadians and what we require in this country.

The whole premise of that is we have an open border. We have more and more documented border incidents. The U.S. customs border agency looked at those numbers and they were pretty phenomenal. The Globe and Mail today talked about the number of incidents at the border in 2021 versus 2023; the number has gone up 1,000%. Last year alone there were over 24 documented incidents. These are not incidents where people are crossing the border and are caught, someone is trying to bring something in or has the wrong documentation; these are people not using a border crossing and crossing into the U.S.

When we talk about a porous border and the problems we have with immigration right now, our American counterparts are saying that the longest undefended border in the world is not keeping fentanyl out of their country or our country. It is also not preventing illegal immigration going south. We know the big problems when we look at the news of what is happening from the northern parts of Mexico into the U.S. Americans are saying that it is no longer safe and that our border is allowing some of those instances as well, which is very concerning.

We have to protect our borders, but we also have to ensure that we look at how we are protecting ourselves. One of the biggest problems in Canada right now is that we do not put enough money into our military. The government has planned to cut a billion dollars out of the military budgets at a time when we are not even coming close to meeting our NATO budgets.

When we talk about security we have to link that to trade, and when we talk about trade we have to link that to security. They are intermingled. If we are at the table with NATO, we are not going to find ourselves at the trade table. It is not just looking at our defence and military, it is also defending our borders and ports, where we have massive breaches of cybersecurity. Almost every day in our ports we have cybersecurity attacks.

It is also the Arctic, our northern border of North America, which we all know we have to defend. In Fortress North America, it is Canada's obligation to defend the Arctic because Russia is located in the Arctic.

When we talk about the immigration problem, we also talk about what is happening with the drug problem in Canada. We have 47,000 Canadians who have died from overdoses since the Prime Minister's drug liberalization policies, more deaths than in World War II. We need to emphasize the need for stricter drug policies, border security and prosecuting fentanyl traffickers to save lives and to protect communities. I come from one of those communities. Belleville, Ontario was ground zero for the opioid epidemic; the Municipality of Belleville declared a state of emergency that is still in place. We had 47 overdoses in only 36 hours and just one month ago we had 11 overdoses in two hours. This is an epidemic happening not just in our big city centres, but also in our rural city centres.

When we look at preventing fentanyl and drug abuse in Canada, it means we have to protect the borders. What our trading partners are saying is that we need to protect the southern part as well.

We talk about the need to look at what our trading relationship looks like and why we need a strong leader. Canadians believe that we need a strong leader. There was a poll out this week that said 47% of Canadians believe the Leader of the Opposition would be the the best leader for dealing with President-elect Trump, while only 17% thought that the current Prime Minister would be best.

Donald Trump wants our businesses. He wants our jobs and he wants our resources. He probably wants the current Prime Minister to stay in place, because under him, the Americans have gained investments and jobs. The Prime Minister is putting a tax on carbon, which taxes our farmers and truckers. That puts the price of production up and means that our competitiveness against the Americans is down. They are able to compete against us because we have more taxes. Every time the Prime Minister raises a tax or blocks resource production, the Americans win. That is why they want the Prime Minister in and why it is so imperative that in the future, we have a new prime minister who can stand up for Canadians.

This is not just about the economy; it is also about entrepreneurship. This week at the trade committee, we had Ms. Dickinson from Dragon's Den. She was talking about the economic gap in Canada. We were asking her if the government really looks after entrepreneurs and investments in Canada and she said no. She said that the increase in capital gains seemed like just a cash grab. She felt that new tax increases on entrepreneurs hurt entrepreneurs like her, women entrepreneurs who are struggling hard to make Canada the place that they invest in, that they take risks in and that they ultimately grow and scale a business in. She said it is not just bad policy; it is economic vandalism. As she put it, there is no plan and no strategy, just tax grabs.

Canada needs to stop relying on government band-aids. Entrepreneurs need incentives, private investment and a clear vision for growth. We have to empower innovation and bring prosperity home. That is why we have an economic gap in Canada. When we look at the money needed to invest in businesses, we need to look at what is happening with venture capital. The Americans generate $200 billion of venture capital a year. Venture capital is the money that private investors invest in small, medium and large businesses. In Canada, it is only $6 billion. It used to be $15 billion. We have a problem of generating the capital needed to invest in businesses.

We could go further to talk about the bigger problems we have. We could have open banking in Canada. We have the capacity for not just the five to six big banks that have 95% of all the banking business in Canada. We could allow financial tech organizations to start up, giving access to capital to Canadians and the Canadian entrepreneurs who want to start, scale, innovate and provide great Canadian paycheques.

We want to talk about those things, but we are stuck in a privilege debate because of a green slush fund of $1 billion, $400 million of which, or 40%, was locked into 186 instances of conflicts of interest. Because of that, the public accounts committee decided to make sure we got all the documents related to this $400-million slush fund and provided them to the government as a whole and ultimately to the RCMP. That is why it came to the House. The House decided. It was not just the Conservatives. The government loves to say that the Conservatives are filibustering, but it was Conservative, Bloc and NDP members, who make up a majority of the House, who stated that the government needs to hand over these documents to the police.

People would not believe the excuses we have heard here about why the Liberals would not. For the first couple of weeks, it was that we were violating the Charter of Rights, that somehow Parliament was underneath the charter, even though Parliament is supreme to it. Then, for some reason, the Liberals said the police did not want the documents; they were conducting their own investigation. The third iteration was to say that we should just flip this matter back to committee. Even though it came from committee, they think the answer is for it to go back to committee.

Ultimately, what this comes down to is that none of those answers hold any water. The only answer the government can give to this place is to answer the authority of Parliament and give the unredacted documents over. That is the only reason we have been here for six weeks locked in the longest privilege debate in Canadian history. The government should be ashamed of itself.

When we look at the problems across this country, we could be sitting in the House debating a lot of different items and issues. We could be talking about tariffs, how we are going to approach trade and how we are going to fix it. We could be talking about how to help entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs, who only want to invest, innovate and save in a free Canada. However, we are not. We are in this place debating privilege.

The answer could not be more clear: On behalf of Canadians, the Liberals should hand over the documents, unredacted. The Liberals should get rid of the black ink, lose their sponsorship with Sharpie and give over the documents that Parliament has asked for. If they do not, here is the big problem: It sets a dangerous precedent in this place. If Parliament's authority is wiped out, the people's power in the House is diminished.

When we all look around, we see that we have a green House of Commons. Does anyone know why it is green? It is supposed to signify the fields when democracy was handed over to the people from royalty, and we are supposed to represent the common people. That is why it is called the House of Commons. When we walk in here, the ultimate power does not rest with the government, the prime minister or the ministers. All the power of this place rests with the people.

When the people and Parliament ask for something of the government, the government has to hand it over. It is not “maybe”, it is not “yes, but” and it is not “let's put it to committee”. The Liberals have to hand the documents over. The failure to do that is a failure of democracy. It is a failure to listen to the people of the House, and it shows a government that is tired, a Prime Minister who is weak and, ultimately, a dead government walking.

We know that the only answer for that is a carbon tax election, where the people would have the ultimate referendum to decide who should be in power in this place and who should represent them. That is what we are looking for at the end of the day. We are looking for a prime minister who will stand up and put Canada first when it comes to the economy, Canada first when it comes to trade and, most importantly, Canada first when it comes to democracy, putting the people in power and ensuring that the people are in control of the House of Commons. As Laurier said, “Canada first, Canada last, and Canada always.” Let us bring it home.

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

Mr. Speaker, the self-serving multi-million dollar political game continues.

My question to the member is related to the member's statement about individuals within the Conservative caucus having the power in a democratic system to say something. Here is a news headline: “[The leader of the Conservative Party]'s office maintains tight control over what Conservative MPs say and do.” Conservative MPs are saying this, off the record of course. Referring to the Leader of the Conservative Party, they say, “He's the one who decides everything. His main adviser is himself...The people around him are only there to realize the leader's vision.”

Today, we introduced legislation that would give a GST tax holiday to Canadians. The member does not have to speak on behalf of the leader of the Conservative Party because we already know the leader is voting against Bill C-78. My question is, will the member make a commitment to give a tax break to his constituents and vote yes on Bill C-78?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I make the commitment that when we have a carbon tax election, we are going to to axe the carbon tax, along with the 61¢ a litre increase the Prime Minister wants to impose on all Canadians, all farmers and all truckers. We are going to axe it permanently; we are going to axe it forever.

I am one of the members who have, of course, spoken here, and we get to speak freely in the House on behalf of Canadians. I would ask the member and his caucus a simple question: Are they able to speak in their caucus like we can in the Conservative caucus?

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

Mr. Speaker, I picked up something from my colleague's speech about the RCMP. There seems to be a lot of confusion in here about what the RCMP actually said. I am wondering about that.

I hold the same view as the Conservatives. I would like to see the documents. I believe in the supremacy of Parliament, and that has been reaffirmed again and again. We always have to stand up for Parliament's right to send for papers. However, given the current impasse and the questions we have over what the RCMP wants, I want to put this to my colleague: Would it not be a prudent measure to get this motion to the procedure and House affairs committee so we can call the RCMP commissioner before the committee to educate MPs on what the proper process is? I ask because if there is anything nefarious in those documents, the last thing we want to do is ruin a potential police investigation.

I am wondering if my colleague has thoughts on the police process and if he is curious about hearing directly from the RCMP commissioner at committee. Maybe the Conservatives could call him forward as a witness.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it does not matter what the RCMP said, because the RCMP should not be directed by the House of Commons. At the same time, this is not about the RCMP, because it is conducting its own investigation. It is about the power of Parliament to have documents produced. It does not matter if the motion says to give documents to the King of England; the fact of the matter is that Parliament has asked them to be given to the police.

The RCMP will conduct an independent investigation away from the government. The RCMP should act independently on its own accord, but this is completely about the House of Commons and its power. The privilege debate is about whether the government will hand documents over. If it will not, I hope the NDP will finally agree to an election so the people can decide this once and for all.

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

Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks, we have talked a lot about this question of privilege and these documents that we are not receiving. There have been different stories about why the government should not give them to us. One of them is that we cannot interfere. My colleague has already talked about this, and we are not interfering.

Now, law enforcement will make the decision whether to process the potential evidence that we have, but if we do not hand it over, what is that called, legally speaking? What does one call withholding potential evidence from law enforcement?

Do we really want to go there?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are not looking at police procedure here; this is parliamentary procedure.

What is the precedent for the government not handing over documents that Parliament has asked for? In other words, what is the precedent for the government not doing what Parliament or the power of the people has asked for? That is the real question. We have to take that back to all of our constituents.

This is a historic lesson. We are locked in the longest privilege debate in Parliament's history because of the government's refusal. Other governments have gotten the hint before. Normally they call an election or put the issue to the people, but the government has not. The real question has to be what kind of power we want the people in this House of Commons to have in the future, because right now the precedent is that they would lose all of it.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not like asking questions about this, but the trend of the NDP-Liberal government is toward greater obstruction and censorship. We are looking at the censorship bills Bill C-11, Bill C-18 and Bill C-63, and we cannot forget the Winnipeg lab. Do members remember when we were requesting those documents and the Prime Minister went as far as to take the Speaker to court? He actually called an election to keep Canadians from having that knowledge. I am extremely worried about the precedent we would set if we do not challenge the government on this point.

Could my colleague please talk about the importance of precedent? Enough is enough for the Canadian people with the government. Let us call an election.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government and the Prime Minister promised to be the most transparent government in Canadian history. Instead of having that title, we are having the longest privilege debate in Canadian history. We have seen the opposite of what was presented. I think Canadians are finally seeing that.

We know that Canadians want an election. They not only want an election, but they want a carbon tax election to decide between a small rebate coming in the form of a cheque and axing the tax on newly built homes for the long run. They want an election. Let us have an election.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Bay of Quinte, representing the Conservative Party, says it does not matter what the RCMP has to say. This is what the RCMP says about the Conservative idea: “There is significant risk that the Motion could be interpreted as a circumvention of normal investigative processes and Charter protections.” The Conservatives' response is that it does not matter what the RCMP has to say; after all, their own self-serving leader wants to endlessly debate this multi-million dollar privilege motion. Who cares about Canadians or the RCMP?

Of course it matters what the RCMP has to say. Will the member opposite do the honourable thing and retract that bizarre statement?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about whether the government should be directing the RCMP or Parliament to do an investigation versus what is at stake in this debate. What is at stake is the fact that Parliament has asked for something. We are not here to direct the RCMP to conduct an investigation or to use certain pieces of evidence. We are here to ask for documents to be handed over.

The RCMP can decide not to take some of those documents, to use some of that evidence or to use none of it. That does not matter. What matters is that Parliament has asked for something to be done by the government, and the government has to do it for democracy, for Canadians and for Canada.

Anti-Semitism

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That the House:

(a) firmly condemn the violent acts and the antisemitic gestures which took place during the demonstrations in Montreal on November 21 and 22;

(b) condemn all attacks against the Jewish community and state clearly that Jewish Canadians, like all Canadians, have a right to live safely in this country;

(c) condemn all forms of support for Hamas or any other terrorist group; and

(d) reaffirm the right to peaceful and free protest.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would like to seek unanimous consent for the following motion: I move that the House recognize that the Liberal government waited nearly a week to condemn the violent anti-Semitic riots in Montreal and recognize that the member for Mount Royal says one thing—

[Some hon. members]

No.

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

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the security-conscious residents of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke to speak to this amendment to the amendment to the motion. The motion calls for an investigation into the Liberal government's ongoing failure to follow an order of the House to produce documents.

When I last rose in the House to speak to a subamendment to the motion, I highlighted how the failure of the government to produce the documents reflected the contempt the Liberals have for Parliament, our democracy and Canadians. During that speech, the member for Waterloo was kind enough to prove my point. The member interrupted my speech to claim she could not see the relevance between the Prime Minister's long history of showing contempt for Parliament and a motion concerning the government's current contempt for Parliament.

Today, I would like to make the same argument; however, rather than focusing on the dictatorial views and practices of the Prime Minister, I would like to make the case that the Liberals' incompetence is just as much a threat to democracy. It is my sincere hope that a Liberal MP will prove that point while putting the cherry on top by demonstrating that Liberals also do not listen very well. Canadians have been speaking up and calling for an end to the current government, if we can even call it that.

By definition, for a party to be a government, it has to govern. From this side of the House, it really appears as if the Liberals have just given up governing. The Liberals have abandoned passing legislation. The Liberal House leader has issued instructions to the media to regard our leader as the de facto prime minister and hold him accountable the way they would a real prime minister. The Liberals are completely consumed with their own drama teacher. It is as though they have lost the will to live. Rather than schedule a MAID appointment, the Liberals are just lying in the middle of the road, blocking traffic while Canadian commuters are stuck in the jam. This is all because they refuse to release documents they were ordered to provide by Parliament.

Refusing to listen to Parliament is a recurring pattern with the Liberals. It is very timely that the Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship has tabled its report on the case of the national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg. This is especially relevant today because it reveals a pattern of covering up for incompetence. Canadians may recall that the current government refused to hand over documents demanded by Parliament so that we could learn what actually happened at the lab. The government was so determined to ignore the will of Parliament that it took the former Liberal Speaker to court. That was an unprecedented attack on parliamentary democracy. Not only has that never happened before in Canada, but it may have also been a first for any parliamentary democracy. That is how far the Liberals were willing to go to keep the truth from Canadians.

Thanks to the Prime Minister's calling his pandemic-spreading election, all the work to hold the Liberals accountable had to be restarted. When the Liberals returned with even fewer votes and fewer seats, they had no choice but to seek a deal. The government would hand over the documents to MPs who were willing to agree to be permanently gagged about what they saw. These MPs would review the redactions the government claimed were necessary for national security; if the members disagreed with the government, the redactions would be reviewed by a panel of arbiters to determine how the information would be made public. The process was what allowed our colleagues to produce the report on what happened at the Winnipeg lab, and I want to thank the members of the committee for their work. The government had been smearing anyone who dared to ask about the lab. This report reveals that we had more than enough reasons to be concerned.

In August 2018, CSIS met with bureaucrats responsible for security at the lab. CSIS communicated its concerns about the two scientists at the centre of the controversy. The bureaucrats did nothing. In September 2018, the same bureaucrats learned that one of the scientists had been listed as inventor of a patent in China that may have contained information produced in Canada. The bureaucrats did nothing. In October 2018, the same bureaucrats learned that two individuals from China who had been sponsored to work at the national microbiology laboratory by the two disgraced scientists attempted to leave the national lab with 10 tubes in two bags.

That same month, one of the scientists took a trip to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was during that time that she signed up for the notorious thousand talents program. Members of that program have been arrested, tried and convicted of espionage in the United States. The program is a major pipeline for the Communists who control China to steal technology.

Near the end of October 2018, the scientist's husband tried to leave the lab with two styrofoam containers that he insisted were empty. The bureaucrats did nothing. It was not until December 11, five months after CSIS first spoke with the officials at the Public Health Agency and the national lab, that bureaucrats decided to brief the president of the Public Health Agency. What did the top public health bureaucrat do when presented with these troubling facts? She did what the current government does best: She hired some outside consultants to conduct a fact-finding study. The consultants handed in their report three months later, on March 23, 2019, and their recommendation was an administrative investigation.

While the bureaucrats were busy hiring consultants to conduct studies to recommend investigations, on March 31, the two Communist agents shipped out live samples of Ebola and henipavirus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was not until the end of May 2019 that the public health bureaucrats picked up the phone and called the RCMP.

More than two months passed; the two scientists were escorted from the lab by the RCMP in July 2019. The Public Health Agency did not officially terminate their employment until January 2021. We were paying a salary to two Communist agents while the government told them to sit at home and await further instructions. Unsurprisingly, these scientist spies did not listen; they moved back to China, out of reach of Canada's legal system.

To sum it up, CSIS warned government officials of a threat posed by agents working on behalf of the Communists who control China. The senior government officials downplayed the concerns until it all blew up in their faces. No one bothered to brief the Liberals, or the Liberals did not bother to read their briefs. This is the same brand of incompetence that led to the public inquiry into foreign interference.

The Liberals ignored the warnings because they did not want to believe them. Liberals had fully bought into the belief that Russia had installed the 45th president and was plotting to do the same here in Canada, so it was easy for them to believe that someone they did not like received help from an odious regime. When the Liberals learned they were being assisted by the most odious regime on earth, the cognitive dissonance hit really hard. Taking real action would have meant admitting that they were not white knights in shining armour and, in fact, were no better than any politician they despised next door.

The Liberals reassured themselves by saying such things as “intelligence is not evidence”. It is ironic that Canadians can find no evidence of intelligence inside the government. Obviously, when talking about spies inside one of Canada's two most secure biolabs, issues of national security come into play.

That does not give the government the right to ignore Parliament, but it can explain a government's reluctance to make information public. However, what our colleagues saw was that nearly all the redactions were aimed at protecting the bureaucrats from embarrassment. Our colleagues were the ones who were gagged so that they could review the documents. The bureaucrats let spies run free in the most secure lab in Canada; they then sought to cover up their incompetence and tell the gullible Liberal ministers that, for national security reasons, the documents could not be shared.

The DEI Liberal ministers lack the intellectual fortitude to challenge their deputies, which brings us back to today and to this motion. However, there is one major difference: Nothing about the green slush fund involves national security. This is a classic case of Liberals helping to enrich Liberals. We saw it in the sponsorship scandal. In Ontario, we saw it with the Green Energy Act. When those McGuinty-Wynne Liberals were booted from office, they packed up their taxpayer-funded moving vans and came to Ottawa to run the Prime Minister's Office.

It is clear that the only reason the Liberals refuse to release the documents is that the documents would reveal the full extent of the corruption. It has left them resorting to ridiculous excuses. My favourite is the claim that the Liberal insiders have a charter right to steal taxpayers' dollars. That is the level of desperation they have descended to.

They can make as many excuses as they want. They can invent as many fake rights as they want. None of it matters. Canada will always be a parliamentary democracy and in a parliamentary democracy, the government answers to Parliament. This is not open to debate or interpretation. It is a fact. They must release the documents. While they are at it, they can release the names too. However, the Liberals will not. They will not let Canadians see the truth.

Providing the documents would make it easier for Canadians to connect the dots, including dots like the proud socialist Minister of Environment having a financial interest in a venture capital fund, like the owner of the venture capital fund sitting on the board of SDTC during this period of Liberal corruption, and like SDTC giving funds to companies that the venture capital fund had also invested in.

The Liberals were so happy with this venture capitalist's work on the SDTC board, handing money out to their friends, that the cabinet appointed her to sit on the board of the Liberal Infrastructure Bank.

The Minister of Environment's favourite capitalist came to committee and was adamant that she had always recused herself from decisions relating to companies she had interest in. She also insisted there were only two companies. Naturally, my colleagues were curious. They had a list of companies that SDTC had given funds to and a list of companies that the venture capitalist had invested in. The names that matched up on both lists were more than two, quite a bit more. The environmental activist turned venture capitalist had an explanation at hand. She simply explained that her venture capital fund only invested in the company after it had received SDTC funding. She was the longest-serving board member and sat on the project review committee. What a cozy little relationship.

The taxpayer-funded Sustainable Development Technology Corporation employees would receive applications from hundreds of companies every year. These hard-working, diligent employees reviewed the applications and filtered out the duds. After this long application process, only the most viable projects from the most viable companies were recommended by the staff at SDTC. Those recommendations went to the project review committee.

I believe the venture capitalist when she insists she followed the conflict of interest rules. She had been on the board long enough before the former minister for Rogers decided to stack the board with friends. She would not do anything to jeopardize her access to the SDTC pipeline of promising investment opportunities. Researching investment opportunities is what makes or breaks a venture capital company.

Luckily for her and her investors, like the Minister of Environment, she had taxpayers fund her research. I always thought the man the Montreal newspapers like to call the “Green Jesus of Montreal” was an odd fit for the Liberals. It must be pretty awkward for the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Justice having to condemn the watermelon brigade protesters who come to their homes and target their families when their colleague was arrested for invading the property of former premier of Alberta Ralph Klein.

When I learned that the same man who stood in the House and declared himself to be a proud socialist was really a venture capitalist, it all made sense. He is a raging hypocrite and a perfect fit for the Liberal Party. He preaches socialism for the people but practises capitalism for himself and his well-connected Liberal friends.

For Canadians watching at home now or in the future, I ask that they consider the case of the proud socialist environment minister and his friend the venture capitalist. We have laws prohibiting public officials from conflicts of interest. We have laws against corruption. If laws were broken, the evidence will come out, if not by the current government, then by the next. What we do not have are laws preventing well-connected Liberals from taking advantage of every opportunity to enrich themselves. The Minister of Environment likes to claim all his carbon taxes will create economic opportunities. That was the same pitch Dalton McGuinty used when he brought in the Green Energy Act in Ontario.

Ontario's Auditor General found the Green Energy Act destroyed 60,000 jobs and cost ratepayers billions of dollars in extra fees. However, well-connected Liberals made a fortune by forcing industrial wind turbines down the throats of small rural communities.

As we saw with the case of the venture capitalist, she followed the conflict rules to the letter so she could continue to find promising investment opportunities at the taxpayers' expense. Those same taxpayers, hard-working Canadians, never get those same opportunities. Now the proud socialist venture capitalist, the Minister of Environment, gets richer while Canadians line up at food banks.

The government can make a show of shutting down SDTC, but in the end, it feels like we are all playing a game of Whac-a-Mole. Just as we knock down a bunch of well-connected Liberals at SDTC, new ones pop up at the Infrastructure Bank or the local journalism initiative. We know the $400 million given out at SDTC was only the tip of the iceberg, which brings us back to the motion and the amendment.

As I have explained, this is not about national security. There is no reason to withhold the documents. The government's excuses have become ridiculous. The government even claimed handing over the documents to the RCMP would violate people's rights. I would ask Canadians to think about what the government is claiming. Well-connected Liberals may have broken laws to enrich themselves.

The victims in this case are the Government of Canada and, through it, the taxpayers of Canada. Now the Liberal Party is claiming that to share evidence, the government would be victimized and it would violate the Charter rights of well-connected Liberals. Imagine if the government took this view on all crime. It would be like telling a rape victim she cannot describe the appearance of her attacker to police because it would violate his right to privacy.

While this example is meant to illustrate just how absurd the government's argument for withholding the documents is, there is probably some woke academic working on a paper arguing that reporting crime violates the rights of criminals from marginalized communities. While this idea might become part of some future Liberal platform, I have not seen or heard any policy announcement from the government that would prevent the victim of crime from providing evidence of a crime to police. For now, it is still legal for victims to report crimes against them to police.

The government's claim it cannot turn over documents to the RCMP falls apart like a wet paper straw. That means there are only two plausible scenarios for why the government refuses to hand over the documents. The first is what we will call the bio lab scenario. Just as we saw in the Winnipeg lab case, the bureaucrats were embarrassed by the fact they had allowed a couple of spies to run free in what was supposed to be one of the most secure facilities on the planet. Those bureaucrats told their political masters the documents needed to be redacted for national security and the Liberals were too incompetent to ask any tough questions.

In this situation, the bureaucrats at Industry Canada tasked with oversight of Sustainable Development Technology Canada failed at their job and do not want the public to know. These bureaucrats told their political masters the documents cannot be released because it would violate people's due process rights and the Liberal government is too incompetent to realize it is being duped. Incredibly, this first option is the best-case scenario.

The second possible option is the ad scam scenario. In this case, the documents contain evidence of criminality beyond just failures to recuse for conflicts of interest. We know the Auditor General only looked at a sample of the funds handed out by Navdeep Bains' hand-picked board members. Only the documents in the possession of the government would reveal the true scale of the government. The government cannot hand them over to the RCMP because that would only result in well-connected Liberals being arrested.

As this tired, worn-out, weak government prepares for the Hail Mary of election campaigns, the last thing it wants is a series of stories covering the trials of well-connected Liberals. Covering up for rampant criminality is objectively terrible, but it would at least rationally explain why the so-called government has abandoned governing and given up on Parliament altogether. We must never assume malice when incompetence is still an option.

Fortunately, whether the government is acting with criminality or from incompetence, the solution is the same. It is time for a carbon tax election, because only a carbon tax election can end the corruption of well-connected Liberals helping well-connected Liberals.

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

Madam Speaker, the motion that members are debating says we are supposed to take the issue and, instead of debating it, send it to PROC. This is a Conservative motion. The moment the Conservatives stop speaking on the motion, it will go to PROC, as the motion suggests.

The member opposite should be congratulated. She has just given the 200th Conservative speech in this multi-million dollar filibuster. The Conservatives' arguments are absolutely bogus. The issue should be going to PROC. They are doing a great disservice to Canadians.

Does the member support the legislation we introduced today, Bill C-78, to give a GST tax break to Canadians for the holiday season?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is about the demand for the production of documents. The Liberals may wish to hide everything off in a committee someplace, but by keeping it at the forefront, Canadians are reminded, and some for the very first time, that the Liberals will not hand over documents. The corruption we have seen in a fraction of the documents that the Auditor General audited is just the tip of the iceberg. If she has a chance to go through all the documents, we may find there is criminality involved with members on that side of the chamber.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. Obviously, the Bloc Québécois completely agrees that the government has to be transparent and disclose the information in the documents.

However, I have one fairly simply question I would like to ask my colleague. I know that, in the past, she opposed a motion that reaffirmed Canada's commitment to the Paris Agreement. My question is this: Does she agree that the planet is warming, as the scientific data show? In simpler terms, does she believe that global warming is real?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, the climate has been changing since earth was first created. We have gone through hundreds of millions of years. In fact, this place where we are now used to be a desert at one point, and at another point it was buried by a glacier. It is really insulting to ask whether or not somebody believes in climate change, unless of course they are referring to the church of climate change, socialism.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, did the member just say that man-made climate change does not exist? Is that what we just heard in the House? I am speechless as an Albertan who represents a province where, for example, the beloved city of Jasper burned down because of direct impacts of climate change. I am looking around the world, where we are seeing women and girls directly impacted by climate change, where people are losing their homes, their lives and their livelihoods to climate change.

Did the member just say she does not believe that human-caused climate change exists?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, had the member been listening, the question asked of me was whether or not there was climate change, to which I said of course there was. If the other member wants to dream up some other conspiracy theory, she is quite welcome to.