Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House on behalf of the constituents of Simcoe North. It is nice to see you in the chair. Usually, that is not the case when I am speaking.
Before I get into the heart of the matter, I would like to acknowledge a local benefactor in Simcoe North, who, over the summer, announced that he was donating $22.5 million to local charities in the region, in Simcoe County but primarily in Simcoe North. This is on top of $28 million that this individual has donated over the previous 27 years. This is likely the largest single benefactor in our area, a wonderful immigrant entrepreneur who came to the country with very little, built a business and has given back to the community. He could have stopped at any of the small towns along the 401 before he turned north to the Midland and Penetanguishene area, and we are very glad and lucky that he chose our place as home. On behalf of all the charities and recipients, I would like to thank Mr. Reinhart Weber for his generosity and amazing business success, which he has allowed to benefit the community.
We are back at it. I am wearing a green tie today not because I used to work for the former finance minister Jim Flaherty, but because it is the colour of money and the colour of the green slush fund. Somehow, we are still in this twilight zone. It feels a bit like the movie Groundhog Day.
In a letter the law clerk wrote with respect to Parliament's ability to receive the documents in question, he noted that the order is an exercise of the House of Commons' power to send for documents and that this parliamentary privilege is rooted in the preamble of the Constitution and section 4 of the Parliament of Canada Act. Nowhere in the motion does the House pretend to direct the RCMP. It merely says that these documents need to be made available to the RCMP. If the RCMP decides not to look at them, that is fine. If the RCMP, on recommendations from the justice department, says that some of these documents are inadmissible, that would be up to the RCMP to decide.
Let us remember that this is not the first time the RCMP has not been able to get documents. Need I remind my hon. colleagues of SNC-Lavalin, the WE scandal and foreign interference? By the way, with respect to foreign interference, for the entire time this debate has occurred in the House, individuals within the government, who have had all the information all the way along, have said, “There is nothing to see here so please move along.” That is biggest understatement we have seen coming out of the government with respect to foreign interference. Lo and behold, there was explosive testimony at the public inquiry that the government did not want to have. Need I remind the House about the Winnipeg lab documents?
This is a very serious matter. There are Criminal Code provisions related to breach of trust that ought to be explored by the RCMP. It is up to the RCMP to do so, but we want to make sure that it has the information to conduct an investigation if it chooses to do so. However, this raises a bigger question about the role of the House and the fact that the government, members of the government in particular, seems to consider this chamber, Parliament and committees mere inconveniences.
Let us go back to 2020, in the early days of the pandemic. What did the government try to do? The government tried to introduce legislation to give itself unlimited taxing and spending powers without having Parliament sit for oversight. We have ministers who routinely ignore invitations to come to committee. The Liberals frustrated the WE scandal. In fact, they prorogued Parliament to avoid that scandal. They took the Speaker's office to court. This was all in the name of protecting charter rights, and it is apparently why the Liberals are not giving the documents here. Well, what about the charter rights of the people who had their bank accounts frozen for what appeared to be charges of public mischief? However, here, the government wants to protect the privacy rights of people who may have defrauded the Canadian taxpayer and the Canadian public of significant money.
Now let us go back to why. The Auditor General has said there is $400 million from this fund that has gone to ineligible recipients, including well over 100 specific instances of conflicts of interest. That alone should cause this entire place to stop until we figure out more and until we ensure that Canadian taxpayers will be taken care of.
I just saw last week one of the individuals who is at the heart of this scandal appear at industry committee. This individual said that she was under scrutiny because she was a woman and from Quebec. At no point during the testimony did I hear the words, “I am sorry; I made a mistake; I should have been more clear or more precise about recusing myself on the grounds of conflict of interest.” That is the definition of gaslighting, to try to shield oneself from scrutiny when they have been caught dead to rights by the Auditor General for misappropriating funds to companies in which that individual and other individuals on the board have a direct pecuniary financial interest.
Now, I am here as an individual, and I would like to think we can be collaborative, so I have an idea. I will work hard to convince my colleagues that maybe there is another way. Maybe there is another path to get back to the people's work. Of course, the government could produce the documents, but maybe there is another way. If the government recovers the $400 million, I will work hard to convince my colleagues that maybe we should move past this and get back to the people's work, but I do not think the government has shown any interest in recovering these funds.
The government was dragged kicking and screaming to do an internal investigation. When it had documents that specifically showed direct conflicts of interest, it waited until the Auditor General's report was done to ask some of these individuals to leave their posts. In fact, when it was known that there were problems with conflicts of interest with this particular fund, one of these board members was given a promotion. This person was promoted to the Canada Infrastructure Bank board.
I wonder if that individual had any personal connection to companies involved in the infrastructure space while they were there. It is a very relevant question to ask, but the fact is that this person sat on that board for multiple months. My understanding is that even a year after allegations surfaced of wrongful conduct, the government left this individual in that position.
The government and other members in this House like to bring up scandals of the past. The one they like to bring up involved Mike Duffy, and for the life of me, I do not understand why. It was the only scandal in Canadian history where the taxpayer was repaid. Really, $90,000 was repaid to the taxpayer for wrongful conduct of a senator. He was in the wrong, but the taxpayer was made whole.
As such, how come this government is not out trying to recover $400 million from people who should not have gotten it? If these documents were provided to this chamber, to the law clerk and to members of Parliament, there would be nothing to stop any member of Parliament from publishing these documents on their website or making them available to journalists. Of course, the RCMP would be able to look at those anyway. The fact that the documents would be sent to the RCMP is completely redundant. They will become public documents in most circumstances. It seems rather bizarre that this government is very happy not having much happen in this place, because it could easily just turn over the documents or maybe it should show some effort to recover the $400 million. As I said before, there is nothing in this motion that directs the RCMP.
I find it fascinating that members of the government, including the parliamentary secretary who is probably still smarting from the last time we had an exchange in this place, are worried about directing the RCMP. They improperly directed their attorney general on SNC-Lavalin and they improperly directed the RCMP with respect to releasing documents during an open and active investigation in the absolutely tragic Nova Scotia shooting, which was still very raw for the country, but more importantly for the victims of those crimes, all to politically benefit the government's new firearms regulations and agenda. They improperly pressured the commissioner of the RCMP to release details against protocols, because it would help the government's agenda.
I think that if this government was really worried about directing the RCMP, it would read the motion, for one, and recognize that the words “direct” or “encourage” or anything close to that are not there. As I said before, if these documents are produced, the RCMP will be able to get them on multiple avenues. The fact that they might be inadmissible to court has nothing to do with the motion.
The Liberals think that they are protecting the charter rights of people who may have committed crimes.