Madam Speaker, that is right. Shame on the Prime Minister and his government.
This is what happens in tinpot dictatorships. We have a Prime Minister who has established himself as the ultimate supreme authority in this country, above the law and above Parliament. I hope Canadians understand that. I know his government is imploding, but that is the kind of Prime Minister we have in Canada right now. He is willing to defy the rule of law.
This issue will be referred to a parliamentary committee, as it should be. Of course, the government wants this matter to go to committee without having any of the relevant documents available for investigation and review. It wants a parliamentary committee to undertake its work without having the information it would require and that our police authorities would require to get to the bottom of this very ugly and incredibly expensive scandal, the green slush fund.
We are talking about a billion-dollar slush fund from which $330 million has been diverted to insiders and where 186 conflicts of interest by board members were never declared. A decision was made 186 times to act unethically on that board. It is unbelievable that this could happen in Canada today.
This matter is supposed to be referred to a committee, but we as a House, acting collectively, have decided that until the Speaker's ruling is complied with, we will not allow it to go to committee. It is that important. I believe Canadians who are watching today would agree with me and most of the members of the House that this scandal is of such proportion and significance that it goes to the very heart of the government. Canadians want this properly investigated and want the investigative authorities to have the information required to truly get to the bottom of it.
It has been said that a fish rots from its head. That is truly an apt description of the government and what is happening with the Prime Minister, in his office and within his cabinet. Certain ministers are doing their darndest to try to hide from Canadians the gravity of this scandal. It is disgraceful. They should not be surprised that this scandal has now bubbled to the surface and that Parliament is investigating this. It has been described as being of the same nature as the sponsorship scandal, which brought down the Chrétien government. Do members remember, “I am entitled to my entitlements”? This is akin to that.
I expect when all of this information comes out, as the government cannot hide this forever, that people are going to go to jail. I believe that hundreds of millions of dollars will have to be recovered from people who scammed taxpayers. I believe that the government is going to be held accountable in the next carbon tax election, which I hope takes place very soon, when Canadians can cast judgment on the corrupt, unethical and incompetent Liberal government.
We talked about accountability and transparency. The least I would expect of the government, when it gets caught red-handed with its hand in the cookie jar, is that it issues a mea culpa, says that it screwed up, there is a real problem here, it is going to get to the bottom of it, it wants to start afresh, it believes Canadians deserve to know how corrupt their government is and it moves forward accordingly.
Does the House remember, back in 2015, when the current Prime Minister was first elected, “sunny ways”? He sent a letter to each one of his cabinet ministers. It was headed, “Open and Accountable Government”. I am going to read to members a portion of that letter that will demonstrate to them not only the lengths to which our Prime Minister went to pretend he was an ethical Prime Minister, but how badly he has failed Canadians in delivering accountable government.
It reads, under, “A Message to Ministers”, “At its heart is a simple idea: open government is good government.” I think we can all agree on that.
It continues: “For Canadians to trust our government we must trust Canadians, and we will only be successful in implementing our agenda to the extent that we earn and keep this trust.”
Have the Prime Minister and the government earned the trust of Canadians? I ask the Canadians who are watching this today to ask themselves this question. After 10 long years of the failed Liberal government, has it earned their trust?
It continues, “To be worthy of Canadians’ trust, we must always act with integrity.”
It also states, “The trust of Canadians will also rest on the accountability of our government.”
Members should listen to this. It continues, “In our system, the highest manifestation of democratic accountability is the forum of Parliament.”
Our Prime Minister, in his letter to his cabinet ministers claiming to be the bastion of integrity, wrote that.
Now the very same Prime Minister has not only contradicted his letter from 2015 but defied this Parliament. He has defied the Speaker of the House of Commons, our highest authority within Parliament, from whom there is no appeal. That is the Prime Minister today, an unworthy Prime Minister, unworthy of Canadians' trust.
I am very upset by what I have experienced in this House in the last 10 years. I have been a member of this chamber for almost 20 years. I have seen the cut and thrust of debate and the ups and downs of governments. None of us is perfect. I am not expecting perfection from anyone in this House. I do not expect perfection from our government, but I do expect excellence, integrity, honesty and transparency. Sadly, that is lacking from the government. That is why Canadians should no longer have any trust or confidence in the government.
I know my Liberal colleagues listening to me speak today know I am telling the truth. They are still propping up the Prime Minister, even though many of them privately are saying he has to go, they do not trust him anymore and he is not their guy. However, publicly, they are chugging along and clapping like trained seals. The reality is he has even lost the confidence of his own MPs. They just do not have the courage to stand up and be counted today. We deserve better than that.
It gets worse. If I were only speaking about the green slush fund, that would be enough, but the government has a long history of corruption, graft, incompetence and recklessness. We will remember the SNC-Lavalin affair back in 2019 when the Prime Minister who stepped in to pervert the rule of law in Canada by interfering in a criminal prosecution of one of Canada's flagship companies, SNC-Lavalin. In the process, what did the Prime Minister do? He fired his justice minister, Canada's first indigenous female justice minister, a thoroughly capable woman. He fired another minister, Jane Philpott. It goes on. There was the WE Charity scandal and the vacation at the Aga Khan's island, whom he claimed was his friend. He was investigated for ethics violations. Time and time again, the government violates the trust of Canadians.
Therefore, I have a—