Debates of Nov. 5th, 2024

Resumption of Debate on Amendment

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, on that note, I want to say, because I know the member is not running again, that I certainly feel he has integrity and character.

I might put him on the spot by saying this, but the way he stood up for the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the way he stood up to the leader of his party and what the outcome of that was for him personally could not have been easy, but I admire him for doing that.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I did not hear a question but I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his very kind words. I have loved being a part of this parliamentary family in the House of Commons. I love my colleagues across the aisle as well. We often disagree, sometimes vehemently. Occasionally we heckle each other but hopefully it is always in a good natured way. I always appreciate a witty comment or two.

However, as we move forward, we need to restore Canadians' trust in the institution of Parliament. That is something I see declining rapidly. We cannot afford this as a country, and I hope that whoever follows me and whoever follows the current government after the carbon tax election will be able to restore that trust in government that Canadians expect.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, Small Business; the member for Kitchener Centre, Persons with Disabilities; the member for Regina—Lewvan, Carbon Pricing.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am glad I caught your eye so I could rise again to speak on this amendment.

We are in a situation now where Parliament has been paralyzed for multiple weeks because of the Liberal government's unwillingness to release all of the unredacted documents to the public. I spoke to the original main motion and the subamendment on this matter. I then told my constituents about the depth of the issue before the House, that the government was refusing to disclose documents that my constituents as taxpayers had already paid for, documents that by all rights they should obtain, because as taxpayers they have a right to know what their government is doing with both funds and documentation.

We are talking about almost $400 million that was misappropriated, misspent and, as the Auditor General has indicated, corruptly sent to the crony friends who ministers of the Crown had appointed to the board of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, which we have labelled as the green slush fund.

I heard a lot from my constituents who replied. They were very happy to see that all opposition parties, way back in June, voted as a group against the Liberal government, demanding that the documents be given to the House of Commons law clerk, who would then give them to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP.

My constituents were pleased to see that, because they are just as worried as I am that close to $400 million had been corruptly spent, corruptly sent to companies. In some cases, as the Auditor General discovered, about one in five or one in six companies that made applications and were given money had nothing to do with financing and supporting green technology, innovation and commercialization in Canada.

I tell my constituents about examples like that. How do we get to billions of dollars of deficits and new debt that is accumulated on the national Treasury that all citizens, all taxpayers, are responsible for? Well, it starts with millions and then it becomes billions. This is a perfect example: almost $400 million that could have been spent on anything else, or it could have been saved. We could have had a lower deficit in a particular year.

Many Conservative members have asked what we could have done with the close to $400 million that was corruptly spent by SDTC's board, by board members who were appointed by a now former industry minister. Again, as I recounted in a prior debate, this fund had a clean bill of health right up until the Liberals decided to muck around in the board, the individuals who were involved in decisions on which projects would be funded and which ones would not be funded.

First, the Liberals replaced the board chair. Jim Balsillie, a well-known entrepreneur in Canada who has had a lot of success in business, was really inconvenient for them, because he was criticizing government policy-making and government decisions. The government replaced him with a different board chair, Annette Verschuren, and then other board members started getting replaced.

This is where the issues began to accumulate, and this is why we find ourselves now considering the issue before the House of the government still refusing to hand over the documents. The House order that was passed back in June, which the government has refused to comply with in the time span that was given to it, was very direct and clear.

Any documents to do with SDTC or the green slush fund were to be given to the law clerk's office. The law clerk, who we all trust as parliamentarians, often works with different parliamentary committees when there are issues of documentation and redaction of documents. The House has an absolute and complete right to get unredacted documents of whatever type. We trust the law clerk to look at them carefully and decide which documents should be made available to parliamentarians.

In this situation, the House basically passed the motion, by majority vote, that the documents are to be given to the law clerk and then to the RCMP.

I have listened to the debate over the past few weeks from different Liberal caucus members, members of the government caucus, and an excuse they are giving is that some of these documents may infringe the charter rights of some Canadians. I would say that argument is specious. It is a ridiculous argument to make. The Liberals have never actually said which charter rights would be infringed.

The charter cannot be used as a shield for Liberal government corruption. That was never the intention when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was ratified in the Constitution, for it to be used later by a government to say it cannot release documents because what may be seen in them could infringe on some types of rights. That was never the intention. It is a bad argument to make.

In the case of my constituents, based on the replies I have received to the newsletter I sent out, which contained more information on exactly what is going on and which types of documents we are requesting to see, they responded by saying they agree. It cannot be the case that a government could argue that the charter protects it and, therefore, it cannot release any documents.

Many of the documents the government has released were redacted, had portions blacked out, which is a frustration I have had for many years here. I see it being done at parliamentary committees and see it done literally in the House of Commons. We have made it very clear that if we had wanted redacted documents or to give that option to the Government of Canada, to the Liberal government, we would have said that in the motion.

The motion said we give some latitude to give redacted documents when it is, say, provincial-federal relations or private information, which are sections of the Access to Information Act that allow for redactions. We would have said, for machinery of government, government operations or cabinet confidences, the government did not need to give us those unredacted. We would have referenced parts of the ATIP act, but we did not. The motion just said to give all of the documents over.

The documents must be really bad. There must be something truly terrifying there for Liberal cabinet members and especially for the industry minister, because it was partially under his watch that decisions had to be made. The Liberals have run away from this fund. That is how bad it is.

The fund has basically been rolled into the National Research Council, and the Liberals have washed their hands of it and pretend as if they were not actively participating in what was going on. There were government officials in those meeting rooms with the board members. Again, these documents must be really awful to paralyze all of Parliament, where we have been debating this for weeks on end.

Back to my original point, I always tell my constituents why we want these documents. We want these documents because we need to get to the truth of what happened to the close to $400 million that was corruptly allocated to companies. The Auditor General found 186 cases out of 400 cases where the conflict of interest rules were not followed, for a fund that, pre-2017, had a clean bill of health.

The only thing that really changed between when the fund was originally created, in the 2000s, and 2017 is that this particular cabinet took over, and then the Liberals decided it would be okay to start finagling and making decisions that were wrong. The people they appointed made these corrupt decisions. The Liberals are responsible to the taxpayers, to the citizens of Canada, for releasing those documents to show us exactly where the money went.

After the rebate, the carbon tax is still costing the average Alberta family $911. How many Alberta families could have their carbon tax covered for close to $400 million? It is a huge number of people. I think the entire population of Alberta could have had their carbon tax paid for almost an entire year. It is real money. It would have a real impact on people in my riding. The carbon tax has had a real impact.

Canadians know they do not get all of the carbon tax back. They feel it in their pocketbook. They feel it at the end of the month when they are paying their bills. They feel it when they see how much income tax is deducted on their T4. They feel it when they are told the government is missing its budget forecast by $7 billion to $8 billion, because that is what the government has done here. That is about a 20% miss.

The deficit was closer to $47 billion or $48 billion for the last fiscal year. Then the Parliamentary Budget Officer added $400 million to that, saying it was mismanaged. Then we add in this $400 million, which was not just mismanaged, but corruptly directed to, sometimes, the board members of SDTC, the green slush fund, who would be a board member or a corporate officer of the company that received the money.

I remember my time at the Chamber of Commerce. This is corporate ethics 101 of the stuff we just cannot do under any circumstances. We are supposed to recuse ourselves from the decision-making process when we have situations where there is either a real conflict of interest or, even worse, a perception of a conflict of interest. This is a situation where those people appointed by the Liberal cabinet made those corrupt decisions. That is why taxpayers and citizens have a right to know how deep the rot goes.

This is from a newsletter that I sent to my constituents. In a prior speaking opportunity on the main motion, I related it back to my founding experiences as to what made me a Conservative. Why did I choose the Conservative Party of Canada as the vehicle for my ideas? I always describe it that way. There are lots of different political parties. They organize our passions. What are we passionate about? What are our priorities? I became a Conservative partially because of the 1995 referendum in the province of Quebec. Then the second major founding event in my life was the sponsorship scandal. The sponsorship scandal was another fund, not quite the same size with about a tenth of the money being corruptly spent, that was given to the advertising buddies of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Every single time there is a major corruption scandal in Canada, we somehow have a Liberal government in charge. It has been almost every single time. That to me was a very foundational event in my life. That is what led me become a Conservative, more philosophically, because corruptly assigning money that is taxpayers' cash to the Liberals' friends and buddies is just wrong. It is plain wrong.

That should have been known by the people making these decisions. The Auditor General has basically indicated that. As she went through her audit, she explained, line by line, every single issue that existed with the green slush fund, but this has not been the only scandal. We also had SNC-Lavalin.

Every single time a scandal comes up, there is a sort of arc, where at first the Liberals deny that anything has gone on. That was the case with SNC-Lavalin and the deferred prosecution, which caused the firing of the first indigenous justice minister and attorney general in the history of Canada. She was fired, undeservedly fired. Then the former president of the treasury board was summarily fired. Both of them were expelled from the government caucus. That was the SNC-Lavalin scandal. At first, the Liberals denied it. They denied that the Globe and Mail story was true. Then they said the story is true, but not what we are pretending that it is. Eventually they said this is exactly how it happened. There was a recording that was released as well.

To me, the whole story, or arc, is happening again. The government, at first, insisted there was nothing to see here. It said there was nothing going on. Liberals got up in question period, answered questions and denied that anything went on as ardently as they possibly could. Eventually, the Auditor General's report said that the situation was untenable. There was not just corruption, but very deep corruption that went back to 2017, when decisions on who could make those decisions about how the money would be allocated by these board members were made by the cabinet.

In the case of Annette Verschuren, she even had $200,000 given to one of her companies. These again are public documents. When she emailed some of the staff, they promised to find other funds in government from which her company could gain access to additional monies. The Government of Canada is not a piggy bank for Liberal crony friends. It is not a piggy bank for any of them.

Citizens in my riding, taxpayers, are young and old. They are not just 18-plus-year-olds who pay personal income tax. Teenagers are paying GST every single time. They are just as much taxpayers as anybody else. Now we have a situation where their money was corruptly spent. Their money was corruptly directed.

We find ourselves here again looking at another Liberal scandal. This one is not so new. It is several weeks old now because the government is in contempt. That is what the Speaker basically ruled. The government is in contempt because of its refusal to give over documents. That is, to me, the textbook definition of contempt.

The Liberals are refusing to abide by an order that a majority of MPs in the House voted for. Many of the arguments they are now using when they get up at different times are that, well, it would be unwise to release them, it would be unfair to release them, or that it might violate some type of charter protections to release them. However, those are all arguments they should have made back in June to try to persuade parliamentarians that the original wording of the motion should not have passed, but that failed. The decision was made to have all of the documents released and to give all the documents over to the law clerk and to the RCMP.

Now, I have also heard the argument made by members on the opposite side that the RCMP does not want the documents. However, I would insist that they reread the letter because that is not what the RCMP said. It was very clear that, if the RCMP got the documents, it would look at them and then decide what to do with them, which is exactly what we have been saying all along. The RCMP will decide what to do with them. Nobody is directing the police forces here to do something in particular. It is not what the motion originally called for with the production of documents. The motion simply said that they should go from the law clerk to the RCMP. The Liberals need to just hand over the documents.

As well, it is difficult to subpoena or ask for the production of documents if we do not know that the documents exist. As an avid and enthusiastic user of the access to information laws in this country, I invite any member to look at my office expenses and see how often I expense ATIPs, which are five dollars each. It is some of the best money an opposition parliamentarian can spend, and I do a lot of them. However, I often get frustrated because I sometimes do not know the title of a document, and sometimes I have people tell me that the documentation does not exist.

As always, I have a Yiddish proverb. I was saving this one for last, and I know that members are waiting for it. A favourite one that I often use is, “Words should be weighed, not counted.”

My contribution today, which again reiterates the points we have made over the last several weeks, is that the arguments being advanced by the Liberals that they cannot simply give the documents because of the charter and freedoms are specious. They do not apply here and cannot be used to shield the Liberal government from corruption charges. It just does not make any sense.

It must be truly horrifying. How could the Liberals explain to Canadians how they misspent, corruptly misspent, almost $400 million, and that almost $60 million of the funds that went out had nothing to do with green technology spending? It is not me saying this, but the Auditor General of Canada saying it. She could not find in the eligibility criteria where that matched up with anything, but somehow that money still went out, corruptly. Also, the AG's report, which went up to $400 million, is just a sample size. She did not look at every single project, which is why we want these documents from all the projects and all departments so that we know everything on this particular issue.

To conclude, I move, seconded by the member for Brandon—Souris:

That the amendment be amended by replacing the words “Friday, November 22, 2024” with the following: “the 30th sitting day following the adoption of this order”.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The amendment to the amendment is in order.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment]

Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my colleague across the way. Both our fathers were in the Solidarity movement fighting the communist dictatorship in Poland. It was a country where politicians directed the police, and they directed the police to arrest my father.

Does the member not see how this Conservative motion weakens not only the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but also that incredibly important wall separating the politicians and the police in this country?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member is correct. My dad was a member of the Solidarity movement. His father, being one of those who was arrested, probably ranks quite a bit higher in the esteem of many in the Polish-Canadian community because, especially if they were not a shipyard worker, but one of the mine workers, they were especially oppressed by the communist regime, the People's Republic of Poland.

However, I actually disagree with him. A perfect example of why I would say no is that it does not blur the lines. It blurs the lines when the government uses the Emergencies Act, invokes it with barely any notice and then rams it through and orders its backbenchers, who are wavering, that this is a matter of confidence. The Emergencies Act was used purely to direct the police on what to do over several days. That is when we really fog it over and confuse people because politicians do not direct police forces. They simply lay out the rules that are supposed to apply, but they do not select the people who are supposed to be arrested. The Emergencies Act being used by the government the member belongs to is the problem here.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague said he went into politics during the referendum. So did I, but I did it for the right reasons.

I would like to point out something about the Harper government. The Auditor General's report came out in 2005, 19 years ago. Ten of those years were under the Harper government, and we must not forget that. Well, SDTC still exists, and the loss of control over public funds has never been resolved. It is clear that no matter which party forms government, the same thing always happens when it comes to interference and respect. I think we have to ask ourselves some questions. The problem right now is that we are not playing our role as legislators.

What does my colleague think of that?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I do not entirely agree with what my colleague says about the time when Mr. Harper was in government as prime minister. It has been over nine years that another government has been in power. I would like to talk to her about the health of this particular fund. The Auditor General of Canada, year after year, has given the fund an excellent report card because all the processes that had to be followed regarding the allocation of taxpayer dollars were followed and all the rules were observed.

It was not until 2017, when people were appointed to run this fund, that we started to see problems. The Auditor General of Canada is now telling us that there are serious problems with this fund. That is why we are asking for these documents to be made public.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member for Calgary Shepard is someone I feel is particularly reasonable. I understand he has introduced another subamendment. It must be the third, fourth or fifth subamendment. I believe each one has come from the Conservatives on their own motion.

Can he explain what the purpose of these subamendments is, if not to prolong debate on the very thing that the Conservatives claim to want to be investigated?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, “particularly reasonable” might just be a slogan I run on in my riding. I will credit him if it does happen in the next election.

We want the documents. We are talking about close to $400 million in corruptly allocated funds from SDTC, the green slush fund. The public has a right to know how their money was misspent and corruptly spent. What we are asking the government to do is pretty darn simple: Give us all of the documents, unredacted. Give them to the law clerk so they can pass them over to the RCMP. The moment that happens, this paralysis that the Liberal government has imposed on parliamentarians, stopping us from doing legislative work, will end. It is their own obstruction and contempt of parliament that is causing the current paralysis. I invite them to simply release the documents. They can do it right now, this minute.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, one of the things my hon. colleague did not mention in his speech on the relevance of the documents is that we have only had a partial look and we have information about only one part. There is much more to this slush fund. That is why we need the documents. I think he had an opinion about that.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member for Bow River is exactly right. In the sample size that the Auditor General used to verify the process of spending and how decisions were made, she identified 186 particular situations where there was a conflict of interest or an apparent conflict of interest. These are situations where board members of the green slush fund should have recused themselves from the decision-making process.

Because the sample size does not include all the projects, there are projects for which we have no information. We really do not know how the decisions were made. Were the projects even eligible? As I mentioned in my intervention, close to $60 million was allocated to companies that had nothing to do with green technology. There might be more, which is why we want all the documents to be released to the public through the intermediary of the law clerk's office.

The law clerk's office is deeply respected. In fact, one of the previous law clerks, I will remind the House, was actually appointed to become the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. That is how much esteem the House, and presumably the government, has for the law clerk's office. I put forward a motion at the immigration committee on a similar situation, which was passed, for the production of documents. Again, we trust the law clerk's office to get the job right.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Madam Speaker, we have now heard from yet another Conservative talking about what the best interests of Canadians are. Obviously we support transparency and getting to the bottom of what the Liberals are hiding with respect to the scandal.

However, I want to go back to the question of the good of the Canadian public. We know that Canadians are having a more and more difficult time. Life has become increasingly unaffordable, yet what we hear from Conservatives are slogans around cutting. When they were in power, we know they cut health care and cut key programming. Certainly, regions like ours lost jobs and public services under the Harper government.

When the Conservatives talk about the best interest of the Canadian public, why do they not stand up and vote with us when it comes to measures on tax fairness and to taking on corporate greed that is gouging Canadian workers and Canadians across our country? When it comes to taking a stand in the House, why are they not on the side of Canadians who are suffering and are instead throwing around cheap slogans and not standing up for real solutions for Canadians?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I invite the member to review the Hansard blues for my intervention. I am almost certain I did not use any abbreviations or the so-called slogans she is referring to.

I have a worry, like my constituents do, about how government spends money. I think all opposition parties agree, because we all voted together for the production of the documents, that Liberal government corruption is never excusable. Its members should not be allowed to use the argument that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows them not to produce the documents. They cannot obstruct Parliament. They cannot paralyze Parliament. They cannot be in contempt of Parliament because they do not want to give us the documents.

I think what has always united opposition parties, whether Conservative, Bloc or New Democrat, is that we all agree that we are here to stop Liberal government corruption, because it is endemic. Every new government that comes in, whatever words its members use during the campaign, eventually leads to a situation where funds or programs that were working are bent to suit the needs of Liberal cabinet members and Liberal cronies.

I hope we will all agree that we will stand firm against the corruption and that we will not give the government the opportunity to continue to paralyze Parliament.

Message from the Senate

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill, to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-269, an act respecting a national framework on advertising for sports betting.

The House resumed consideration of the motion, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a bit remarkable that we are still here, four weeks later, and still quite delayed. I can hear some rumbling from some of my colleagues in the backbenches of the Liberal Party. I understand their frustration. They are frustrated because, of course, we are still waiting for the Liberal government to deliver documents that the majority of members—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

It seems members want to interject before it is time for questions and comments, and it is very difficult for people at home or others in the chamber who want to hear.

The hon. member for Parry Sound—Muskoka has the floor.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleagues across the way are clearly very frustrated that we are still in this situation, but they know full well the reason we are still here is that a majority of members of the House, the people's House, have demanded documents. It is the unassailable right of this place to demand documents from the executive. The Speaker even ruled in favour of the demand that was brought forward, and the government still continues to ignore the order. It is continuing to hide, and we keep demanding the documents.

It has been four weeks, and the Liberals have had to come up with different lines every week about why they simply cannot do what the House has demanded, despite the fact that they know full well the House has the complete authority to demand the documents and they should hand them over. However, they continue to be more interested in hiding documents and protecting their own backsides instead than in doing what the duly elected members of this place have demanded. It has been four weeks of this, when we could be debating the issues of the day.

There are real problems we face in this country that Canadians are struggling with. Let us talk about affordability for a moment. Why are we not talking about that? Food bank usage in Canada is higher than it has ever been in the history of tracking these things. We should be discussing ways to solve the problems.

The carbon tax, we know, makes everything more expensive. When we tax the farmer who grows the food and the trucker who delivers the food, when we tax food at every stage of the process, we make food more expensive. That includes taxing the food banks that buy food to serve people who need help. We could be debating how to eliminate the carbon tax and make food more affordable for Canadians; instead, we are still dealing with the cover-up of documents.

The carbon tax also makes heating our home more expensive. We are getting close to winter and it is starting to get a little chilly out there. I finally brought my winter coat from home because Ottawa is getting chillier. It is expensive to heat our homes, and winter is coming. Many Canadians are forced to choose between paying their heating bill this month or buying groceries. Constituents in my riding have visited me in tears because they do not know what they are going to do. The food bank in their community they used to donate to they are now using. They are worried. Many of them are ashamed. They cannot believe they are in this situation.

Why are we not debating proposals to make Canadians' lives easier, to make it easier for them to heat their home and buy food? We could be debating the Conservative proposal to axe the tax, eliminate the carbon tax that makes everything more expensive, yet here we are. We are still talking about getting the documents that the majority of members of the House, as is their right as elected representatives of the common people, have demanded, and the government still refuses. We could be solving problems. We could be focused on the problems if only we had a government that was open and transparent by default.

We will all recall the Prime Minister's talking about being open and transparent by default. I agree that government should be, but it is pretty clear, after the demonstration of four weeks of completely disrespecting the order of the House, that the government is anything but open and transparent by default. It is more interested in protecting itself and hiding the corruption, the rot at the centre of the government.

I was talking about homes and people who are struggling to pay to heat their home. That refers to people who actually have homes. There is no shortage of people in this country, young people particularly, who have given up on the dream of ever owning a home, never mind heating it. Eighty per cent of young people who do not own a home now believe that owning a home is only for the very rich. That is something we should be addressing in the House.

We should be fixing the problems and changing things in the House. Instead we are here trying to get documents and uncover the Liberals' corruption, but they continue to try to protect themselves and keep things hidden because they are not remotely close to open and transparent by default. After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, not only is it not open and transparent by default, but home prices have doubled, rents have doubled and mortgage payments have doubled. It is no wonder that young people have simply given up on the dream of home ownership.

It is no wonder that young people have given up on this place's doing anything to solve the problems they face, because here we are, struggling to get documents that a majority of members of the House have demanded, as is their right, and the government continues to refuse to deliver them. It is as if it thinks it is all-powerful and does not have to listen to what the House says.

However, the House is supreme; that is parliamentary supremacy. I did a little lecture on that not too long ago. My colleague from Saint John—Rothesay remembers it. I see the giggle on his face because he knows it was a good speech. He understands the importance of parliamentary supremacy.

We should be debating things in the House right now that are not about the Liberals' cover-up but about solving problems for Canadians. In fact, the Conservative leader just proposed a brilliant idea that I know some of the members over there on the Liberal benches really like, which is to eliminate the federal sales tax on new homes sold for under a million dollars in this country. It has the potential of saving people up to $50,000 on the purchase of a home.

Here is the thing: We are not debating the idea. We have not got a motion on the floor proposing that the government adopt the change and eliminate the federal sales tax on new homes, because it is trying to cover up its corruption. It is trying to cover its tracks in all the conflicts of interest, so here we are. We could be talking about how we could be saving Canadians $50,000 on the purchase of a home, or $2,200 a year in mortgage payments, which is about the same amount. Imagine what that could do. Imagine how many more people could afford to buy a home.

Of course, the Leader of the Opposition has written to the premiers to suggest they follow suit and eliminate the provincial sales tax on the purchase of a new home. In Ontario, that has the potential of reducing the cost of a new home by another 8%. It is a brilliant idea. It could save thousands of dollars on the cost of a new home. More Canadians could have a home.

For the 80% of young people who believe that owning a home is only for the very rich and who have given up on the dream of home ownership, we would actually be doing something to solve that. We would be delivering hope and solutions to young people, yet here we are still debating, still pushing, still pressuring the government to hand over the documents and to be open and transparent by default.

It is funny that we talk about transparency, because I am sure members will remember that on November 4, 2015, the then newly elected Liberal Prime Minister released an open letter. I am going to read from it:

...Canadians need to have faith in their government’s honesty and willingness to listen. That is why we committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in Ottawa. Government and its information must be open by default. Simply put, it is time to shine more light on government to make sure it remains focused on the people it was created to serve—you.

That sure sounds refreshing. What a great idea that is: a government that is open by default. It promised to be. How has that gone since 2015?

Before I arrived here, I grew up in and spent a lifetime in municipal politics. I see a couple of colleagues who have been in municipal politics in Ontario. They know how local government works; it is absolutely open by default. Every council meeting and every committee meeting is open to the public. Closed sessions are a very rare thing; they are only for legal advice, purchasing property or dealing with staffing issues, such as if somebody has to be fired, for example. Everything else is open.

In fact, a majority of council members cannot just get together and have a chat. That is against the rules because it is like a council meeting in secret. It is open by default. I look at some colleagues who have lived in that world; they know, and I know they absolutely know, that they would not last very long if they ever operated at local council the way the government operates. They would be kicked out of office. It is a far cry here from what goes on at the local level, for sure.

We are asking why we need to be transparent in this case, what the need for transparency is here. The Liberal insiders on the Sustainable Development Technology Canada board broke the public trust. They did not care about the honour and integrity of the office they held.

That was until November 2022, when literally heroic whistle-blowers raised the alarm. They raised their concerns about what was going on in this agency. They called the Auditor General; at that point, the Auditor General saw enough of an issue that she launched an investigation. From this investigation, she found widespread conflicts of interest, corruption and abuse of Canadians' hard-earned dollars at Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

In fact, as has been said in here many times, the Auditor General found that 82% of the transactions involving payments from Sustainable Development Technology Canada to companies approved by the board of directors were conflicted. That is almost all of them. Over the five-year period the Auditor General examined, 82% of the transactions she reviewed were conflicted. Honestly, at the local level, in municipal government, they would go to jail for this kind of stuff. It is insane, yet here we are demanding documents for what amounts to corruption worth $400 million.

This makes the sponsorship scandal back in the Chrétien era seem quite tiny by comparison. It is $400 million, but they say no, we cannot show that information. It does not matter what Parliament, in its supremacy, has said. We have to protect this person; we have to protect that person. In truth, they are protecting themselves. This is a level of corruption and conflict of interest that is almost unimaginable. I cannot think of another example this bad in the history of this country.

Never mind the $300 million of conflicted transactions, the Auditor General also found that the Liberal-appointed board funded $58 million of projects that were not even eligible by the criteria of the agency. They did not meet the criteria. We talk to all kinds of agencies, such as charities and municipalities all across this country, that apply for federal programs all the time; they get turned down. They have amazing applications, and they do all the things they have to do. They dot all the i's and cross all the t's; they have amazing projects, amazing ideas, but they get turned down.

However, if people are Liberal insiders, it does not matter whether they meet the criteria, because someone has their back. They will take care of them. Can we imagine how many homes could be built with $58 million? How many more people who cannot afford to buy food could be supported in this country? It was $58 million; they were not even eligible, but they got their money.

How does this happen? We will go back. The House ordered the production of documents. A majority of members of the House voted back in June. A majority voted to hand over the documents. It is an extraordinary power. I know I have talked about this before. The government, the Prime Minister and the departments his cabinet controls have all just refused. They have redacted and removed portions of the documents the House has requested. They have just done their own thing.

We cannot think this is just a one-off. We might think, yes, it is a bit embarrassing that this arm's-length group did something that was not great, but we collapsed that; we have now done this other thing, and it is all good. The Liberals would like us to believe that they have it fixed, that everything is fine. They say, “Do not look here. We can be trusted. Do not worry.” However, the government has gone to great lengths to hide this, and it is not the first time. If this were the first time something like this had happened over the last nine years, we would think that maybe we could cut them some slack, they would fix things and maybe they were being honest. However, it is not the first time.

Canadians will remember the Winnipeg lab documents case. The government worked to hide documents related to the firing of two scientists at the national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg. This is another example of the power of the House and its members. It is not because we are a power-hungry group but because, as we heard from the Prime Minister back when he talked about openness and transparency by default, sunlight is the best disinfectant. This $400-million green slush fund is in desperate need of some sunlight.

The president of the Public Health Agency of Canada was called to the bar to be admonished by the former Speaker. We will all remember this. I remember it quite vividly because I am still a fairly new member of this place. That has not happened in something like 100 years, and there he was, standing there, being admonished. The Speaker said, “The [powers] in question, like all those enjoyed by the House collectively and by members individually, are essential to the performance of their duties. The House has the power, and indeed the duty, to reaffirm them when obstruction or interference impedes its deliberations.”

That is why we are here today. The House has been seized of a matter. We have demanded documents related to multi-million dollar corruption, conflict of interest and giving of money to organizations that did not even comply with the rules. The green slush fund is corruption on a massive scale. The government is desperate to cover its tracks. It has ignored the order and the supremacy of the House for four weeks. Meanwhile, Canadians suffer, and we are not debating the solutions and solving problems that Canadians deserve answers and solutions for.

Here we are. We continue to debate, and these guys could solve it right now. They could hand over the documents. Let us be open and transparent by default. Let us shed some sunlight on this.

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will simply try to bring forward a bit of levity and take advantage of the comments component as opposed to a question.

I have two things to say. First, I thought that the member did a good job of using his own words. I enjoyed hearing discussion that was not manufactured by Conservative staff on a variety of different things. Second, in all honesty, I heard a lot of references from another colleague to Yiddish proverbs earlier, so I thought I would offer my colleague vocabulary that he could introduce into a future speech.

The member referenced Liberal backsides, so I thought I would tap into the former educator in me to teach him a word. The Yiddish word for backside is “tuchus”, so I hope that the word tuchus will find its way into the future remarks of my hon. colleague across the way.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a lovely set of remarks there, and I appreciate my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre's comment. I have added a new word to my vocabulary, and I appreciate that very much. Much like my colleague from Calgary Shepherd, I clearly need to use more Yiddish in my expressions around here; I will attempt to do so.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when the member was talking about other people who ran for municipal office or sat on city councils, I could not help but think that he was referring to me. I will tell him something that I did not do when I was on city council, because I did spend a lot of time on city council in Ontario, as he did. I never once told the chief of police what to do. I never once collected evidence for the chief of police in Kingston. I actually went to the chief of police quite often to seek advice as to how to do things. I listened to the chief of police when they spoke to me, especially in the area of their expertise.

In this case, we have the chief of the RCMP, the RCMP commissioner, who says, “Any information obtained through the Motion or other compulsory authorities would need to be segregated from an RCMP investigation. There is significant risk that the Motion could be interpreted as circumvention of normal investigative processes and Charter protections.”

Therefore, in the interest of sharing stories from city councils, I am curious about this: How many times did the member tell his chief of police what to do?

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a very simple answer to that question. I, like the member, have spoken to the chief of police many times in my community and never told him what to do. The interesting thing about this, of course, is that the member did not ask the question just to get that answer. That is the simple answer. He asked that question to suggest that what we are trying to do is wrong.

The fact of the matter is that a majority of members of the House, not just Conservatives, have demanded documents that we would like to hand over to the police. We are not telling the police what to do with the documents or how to interpret them. We are not telling them how to manage their investigation.

The House has demanded documents; frankly, that should be the end of it, full stop. It is the supremacy of the House.