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.