Debates of Nov. 6th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on the question my colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville asked earlier.

If we did get the documents, that would be great. Members could continue or begin their analysis, as the case may be, and ensure that processes are improved, which is our job at the end of the day. We need to make sure that the processes are properly implemented, if that is not already the case. If they are too complicated, we need to simplify them. It is all about saving money for taxpayers.

My question is this. If the documents are not handed over, if things continue to drag on, do questions of privilege then become a roundabout, insidious way of keeping the Liberal government in power until the Conservatives decide it is time to call an election?

Would it not be better to simply say that we realize we are not going to get them, so let us put it to a vote and just accept whatever happens with the current government?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question. This is a rule of Parliament. Who is going to force compliance with the rules of Parliament, other than the opposition?

If our Bloc Québécois colleagues want to support us in our campaign to demand the documents from the Government of Canada, I invite them to stick with us. It is important to have the documents, for all of us here in Parliament.

It is important, and not just in this case. It is important for the future of the House of Commons. It is very important. That is the rule. How are we going to work together in the House of Commons? It is important. We are going to stay here.

My colleague asked if the Conservatives were going to delay calling an election. Of course not, we want an election as soon as possible.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will start off with a comment and then go into a question.

I will not fault my colleague for standing up for the oil and gas industry. Those are his constituents. Indeed, we need to have an intelligent conversation in this place about what to do with energy workers as the decades go on, what that transition is going to look like.

I listened to the member's comments about the economic value of oil and gas. I would like to point out to him that our oil and gas production is among the most energy-intensive on this planet. The other facts we have to look at are that the 10 warmest years on record all happened in the last decade, and that climate change itself has a real economic cost. We need only speak to Canada's hard-working farmers, who are on the front lines of climate change. The current business risk management programs are not adequately funding them to deal with climate-related disasters.

My question is on the process before us. I have heard the RCMP publicly comment that it would be uncomfortable for the RCMP to receive these documents. Given that the House is currently stuck, would it not be advisable for us to move this question of privilege to the procedure and House affairs committee? Then Conservatives could call the RCMP commissioner before that committee as a witness, and the commissioner could inform the Conservatives on the appropriate process for the handling of these documents.

Would that not be an advisable option?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the preamble and the actual question. However, my colleague is sort of saying, “We want to do indirectly what we could do more efficiently directly,” and he has some RCMP friend who tells him he is uncomfortable with this process.

We are Parliament and our job here is not to make somebody comfortable. There has been some very serious corruption and we want to get to the bottom of it, as uncomfortable as my colleague says the RCMP might be when it uncovers these documents. If it makes the RCMP uncomfortable and squirmy because its boss over on the front bench of the Liberal government is going to say, “Oh my gosh, we have trodden way past where we should have,” and the RCMP has to issue some warrants, that is going to be very uncomfortable for everybody.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things we know. We have been seized with this issue, as my colleague knows, for a month now, and the Liberals could end this by submitting the documents, unredacted. They could end it right now, tonight.

I have important issues in my riding, like the rural top-up that residents have been denied in York—Simcoe even though we are rural, like the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund and like Liberal-appointed senators interfering in my bill, Bill C-280, over in the Senate. We know that side of the House is now with bankers, and on this side of the House, we are with farmers.

I wonder if my colleague could point to a few pressing issues in his riding that we are not getting to because the Liberals are not producing these documents.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of things we are not dealing with in this Parliament because the government digs its feet in the sand and is not going to abide by the rules of Parliament. It is not us who set those rules. It is the Speaker's rule, saying no other order of business shall be dealt with in this House until this matter has been dealt with, because the rules of Parliament say these documents must be provided.

We think about all the things happening across this country, including in my province of Alberta. We have to deal with all kinds of issues, including how we are going to change the Impact Assessment Act so it is constitutionally viable because the government made a gross overstep in passing legislation in that respect. The Liberals are stalled on that. I do not think they are stalled just because of this procedure; they are stalled because they do not want to perform their actual job in this Parliament. There is much to be done here.

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

Mr. Speaker, just to clarify, the hon. member put it in quotation marks, but it was not a close, personal friend of my colleague from British Columbia but the commissioner of the RCMP who said the RCMP would be uncomfortable. There are no quotation marks needed because that is fact.

I want to go back for a moment to something my colleague said in a previous response to my question. He talked about burdening future generations. I am guessing he owns a house. I do not know for sure. I am guessing he did not pay cash for that house. He probably took out a mortgage. He borrowed money. Why did he borrow money, presumably? Why do Canadians borrow money? They do it to invest. Our government is investing in people.

I would ask him whether he believes a national school food program and child care are mere bureaucracy, as the Leader of the Opposition is so fond of saying.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

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

I will repeat that, Mr. Speaker, because I know the member was getting some advice.

Are the national school food program and $10-a-day day care bureaucracy, in his mind? A simple yes or no would be helpful.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for the financial advice they give me in the House. I appreciate it.

The issue of what is investing and what is spending is nonsense. Governments are not investing right now. Governments are spending like crazy. It is not an investment to say, “We are spending everybody's money today, but do not worry about it in the future.” It is gross overspending, and the Liberals have to start making choices for Canadians.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this House and have my say about certain topics. Certainly, the SDTC scandal is one that has rocked this chamber for a long time now, and rightly so.

However, before we get to that, if I might, I want to speak a little bit about Lloyd Coady, a veteran in my riding, who will turn 100 years old on November 16. I can remember clearly when I had the opportunity to be the honorary colonel for The Nova Scotia Highlanders. Lloyd and I, one Remembrance Day, were standing on the dais and he asked me if I wanted to have a push-up contest. I politely declined. Then, as we stepped down off the dais, Lloyd wanted to have a running race. Once again, I thought that it would be rather impolite to do so. That being said, needless to say, Lloyd is in incredible shape and certainly an incredible guy. He was a medic during World War II.

God bless Lloyd. I wish him many more. I hope to see him before Remembrance Day this year and, of course, on Remembrance Day as well. What a guy.

That being said, I suspect Lloyd would be aghast with the details of the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund. When we look at this, there was a whistle-blower who testified before the industry committee in the fall of 2023. I can remember my great friend from South Shore—St. Margarets telling me about this scandal day after day, and building this case, which he has been so successful at, and understanding that $400 million had been given to Liberal insiders. This whistle-blower, in the fall of 2023, accused the federal government of having carried out an egregious cover-up. Of course, that is part of the reason we are here today.

Doug McConnachie, who at the time was the assistant deputy minister at ISED, was recorded by whistle-blowers saying the following about the SDTC, “There's a lot of sloppiness and laziness. There is some outright incompetence and, you know, the situation is just kind of untenable at this point.”

The Auditor General's report on SDTC was damning. It found that SDTC had not set clear guidance to support staff and the project review committee to determine whether a project met all the eligibility criteria set out in the contribution agreements. Of course, it goes on and on. We know when this was further investigated there were 186 conflicts of interest and, as I mentioned at the outset, at least $400 million of government money has been given to Liberal insiders. That is why we are here.

It is interesting, I have heard much of this debate and it fascinates me that it is okay to give some of the information, such as the redacted documents, but the NDP-Liberal government does not think it is okay to give all of the information by way of unredacted documents. I do not really understand that logic because, quite frankly, it is not logical. Therefore, we begin to understand that, in essence, that is what we are talking about here today, giving the full amount of information that is available. It is okay to give part of the information to the RCMP, but it is not okay to give all of the information to the RCMP. If that does not make any sense to people, it of course does not make any sense to those of us on this side of the House.

I think it is important that Canadians understand that it is the reckless spending that causes the difficulties we end up with. I know my colleague just before me answered the question about whether Canadians might consider that borrowing money to make investments makes good sense. Certainly, there have been a lot of schemes out there. Maybe that is what rich people do. I do not know. That being said, it really would not make any sense. One could borrow money at a low rate and invest it at a high rate, generally speaking, but I do not know who has the ability to access that kind of capital and what kind of a scheme one would have to be involved with. Actually, I do know what kind of scheme one could be involved in, the SDTC scheme.

If they knew their company was going to receive lots of money from the NDP-Liberal government, then it would make sense to borrow money to put into that company because they know their pockets are going to be flush with cash. This is, perhaps, much like the radical environment minister has been able to do, and we will talk about the radical environment minister a bit more.

We know on this side of the House, it is important to talk about four pillars of moving forward and how we are going to get rid of this corruption. Axing the carbon tax, of course, is one of those things that is part of the core being, and we have asked multiple times, on this side of the House, for a carbon tax election. This adds more fuel to the fire, because we often hear that we get more back in carbon rebates than we pay in.

I had a very astute constituent email my office, and I thought it fascinating, because his quote really cut very closely to the quick. He said only a fool would believe we are going to give the government money, and they are going to give us more back. Whoever heard of such a thing? If we could have a scheme like that, I would suggest it would be something great to invest in. That being said, I think this is more smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand. It could be a pyramid scheme like Amway, maybe, if any of us remember those days. That is much akin to what the SDTC scandal is.

Back to axing the tax, the Canadian Trucking Alliance reported in September that, “In 2024, the carbon tax will add just under $2 billion to annual trucking costs in Canada. By 2030, the carbon tax will add more than $4 billion to annual trucking costs, an overall increase of about 15%. Over the 12-year tax phase in, the tax will have cost the trucking industry more than $26 billion.” For everybody out there who was watching question period today, our leader talked about businesses being driven to the United States. Certainly, this is another scheme of the NDP-Liberal government to drive Canadian businesses south of the border where they do not have a carbon tax.

The article continues, “Due to razor thin margins in the trucking industry, these added costs cannot be absorbed and must be passed on to customers.” This leads us to this incredibly important point, which those of us on this side of the House have said many times. I know the member from Winnipeg probably wants to join me in reciting it, but when we tax the farmer who grows the food and we tax the trucker who ships the food, then the person who buys the food has to pay all those costs as well. They end up getting taxed over and over again.

The Trucking Alliance also reported that, “virtually every good purchased by Canadian families and businesses involves truck transportation”. Anywhere we go, we obviously see that. I remember a great billboard in the United States that had a picture of a baby on it, and underneath it was the caption “this is the only thing not delivered by a truck”. The article continues, “this means those families and businesses are paying increasingly higher prices for those goods to pay for this ineffective tax.” This is something we talk about when we knock on doors and we talk to folks, to real folks, as opposed to those the NDP-Liberals talk to; I do not know who they talk to. We know the cost of living is crippling the financial lives of Canadians.

We also know the tax will cost Canadians about $30.5 billion by 2030, which works out to about $1,824 per family in extra annual costs. We know what the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said about the damaging and damning carbon tax. In May of this year, on CTV's Power Play, he said, “Overall, a vast majority of people will be worse off under a carbon tax pricing regime than without, and we don't expect that to change.” The NDP-Liberals want to manipulate and change the words of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, but that is a falsehood.

In his June 3 appearance before the finance committee, the Parliamentary Budget Officer once again confirmed that, “The government has economic analysis on the impact of the carbon tax itself... We’ve seen that, staff in my office, but we’ve been told explicitly not to disclose and reference it.” This a damaging attack by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

What else is going on in terms of the finances of Canadians? We know that Foodbanks Canada reported more than two million Canadians visited food banks in March 2024, which is the highest in the history of reporting.

We look at that number of two million Canadians. My goodness, what a fantastic country we have. Why is the NDP-Liberal government spending money and driving Canadians to the food bank? When we look at Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia's food banks have reported 39,360 total visits in 2023-24, which is a 21% increase from the previous year and a 53% increase from 2019. Of course, sadly, many of those visiting food banks are children; 32.4%. Talking about the school food program, this is a problem that the NDP-Liberals have created and now, on behalf of Canada and Canadians, they want to spend some more money to solve a problem that they created by their vanity projects and their spending with abandon. Nearly 30% of food banks across Canada report that they are running out of food.

A report from Dalhousie University indicates that a family of four will see their grocery bills rise by over $700 in 2024. That may not seem like a lot of money to a lot of people on the NDP-Liberal side of the House. Perhaps the Prime Minister does not think that is a lot of money. That being said, for those of us who grew up in circumstances where we perhaps did not have a proverbial silver spoon, we know that $700 is still a lot of money. It is something that we need to be mindful of.

While I am talking about my childhood, I will give a shout-out to my mom, who is 91 and still living in the same trailer park that I grew up in. Hopefully, today, she is having a good day, still living independently at 91. That is certainly something. Hopefully I can repeat that.

These are the kinds of difficulties financially that Canadians are suffering from. The second major pillar, of course, on this side of the House, is building the homes. We know that 70% of those folks who are using food banks in Nova Scotia are residing in market rentals. When we look at the building permits from June 2024, we know that the total value of building permits in Canada fell 13.9% to $9.9 billion in June 2024, and that decreases were reported in 11 of the 13 provinces and territories. I am sure that was much to the chagrin of the former failed immigration minister, who is now the flailing and floundering housing minister. Both residential and non-residential sectors experienced that reduction. As a constant dollar basis from 2017, representing 100, the total value of building permits declined 14.3% in June, following a 13.4% decline in May. Those are absolutely damning statistics when we hear a government spending absolutely billions of dollars on its so-called housing accelerator, etc.

Once again there has to be a bit of commentary here. I find it absolutely egregious that the housing minister wants to publish names of members on this side of the House. They have said that we should not be writing the minister while advocating for constituents. As we look at that, I do not know if there is a nicer word, but in my mind, this is like a bush league. When we write letters to the minister, even if the programs are absolutely sloppy and lazy, poorly administered and wasteful, much like the SDTC, we would expect that the bush league minister really would not be going on and on, saying that this is something we should not do. Certainly I know that the people who have put me here have an expectation that I will advocate for them. I think it would be absolutely fascinating that when we form the next common-sense Conservative majority government on this side of the House, if every letter written to a minister would be made public, and that they would be out there supporting the wonderful things that we shall do, such as axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime. However, looking at the polls, the housing minister is probably going to lose his seat anyway.

Again, there have been multiple failures with substantial declines and multi-unit construction intentions are down almost 20%. The overall residential decline was led by those reductions in June.

Since Toronto signed its housing accelerator fund agreement with the government in December, the number of units permitted is down 23.6%. As we can see, this is a sad state of affairs that continues. A StatsCan report on building permits from August reported a further 7% decline in the total value of Canadian building permits. If we say, as Liberals are wont to say, that the programs are incredible successes, why do the permits and the building of units continue to decline?

CMHC reported in September that the six-month trend in housing starts decreased by 1.3%, from 246,000 units in August to 243,000 units in September. The same thing is happening in the great province of Nova Scotia. In centres with more than 10,000 people, building starts declined by 40% between September 2023 and September 2024.

Are the Liberals' programs successful? No. Certainly the program that our leader has brought forward is easy to understand. It is easy to implement. It is removing the GST portion from new builds under a million dollars, saving a significant amount of money for Canadians.

We often, of course, talk about fixing the budget. My colleague has gone on at length about the $1.3-trillion debt and the fact that the NDP-Liberal government, over the last nine years, has added more to the federal debt than all other previous governments combined. I think that sad statistic speaks for itself.

Of course, on this side of the House, we are also interested in stopping the crime. We know that between 2015 and 2023, hate crimes recorded by StatsCan increased by 275%. Police-reported homicides increased by 28%. Police-reported sexual offences against children increased by 153%, with 11,503 reported in 2023. There were almost 71% more sexual assaults of all kinds in 2023 than in 2015, with 36,625 being reported in 2023 across all three categories. In 2022, Canada had more homicides than in any year since 1992. There were 439 reports of human trafficking in 2023. This is almost lawlessness. There were 78,849 motor vehicle thefts reported in 2015 and 114,863 in 2023.

This is a sad state, and when, of course, the leader of this side of the House talks about Canada being broken, certainly I would suggest that Canadians believe it when they hear the incredibly egregious statistics.

This is really telling stuff. The Toronto Police Association on social media on October 21 stated, “Our communities are experiencing a 45% increase in shootings and a 62% increase in gun-related homicides compared to this time last year. What difference does your handgun ban make when 85% of guns seized by our members can be sourced to the United States? Your statement is out of touch and offensive to victims of crime and police officers everywhere. Whatever you think you’ve done to improve community safety has not worked.”

Police unions in Vancouver and Surrey also criticized the government when the Vancouver Police Union tweeted that the Prime Minister was “not aware of the ongoing gang war here in B.C. which is putting both our members and public at risk on a daily basis.” The stats, sadly, go on and on.

As we come to the end of my comments here today on SDTC, we also know that the radical environment minister, whom I referenced in the very beginning, has significant interest in Cycle Capital, which under the leadership of Ms. Méthot was given almost $275 million in provincial and federal money. Of course the radical environment minister, sadly, still has a significant number of shares in the company. Even though he has been challenged three times to come to multiple different committees, he has still failed to appear.

I guess these questions remain: With the privilege debate ongoing and with the minister's failing to appear at committee, Conservatives on this side of the House want to know what is so damning inside the redacted documents, what there is to hide, and when Parliament can expect to see the documents, be able to debate the issue further and get back to the business at hand.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to something my hon. colleague referred to in an earlier exchange I had with another colleague. I believe that he was a medical professional prior to becoming a parliamentarian, so I presume he had many interactions with young people and their families, including a lot of talk about the social determinants of health.

I am wondering whether the member believes that offering food to children in schools is a policy that would benefit them and their families, leading to an improvement in the social determinant of health, or whether he believes, like his leader, that it is simply bureaucracy.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity of being a family doctor for 26 years and then was elected to this place in 2021. In all of my years as a doctor, nobody had to come to me because they could not eat. There were no tent encampments, and people were not getting shot in the streets. All of these things have ramped up in the last several years.

In the last nine years, with the vast plethora of statistics that I have given to the chamber, we know that these things have ramped up because of the ineptitude of the NDP-Liberal government. We also know, as I said in my speech, from when we go door to door and talk to Canadians every day, that the thing they are suffering with is the cost of living.

If the foolhardy NDP-Liberal government were not spending money willy-nilly, it would not have to create a school food program to solve the economic crisis it has caused for Canadians.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my seatmate for his speech.

He talked a lot about the cost of living and housing. I want to refer to two articles from The Economist that were published in mid-October. This magazine is very critical of the current government when it comes to housing. It indicated that the cost of housing has risen by 66% since 2015 and that Canada's per capita housing rate is very low compared to other OECD countries. The Economist said that one of the main reasons for this is that the government implemented a policy of massive immigration without a plan to support housing and social services. We have seen that there was no plan in that regard and, as my colleague said, there have been even fewer housing starts because of high interest rates. The British magazine is so harsh that it says that this problem cancels out all of the successful progressive policies implemented by the government.

What does my colleague think about that?

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my seatmate. That expression is new to me. I thank my colleague for that expression.

My colleague pointed out a number of problems with the NDP-Liberal government's plan. The issue is the cost of living. That is a problem. Building housing is also a big problem.

A lot of people come here to live. We need enough jobs for people who come here to Canada. We need services like health care and schools. These are a necessity for immigrants too. The government must have a plan. On this side of the House, there will be a plan for immigration to Canada.

It is very important, and I know it is very important for Quebeckers too.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege of serving with my hon. colleague on the health committee for some time, and as he has told the House, he was a family physician for 26 years. He would, then, know of course that unmet oral health needs and poor oral health lead to serious overall health problems like cardiac issues, diabetes complications, low birth rate in women and infections of the upper and lower jaw.

I am wondering whether the member supports his leader's statement that he would cut the NDP's Canada dental care plan, which currently provides dental care to a million people and is slated to provide dental care to nine million people, and does he, as a physician, think that removing that dental care from people who do not have dental care coverage will promote better health in Canada?

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will start with an interesting point. I certainly have never heard our leader say that we are going to cut the dental care program. What we often hear about and see are incredibly foolish actions from the NDP-Liberals across the way, who are talking about the chopping and cutting or whatever foolishness they talk about. Those are not things we discuss on this side of the House.

We understand that the cost of living crisis is an incredible problem for Canadians. We also understand that it is important to have incredibly robust and fruitful conversations with folks who have tremendous experience with things like a dental program, and to meet with the Canadian Dental Association, which I have met with many times, to understand how the terrible current program could be improved upon.

We also know, and I spoke to some folks in Alberta this week, that the numbers that the Liberals have released and talk about, of a million people being served, are untrue; they are a bit of a fallacy the Liberals want to promote, maybe because a million is a nice, round number. However, that being said, on this side of the House we do not talk about the foolishness the Liberals want to demonstrate to Canadians about cuts, etc. We talk about making life better for Canadians.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester's speech was excellent. A friend of mine moved out to his area, and he said that we could still actually get homes in the member's area for anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000, which means that just this one scandal, the $400-million scandal, accounts for 1,000 to 2,000 homes that could be built in the member's riding.

We talk about the corruption that is consistently supported by the NDP. Its members talk about all the programs and things like that, but we are looking at billions of dollars of misappropriated and misspent money. As a physician, I think about the beds in hospitals that could have been built permanently for this amount of money.

Could the member comment on his own community and how much good could have been done with the funds if they had not been so misappropriated and given to Liberal friends?

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, certainly after the pandemic we saw lots of people, maybe some from Oshawa even, who decided they wanted to experience the great province of Nova Scotia and access housing and build housing there. We also know of course that an influx of people, often from Ontario, has caused housing prices to increase.

I am a little gun-shy now to say that I would support money from any project on the NDP-Liberal side of the House because, as I said, the bush-league tactics of the failing housing minister would say that the next headline in the paper will be that the member for Cumberland—Colchester is quite happy to support the SDTC's $400 million coming to Nova Scotia and that the Liberals' failed program should be something I would be supporting. As I look at that and at the ridiculous nature of the things they want to disclose, again, it is nothing but bush league.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking today about a privilege motion, and we are talking about documents that should be provided, as the Speaker has ruled, to the procedure and House affairs committee. I do not believe that there are any members of the House who disagree that we need to call the question and let PROC do its work so we can get to the bottom of the issue.

The Conservatives talk about wanting the documents, wanting access to the information, yet their leader refuses to apply for security clearance. God forbid that the leader of the Conservative Party should become the prime minister of Canada, as he will automatically get the clearance, but today he knows that if he applied for it he would not qualify for it.

What I find interesting is that the government has shared that fewer than 15% of Conservative members are concerned about housing in their communities. Fewer than 15% of Conservative members have supported their municipalities by asking the Minister of Housing to provide support for them. The member is upset that we are sharing that there are 18 Conservative members who care about their communities and care about their housing, yet the question of privilege is entirely about access to documents.

When we give Conservatives information, they do not want it. On the information they have access to, their leader does not want to apply for the security clearance. Therefore what do they do? They attack Canadians.

A Canadian was killed on Canadian soil. The Conservative leader refuses to get his clearance. What do Conservatives do? They attack Sikhs and Hindus in Canada by cancelling Diwali and Bandi Chhor Divas. They attack the government by questioning what the intelligence evidence is. The RCMP says that it does exist. I would ask the member this: If the Conservatives want access to the information, why is his leader not applying for a security clearance?

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. I was at a Diwali celebration last night led by one of our members from B.C. We were there with multiple supporters and enjoyed some great food.

[An hon. member]

Not true.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I find it absolutely fascinating that members want to yell that it is not true. I would suggest that many of us were there. There are pictures. The members can look at them all they want, unless they want to put their tinfoil hats back on as they have all day and say that it is absolutely not true and that it is a conspiracy. Maybe we used artificial intelligence to create the photos.

The final thing I would say is that, any time the Prime Minister wants to release the names of the folks who are not defending this country and are working against us, all he has to do is stand up and do it. Here on this side of the House, we would be happy to have that happen.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. When members have had an opportunity to ask a question, I would ask them to listen. If they have anything else to contribute, they can wait until the appropriate time.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Red Deer—Lacombe.