Mr. Speaker, we have seen the radical experiments of the government on crime, and that is why Conservatives are championing common-sense proposals to stop the crime. We will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. These common-sense principles respond to the radical experimentation of the government. I hope that is helpful for members of the government in understanding these principles of common sense.
The member highlighted the privilege issue. I have talked a bit about the privilege of the government and how it is so privileged that it has insulated itself from the impacts of its bad policies. In particular, in this privilege motion, we are talking about the fact that the government has refused to hand over documents ordered by the House of Commons. What I have been building up to is the reality that the government's approach to scandal and to the House of Commons demonstrates a lack of regard for the basic principles of common sense.
We are talking in this privilege motion about the rights of the House of Commons, fundamentally, to order the production of documents. We call it the House of Commons for a reason. It is because the House of Commons has always been the institution that represents the common people. I talked earlier in this speech about how the common people are necessarily in touch with common sense by the experience of their lives, whereas it is often the case that a privileged elite can become disconnected from common sense. We are in the House of Commons championing the common sense of the common people and the right of that House of Commons, on behalf of the common people, to order the production of documents that are relevant for the work of the House.
In the midst of its defence of power and privilege against the common people and the House of Commons, we have a government that is refusing to hand over documents that have been ordered. In the spirit of common sense, Conservatives are going to continue to demand that those documents be handed over. What are the documents? Aside from the principle of the right of the people's House to order the production of documents, what exactly are the documents the government is making its stand on in defence of power and privilege against the rights of the people to order these documents? It is about a corrupt green slush fund, where government insiders were able to, because of their privileged access, hand out money, and they did so often to companies that were owned by people on that very board. There was a group of insiders appointed by the government that was able to hand out $400 million to various companies, and it used that insider access, that power, to give money to its own companies.
This is obviously a violation of the basic principles of common sense. I think any reasonable person thinking about what makes sense and what is fair would understand that there should not be people with the power to allocate taxpayers' dollars to companies that they own. That is just common sense, but it was not common sense that penetrated the elite decision-making circles within the government. Both the process of this motion, the fact that the government is refusing to hand over documents, and the substance behind it, which is what happened with the green slush fund, underline the need to restore that common sense to the decision-making that takes place here in Parliament and in Ottawa, in general. The very fact that the government insiders thought that what they were doing was okay or that they could get away with it illustrates how broken things have become under the government.
I could go through the litany of scandals. Just this week, the government operations and estimates committee was doing ongoing work on the Liberals' indigenous procurement scandal, how elite non-indigenous insiders took money that was supposed to be benefiting indigenous companies. In fact, the AFN said that the vast majority of those who benefited from these set-asides were actually shell companies. We had an auditor before committee who said that he, years ago, came to the government with evidence of criminal activity by people pretending to be indigenous, saying that these allegations should be referred to the RCMP, and the government decided not to do that. It is unbelievable that an auditor would say there is criminal activity and that the government would decide not to hand the documents over.
It is time to restore the common sense of the common people united for our common home, and that is what we should be standing up for in this House of Commons.