Debates of Dec. 12th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member was knowingly misleading the House. He said that there was no contempt—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I know that we are all getting riled up but that is so far that it is almost over the edge. I am just going to ask the member to rethink that line and go at it again.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there was contempt. The member knows that there was contempt. The contempt that was shown by the Harper government is very clear to Canadians. The contempt of the Harper government was adjudicated here in the House. The member knows full well that there was contempt. He knows full well the long litany of Harper scandals, how deplorable the Harper government was to veterans and seniors, how bad that government was, how abysmally bad, and the scandals of billions of dollars, far beyond SDTC.

The NDP has gotten to the bottom of every one of the Liberal scandals. We were not able to get to the bottom of Conservative scandals because, each and every time, showing complete contempt for democratic processes, for any sort of transparency at all, the Harper government shut it down.

To clarify, because this member knows full well and he needs to come clean with Canadians, the Harper government was found in contempt by the Parliament and he has to admit it.

Will he admit the contempt charge that was adjudicated and resolved here on the floor of the House of Commons?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me that the member for New Westminster—Burnaby conflates issues the way that he does. The Harper government probably spent money in a way that the NDP did not agree with but it actually led to one of the most prosperous times in Canadian history. As a matter of fact, at the end of the Harper era in government, the Canadian household income was every bit as wealthy and on par with that of the United States of America. Now we actually—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Order.

I had given the hon. member plenty of time to ask his question, so I am hoping that he would allow the hon. member to answer it.

The hon. member for Red Deer—Lacombe.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we would notice that I did not interrupt the member when he was asking his question, which was full of so many falsehoods, I could not even begin to name all of them, but I am not afforded the same courtesy back when I am answering the question. I will continue on.

The difference between the median household income of a Canadian versus that of an American has never been wider than it is now, and that only took nine years of a prime minister. I have never seen such a collection of bad ideas, bad judgment and bad leadership. It just amazes me that the New Democrats would support somebody with that many strikes against him.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear. Stephen Harper's parliamentary secretary is the current leader of the Conservative Party. His was the only government in the Commonwealth to be held in contempt of Parliament. We can close our eyes all we want but that is the truth and the member knows it, whether he wants to admit it or not.

The question I have for him is in regard to the security clearance. The leaders of the Bloc, the NDP and the Green Party all have the security clearance, and they are not trapped. They are still able to talk. What is the real reason why the leader of the Conservative Party refuses to tell Canadians about his past?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have already answered this question. In fact, the assertions the parliamentary secretary just made are simply not true, because the leader of the Bloc Québécois, when speaking to the media outside of this place, said that he cannot be as frank with people as he was before. I am paraphrasing in English, of course, but it is due to the fact that he has the security clearance and has had the security briefing, and now he is muzzled to a certain degree in what he is able to say.

This is just a red herring put into play by the parliamentary secretary. The Prime Minister can give and authorize a briefing to The Washington Post. If the Prime Minister wants the Leader of the Opposition to know something, he simply has to pick up the phone, call him and tell him what he wants him to know.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are still here waiting for the Liberal government to produce the documents and to turn them over to the RCMP. I know that many of my constituents and many Canadians across this country are puzzled as to why the Liberals continue to evade any accountability and responsibility in this situation.

I would like to recap why this is so important. An egregious abuse of taxpayers dollars occurred with the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund, which was turned into a slush fund for elite Liberal insiders.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I apologize for interrupting, but the RCMP has said repeatedly that it has all the documents it needs to conduct the investigation.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

That is not a point of order. It is a point of debate.

The hon. member for Durham.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again we see a Liberal MP trying to play word games and thinking he is smarter than everybody else in the room when he is far from it. This is a constant theme with the government. Its members play games and pretend that they know more than everybody else in our country, but the reality is that they do not.

Let us recap the abuse of taxpayer dollars that the Liberal MP for Milton would like to scoff at and gloss over.

For ineligible projects, there was $58 million. For conflict of interest violations, there was $334 million across 186 projects. Contribution agreements were ignored for $58 million of taxpayer money. Added up, $400 million of taxpayer money was wasted, and the Liberal government would like to avoid any accountability and transparency over it.

I think a lot of Canadians do not know a lot about SDTC, and there are some natural questions to ask about how an organization backed by so much money from the federal government crept away from its mission and core responsibility to the extent that it gave out hundreds of millions of dollars without any accountability and had its mistakes covered by the current Liberal government. I have done a lot of reading and a lot of research on SDTC, and I would like to share some of what I have learned, share some of the distractions and the way that SDTC understood its ethical responsibility to the Canadian people.

I read the SDTC code of ethics, document 12.05, and it shows a social activist agenda far outside the scope of what the Canadian public had entrusted the organization to do with taxpayer dollars. I would like to quote from that code of ethics:

SDTC recognizes that equity, diversity, and inclusion enable organizations to leverage the range of perspectives needed to address today’s complex challenges. As a result, equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is an important consideration for optimal operation of our organization, as well as for Funded Companies.

This is what SDTC thought the ethical management of Canadian taxpayer dollars looked like. It had completely embraced a social activist agenda that had nothing to do with why SDTC was funded, why it was incorporated and what it was entrusted to do on behalf of the Canadian public.

In fact, when we look at SDTC's most recent corporate plan, we find it being very clear of its social activist agenda: “Equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are foundational to our culture.” Once again, it reiterates the social activist agenda that it put at the centre of the organization's operations, far outside the scope of what it was asked to do.

It goes much deeper than that, because SDTC was an advocate for and a supporter of one of the Liberal government's most far-reaching social activist projects, the 50-30 challenge. Many Canadians might not know what that is, so I would like to explain it. The 50-30 challenge is about a micromanagement of the race and gender representation of boards of directors and senior managers at companies across the country in a wide range of industries. If we look at the businesses that have been drawn to this, we find that many, though not all, are in industries that are currently doing a massive disservice to the consumers of our country, such as the cellphone companies overcharging people on monthly bills and the banks charging Canadians over-the-top banking fees.

The 50-30 challenge seems to be a light to the moth for companies making efforts to virtue signal and look like they are compassionate and nice and care about people, but at the end of the day, they show very little regard for the Canadian consumer or the Canadian taxpayer. SDTC fits into this group of businesses beautifully. It is a great fit for SDTC, because it was a hustle to create a certain kind of perception and image of what it was doing. However, we know now, because of whistle-blowers and other documents that have been released, what exactly it was doing, which was engaging in corruption and making sure that its Liberal elite insider buddies were given cash.

What else was SDTC up to? These are important questions for Canadians to know the answers to, because I think we need to understand how an organization turns into the scandal it has become.

There is another acronym that SDTC was very interested in, and obsessed with, in fact, which is ESG, or environmental, social and governance. It embraces an entire framework of understanding as to what an organization's ethical responsibilities are to the public. Through that, we understand exactly the kinds of distractions and priorities that SDTC decided to occupy itself with, while making a series of decisions that led to the mismanagement of public funds.

For those who are unfamiliar with ESG, it is a form of stakeholder capitalism. It is a form of capitalism that asserts that the responsibility of big businesses and well-funded organizations is to engage in social activism outside of the scope of the actual business purpose.

Just to remind people, what was SDTC's business purpose? Why did it exist? Why was it funded? Why was it incorporated? I will provide its own description from its website, which states, “(SDTC) helps Canadian companies develop and deploy sustainable technologies by delivering critical funding support at every stage of their journey”.

We know very clearly, based on the numbers, that SDTC dramatically failed to achieve its business purpose. We know that because $58 million of taxpayer money went to ineligible projects that did not meet the purpose of SDTC. We know it failed its business purpose because 186 projects, accounting for $334 million, had conflict of interest violations that went unaddressed by the organization. We know that contribution agreements were ignored in the amount of $58 million of SDTC money.

Therefore, instead of being focused on its actual business purpose, which was the reason it received taxpayer money from hard-working Canadians, it was more concerned with ESG. We can find references to ESG in lots of its documents.

In its 2022-2023 corporate plan, SDTC says, very clearly, “In keeping with our mission to enable environmental and economic prosperity for Canada, we struck a task force...to look at...(ESG)”.

An SDTC press release from 2021 states, “the demand for #ESG investment products is accelerating the trend of Canada's best cleantech ideas”. In fact, in that press release, it used a hashtag for ESG. It was very excited about it.

It goes on, talking about one of its most recent board appointments and explaining why it chose this member. This is the description in her bio, which states, “Her deep sectoral knowledge and expertise in...(ESG) performance and data driven approach uniquely compliments exercising governance best practices and overseeing risks.”

It would appear that building an organizational strategy around ESG led to putting people in positions of influence at SDTC, who in fact did not exercise governance best practices and in fact did not oversee risk.

We are here, in a position of scandal, because SDTC is very exemplary of a broad trend in our economy right now of organizations and powerful businesses, entrusted with either public dollars or the confidence of consumers, that decide they would rather engage in politics and social activism than do what they have been tasked with in our economy.

SDTC is a glaring example of that trend. Its obsession with ESG and with DEI betrays a real lack of attention to the reason it existed in the first place. All the staff time, the board time and the director time that went to its political agenda may very well, and I would argue that it probably did, contribute to it keeping its eye off the ball, leading to so many disastrous decisions, not only for its organization, but also for our country and for taxpayer dollars.

Now, I would like to continue on with some observations about the deeper problems with ESG. I think there are many organizations that have bought into this framework and have bought into a way of looking at doing business that is going to pose many of the same risks that SDTC provides us a case study of. The National Review's Andrew Stuttaford has written extensively about the ESG and stakeholder capitalism problem. He has argued that businesses should be focused on their economic objectives and that it is a threat to the democratic order for CEOs to pursue political objectives unconnected to their company's economic objectives, on any reasonable reading.

With SDTC, we have a very clear example of that. We have an organization that opted to creep away from its actual mission and instead try to influence, through public dollars and its investment in other companies, an entire social activist agenda requiring many other businesses, in order to be able to appeal for the cash that they were distributing, to have a willingness to comply with an ideological framework that had nothing to do with clean-tech innovation, nothing to do with being able to turn a profit and nothing to do with building the technology that many Canadians trusted, over a long period of time, SDTC to actually be interested in.

Additionally, I would like to share some points on the problem of ESG and stakeholder capitalism, big businesses and well-funded government organizations creeping into this area of social activism. I have some thoughts from a colleague, a Conservative member of Parliament, Tom Kmiec. I know I am not supposed to name him, but I do not know what riding he is from.

Mr. Speaker, maybe you could tell me. I cannot remember all the riding names.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The riding is Calgary Shepard.

The hon. member for Durham.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in 2022, our colleague, the Conservative MP for Calgary Shepard, made some very important observations about how the Canadian government and elected officials could do more to move economic actors away from a political and social agenda and toward being focused on their economic objectives. I would like to share some of his thoughts, from the National Post. He argued that it should be:

considered a breach in the duty of care...to shareholders when directors and officers of a large distributing corporation...make activist statements, including in relation to public policy or social issues, that is not directly related to the business the corporation carries out and that could reasonably be expected to reduce the value of shares.

He then went on to argue that corporations requiring the firm's board of directors to first consult with shareholders would “make corporations think twice before opining on something beyond their stated corporate purpose.”

When I use a lot of that lingo and jargon, I understand that some of it is very dense corporate law stuff, but the reason it is important is that this is about deciding, when organizations are trusted in our society, whether they are large private sector businesses or well-funded non-profit organizations backed by the federal government, how much power the public is actually entrusting them to have.

When people with lots of money at their disposal decide to turn their organizations not just into economic actors but also into social activist agencies and political actors, they are representing the will and the interests of well-financed people, to the detriment of the masses of Canadians who work very hard to have their voices heard.

When SDTC was trusted with hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money and used it to advance a social activist agenda or a political agenda, it was acting against the will of the people, who did not trust them with that power in our society, just as we do not trust many other big corporations to do the same. Instead, what we have seen, over and over again, is a willingness of people with lots of capital at their disposal to become social activists.

SDTC is a cautionary tale. SDTC could not do everything it claimed. It is hard enough to grow a business, stay within a mandate and be responsible and accountable to the Canadian taxpayer, as the Liberal government well knows. If someone thinks they can do all of those things well and also be a social activist or engage in political activism on the side, they run the risk of being like SDTC: making poor decisions, destroying their organization and not serving the public in the process.

I would like to finish with this. Earlier today, the HUMA committee heard from the Liberal government's DEI minister. What was very revealing about this, as I was preparing for my comments here today concerning SDTC, was just how much the superficiality that is represented by SDTC is really a reflection of a broad approach to governance from the Liberal government itself.

The Liberals are constantly focused on hollow, superficial and empty virtue signalling. They would love to be able to say whatever they can to make themselves look good and pat each other on the back. However, when it comes to making decisions that are responsible for the good of our country; to showing any kind of humility for the nine years they have been in power and for the various mistakes and scandals they have been part of; or to admitting that they have been wrong, that they have made many things in our country worse and that many of their policies have failed, they are completely obtuse.

Every day, we stand here to provide the Liberals with evidence, statistical, anecdotal, academic or from news reports or whatever other evidence we can put in front of them, to show just how much they have made life worse for many people in our country. However, they are completely obtuse. The Liberals would rather use a lot of jargon. They want to trot out DEI narratives and distill very serious problems in our country to things that make them sound and feel good, but the reality is that they are failing our country.

The problem with SDTC, and why I think Liberals are so dug in on not wanting to reveal the scandal, is that it is a bigger reflection of who they are and what they have done for the last nine years. It is a bigger reflection of how they have used power, how they view the people in our country and what responsibilities they feel ,or more accurately do not feel, for the power that has been entrusted to their hands.

There is a very serious problem going on here. This is why, and we hear it all the time, when we are knocking on doors, when we are talking to people in the community and when I am with my constituents in Durham, people are desperate for change. They are not getting it from a government and a Prime Minister who promised them a new way of doing politics nine years ago and have failed desperately to deliver on that promise.

SDTC is not just about the $400 million, although that is very serious. It is not just about the corruption, although those documents should be produced. It is also about the mentality that the government has, the broken promises to an entire generation of Canadians, and its inability to learn anything from its mistakes, pivot and maybe make a better decision for the good of our country.

Again, I hope that these documents do get produced. I do hope that the purpose of Parliament, to hold government accountable and to get answers for the people of our country, is fulfilled. I appreciate having the chance to speak to SDTC, ESG, DEI and all the acronyms that need to change.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a quote from the RCMP commissioner:

The RCMP can confirm having received all the documents from the Office of the House of Commons Law Clerk relating to...SDTC which were collected in August pursuant to an Order of the House of Commons.... The RCMP has concluded that the available reports do not identify any criminal offences or evidence of criminal wrongdoing at this time.

That was back in September, and since September, despite claiming that they care about the use or misuse of public funds, the Conservatives have filibustered in the House of Commons, shutting down the most important legislative assembly in Canada for their own trivial and partisan political nonsense.

More to the point, the member for Durham did not share his grave concerns about SDTC, he did not share any concerns about the misuse of public funds, which was not started by the Liberal government. It is not an agency of the Canadian government. It is a foundation that invests in climate action, which is the real reason that the Conservatives are here. They do not care about climate action. They do not care about the misuse of public funds. That is incontrovertible.

What the member has shown today is that he does not care about social activism and he hates climate action. He does not care about environmental, social or governance standards. It is clear why the Conservatives have been filibustering; it is for their ideological purposes, not for the misuse of public funds.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Let us try to keep our questions and comments as concise as possible.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there was no question from the Liberal MP for Milton.

However, I do appreciate his comment because he portrayed exactly the point I have been making. He thinks that giving corporations and non-profits, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars, the ability to use that money for their own purpose without the accountability to step outside of their mission and try to influence our democratic process has anything to do with caring about climate change.

He is an elitist. He wants people with money and power to be able to abuse it and use it, and he can use whatever climate change mask over that elitism he would like, but that is the reality of his political philosophy. It is the reality of the Liberal government's governance agenda. It is exactly why the Liberals continue to resist turning over all the documents to the RCMP.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's intervention was talking specifically to the issue.

However, I do have an indirect question. I know the member has been in the United States and visited JD Vance and others. I am vice-chair of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group, with members from the Senate and the House of Commons, all parties, where we lobby effectively in the U.S.

What I would like to know, and I have asked this question many times, is where the Conservative Party is with regard to the CBSA. There were cuts during Stephen Harper's era, 1,100 officers, sniffer dogs, and so forth. To get from that point to where we are now, we have offered the suggestions of increasing the training facilities, because we are short 2,000 to 3,000 workers, expanding their powers to the 1932 order in council that was done rescinding that, and then, lastly, making sure that we do not focus on the issues of the past like ArriveCAN and those types of measures, the lack of equipment and so forth, but actually put officers on the border to alleviate problems.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think border security is very important. If the member would like to know my views on specific policies, he is welcome to contact me.

This is a very good example of how the partisanship that goes on here gets masked for the Canadian public. I never heard a single word from this man in my entire life. If he was interested in my opinion on something, whether it was these specific policies or working with his parliamentary committee, he knows where to find me. We do not sit very far from each other, but this is gotcha stuff.

I am not a goof. I know these guys think that, because I have not been here for long, they are going to throw all kinds of stuff at me and I am going to stand here and be caught off guard and say something they want me to say. That is not how that works. I am not a goof. I am not a sucker. If the member wants a serious conversation, he knows where to find me. Let us go.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I guess we will bring it back to the debate that is going on here.

When the member goes knocking on the doors of his constituents, tells them that Conservatives have been standing up for taxpayers' dollars and about the $334 million and the over 186 cases of conflict of interest, what is their reaction?

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the frustration I hear from my constituents and from Canadians across the country is that the system is completely unresponsive to their own interests. There is a feeling that we have a certain political culture here in Ottawa, because the NDP have sold out to the Liberals, which has kept people in power who do not care what Canadians are going through, what they think or how they feel. Then they see numbers like this of taxpayer dollars getting abused, and they ask, “Where do I fit into all of this? Who is serving me?”

This is why we are pushing for accountability. It is because it matters to people. It matters to my constituents. It matters to Canadians across the country. We cannot abuse their money, as the Liberals have with the NDP's support, and get away with it. They have to answer for what they have done.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I agree people have to answer for what they have done or what they have not done. There is a need for accountability.

The issue that people are concerned about, in part, is the issue of foreign interference. There is murder, extortion and political interference. Even in the leadership of the Conservative Party, we are talking about interference. Conservatives have members in their own caucus facing foreign interference. These are serious allegations, yet the leader of the Conservative Party does not feel that he needs to get a security clearance.

Why does the member believe his leader should be exempt from having to get the security clearance when every other leader has done it?

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the official opposition has been asked this question and has answered it multiple times. If the member opposite would actually like to know what the Leader of the Opposition has to say, I am sure he can find that answer readily available.