Madam Speaker, I would like to say something before I begin my speech about this motion, which has to do with transparency in the work of Parliament.
Let me pay my respects to my generous and very impressive colleague from Brantford—Brant. He showed in the last minute exactly what leadership is all about when we talk about judiciary issues, and especially from a lawyer. Yes, we are lawmakers, but most of us are not lawyers. We are not liars, either, but we are not lawyers; that was one of the mistakes I made when I was first elected nine years ago. My hon. colleague from Brantford—Brant showed exactly what a lawyer shall do here in the House, to indicate clearly what we have to do to follow the rules of this Parliament and to follow the rules of this great country, Canada.
This brings me to the subject before us today. We are here to talk about the same subject again, because, unfortunately, the government is refusing to comply with an order from the Speaker to hand over documents to a third party, the RCMP. We are gathered here because we need to restore Canadians' confidence in our parliamentary institutions and in the institutions we create for policies that are intended to be positive.
The purpose of the green fund that we are talking about today is to reduce pollution. That is something that we can all agree on. Unfortunately, there has been some misappropriation and misuse of taxpayers' money in this case, which has led to some ethical problems and, more importantly, to problems related to the trust that people have in our institutions. I will have an opportunity a little later to talk about another case in which we think that public funds are not being properly managed. This is supported by the analyses conducted by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. I am talking about the net-zero accelerator initiative.
Yesterday, in parliamentary committee, we received different groups that are interested in the environment. These are people that I meet regularly as the Conservative Party critic for the environment and climate change. I have met and spoken with the representatives from Nature Canada, who came to see me in my office. We had an instant connection. That was not the case on every political issue, but we felt a mutual trust.
One of the directors was there yesterday at the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. Mr. Akaash Maharaj, policy director at Nature Canada, said that when governments miss their targets or mismanage public funds, that hurts public expectations and undermines public support for environmental programs. He concluded by saying that it is better to keep modest promises than to have ambitious targets that are not met.
That is precisely where we are. It is better to say nothing at all than to make grand speeches, grand gestures and grand announcements or set ambitious targets without ever being able to meet them. Our approach is to carry out meaningful, effective, realistic and responsible actions that deliver real results.
Let us not forget that, since this Liberal government took office nine years ago, Canada has become the worst country in the G7 when it comes to the fight against climate change. According to a new report by world-renowned scientists recently tabled at COP 29, after nine years of this Liberal government, Canada ranks 62nd out of 67 countries for its performance on climate change. We are not the ones saying that. I am not saying that and neither is the Conservative Party. It is a group of world-renowned scientists who said it. Every year, they submit a performance index for 67 countries. After nine years of the Liberals lecturing everyone, insulting people who do not think like them and taxing people, this Liberal Canada is ranked 62nd out of 67 countries.
Let us come back to the infamous SDTC green slush fund. It was not created by the current government. It was created over a decade ago and was intended to support the work of companies that are seeking to conduct research and to develop techniques and technology that they can directly apply to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At the risk of repeating myself—as environment critic, I am more than happy to do so—we all agree on the main elements. Where we differ is in the approach.
In his now-famous Quebec City speech, which took place almost a year and a half ago, the member for Carleton and leader of Canada's Conservatives outlined the Conservatives' environmental approach. He defined the pillars of the environmental action we will undertake if we are fortunate enough to win the confidence of Canadians in the next election, which would delight us.
We all recognize that climate change is real, that we must deal head-on with its challenges, its implications and its impact on everyday life. Yes, we need to reduce emissions and pollution, but Conservatives believe we need to adopt approaches that are far more pragmatic than dogmatic. For the past nine years, we have been seeing dogmatic approaches, with the results we know: Canada is the worst country in the G7 and the 62nd country out of 67 according to world scientists.
Our approach will be based on concrete measures. Technically speaking, we agree with the principles behind SDTC's green fund. However, the problem lies with the way these Liberals have managed this fund.
I would remind the House that SDTC had a $500‑million budget. The Auditor General looked into this and found 186 instances of ethics rules being broken. In all, $390 million of the $500 million was mismanaged. That is almost four out of every five dollars. Only one in five dollars was managed properly, and four out of five dollars were not managed according to the rules, certainly not according to ethics rules.
What have we seen over the last five years?
It was literally a revolving door. Board members gave each other public money through the programs they were managing. That is not how it is supposed to work. That is not how to earn the public's trust.
The Conservatives are not the ones saying that. I am not the one saying that. It was the Auditor General, who analyzed how the green fund was managed over the past five years. The fund has very good objectives, but, unfortunately, it was managed the Liberal way. That is why their cronies were scratching each other's backs and exchanging envelopes of Canadian taxpayers' money. They were donating to each other's own companies.
Right from the start of this operation five years ago, board members realized that, four times out of five, they were in a conflict of interest. They had to leave the room and leave their seat empty, but in the very next seat, someone else was making the same decision for their own business. The only thing these people should have done was stop and admit that they were the wrong people in the wrong place. There are thousands of people in Canada who know how to run public companies. I understand that this requires a certain expertise in technology and the environment. I understand that, but when board members are in a conflict of interest four times out of five, it is high time they woke up. Everyone needs to have the honour and the sense of responsibility to say that enough is enough and admit it when they are not the right person in the right place.
Instead, the Liberals, who are all about friends helping friends, allowed the situation to continue. Unfortunately, as we saw, this just continued to happen. That is why the Auditor General produced a scathing report indicating that the Conflict of Interest Act, particularly subsection 6(1) and section 21, had been violated because of the private interests of the heads of this organization. The minister was made aware of the conflicts of interest but took no action.
I am talking about former minister Navdeep Bains, who testified before the committee. He was warned that there was a problem concerning an inappropriate situation and he did nothing. A few years later, the Prime Minister appointed another minister. It is a minister for whom I have a great deal of respect and esteem, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain. Unfortunately, according to the Auditor General's report, the current minister “did not sufficiently monitor” what was happening within that organization.
When the information was made public, all of a sudden, the minister, who is also the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, stopped everything. He said that he was stopping everything until the situation could be assessed. However, he only took action when the information was made public, despite the warning that had been given to his predecessor.
Not to mention that leadership comes from the top. The Prime Minister of Canada has been the subject of three ethics investigations. On two occasions he was found guilty of not complying with the ethics rules. When the top of the pyramid, the Prime Minister, does not follow the ethics rules and is found guilty two out of three times of not complying with ethics rules, this has an unfortunate and sad impact and tends to trickle down. That is what is happening right now at many levels of this government and that is what happened with this $500-million green fund that was so badly managed. That is why we need to tighten things up. That is why we, the three opposition parties, asked that the documents be transferred to a third party. That is an order from the House. The Chair recognized that these documents did indeed need to be transferred to a third party. Naturally, this created a precedent. Everything starts with a precedent, however, so one can certainly be created here.
However, let me remind colleagues that we are talking about the RCMP; we are not talking about the private business of someone else, Joe whoever, or I do not know who. I have full confidence in the RCMP as a group, as an authority and as being made up of serious people. Yes, I trust the RCMP. If some people in the House have a problem with the RCMP, they just have to say that. That is not what we think here.
We need transparency, responsibility and accountability more than ever; that is why this is a matter of the House. Unfortunately the government refuses to do what the order is telling it to do. As long as the government refuses, we cannot move forward.
As Chantal Hébert so aptly commented not long ago, the Conservatives are taking a lot of flack. We are being accused of slowing everything down. If the Liberals wanted to, they could end this immediately. However, they are not going to do that. The same holds true for the other two opposition parties. They could take action. What we want is to have the order carried out. That was for the green fund. What is happening in the House right now is extremely interesting, but as an old parliamentarian, I urge all Canadians to pay careful attention to what is going on in parliamentary committees.
Well, I am not that old, even if I have white hair, but after 16 years of parliamentary experience I can tell colleagues one thing: Committees are doing a lot of very interesting work. I know that some colleagues on the other side of the aisle think exactly the same way. Yes, what is happening right now during question period in the House of Commons is very important, but there is a lot of good work being done in committees.
Speaking of good work, we at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development have once again shown that another funding entity is sadly being mismanaged as well. So far, the problem is not as serious as what happened before, but that is why we want to delve a lot deeper into the matter. The fund is called the net-zero accelerator. Three key words: accelerate to reach net zero. The goal is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. By then, this country must have reached net zero. That means picking up the pace. No matter what, the zero target must be reached by 2050. What lessons have we learned after years of this Liberal government?
Let us not forget that we are talking about an $8-billion envelope. Earlier, we were justifiably upset about $380 million out of a total of $500 million being mismanaged. Now we are talking $8 billion. The commissioner of the environment and sustainable development looked into the management of various things here and there. He wanted to know what that looked like. So far, about half the envelope has been spent. What we are learning is that there is a flagrant lack of objectives, a flagrant lack of respect for the rules surrounding the net-zero accelerator's actual objective. Do not forget that this means net zero by 2050. We need targets. Unfortunately, no progress has been made pretty much anywhere.
We have learned that a mere five of the 17 projects analyzed had targets, according to the commissioner. The whole purpose of the net zero accelerator initiative is to set a target that the entire planet set for itself under the Paris Agreement, namely, net zero by 2050. Billions of dollars are being invested to meet these targets. Now we have learned that, at the halfway point, with $4 billion spent so far, only five of 17 companies have targets. Of course, it is easy to meet a non-existent target. They get the money, but they have no target.
Here is a great example of that: $700 million of taxpayers' money was given to a foreign firm that had no reduction targets. Obviously, I am talking about the agreement announced with great fanfare a year and a few months ago, when Volkswagen, a foreign company, received a contribution that could go up to $18 billion of taxpayers' money. One might even call it a donation. The company was given taxpayers' money via a direct subsidy. That $700 million has already been paid out. It is important to understand that this is not revenue from the goods and services tax, the GST, because all the GST does is pay the interest on the debt that this government has doubled over the past nine years. That is how bad things have gotten. All Canadians need to know that, when they pay GST, the money is not being invested in the services to which they are entitled. Instead, it is being used to cover the interest on the debt that this insatiable government, which has no scruples about spending and no parameters, has allowed to balloon over the past nine years.
When the government takes tax dollars from working people and hands them over to a foreign entity, one would at least expect it to have real objectives, but there are none. It is disappointing. There is no accountability. Based on how certain targets are calculated, they are sometimes counted twice. I am not the one saying this. The environment commissioner said so. The government is exaggerating the reductions that are being assessed. The government cannot say how much greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions have been reduced with this project. The government cannot say how much money has been allocated to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On top of that, five out of 17 projects have no targets. They are, however, receiving funding from taxpayers. That is not the right way to manage taxpayers' money. This means that people may not have the confidence they should have when it comes time to have a proper and intelligent discussion about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
However, when this government took office, the mandate letter of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change said the following:
To realize these objectives, I ask that you achieve results for Canadians by delivering the following commitments.
...Support the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry in the implementation of the Net Zero Accelerator initiative, with an emphasis on ensuring that investments drive industrial transition and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions on a scale consistent with achieving Canada's climate goals and meaningfully transform Canadian industry to lead and compete in a net-zero emissions future.
My goodness, that is well written. It would be even better if those instructions had been followed, but that did not happen. There are always plenty of words, targets, ambition and attempts, but very little in the way of real results. Canada is the worst country in the G7. It is 62nd out of 67. However, the Liberals are great when it comes time to make announcements and put on a big show. Unfortunately, that is what we saw with Lion Electric in Quebec. I take no pleasure in saying that, because I am a proud Quebecker. The government made a big announcement three years ago, but it did not take action when it was time to do so. The result is that, today, the company has invested billions of dollars without achieving any real results.
More than ever, Canada needs a serious government that spends taxpayers' money appropriately to reduce emissions and pollution.