Mr. Speaker, obviously, the government has not taken me up on my offer of Friday, that I would give up the last six minutes of my speech if it just decided to do a Friday document dump with this information being handed over.
At the end of my speech on Friday, I was talking about the gravy train that had to come to an end at some point for SDTC when whistle-blowers in 2022, and more so in 2023, came forward with very concerning allegations. The Auditor General rightfully announced that there would be an audit of SDTC, which was released in June 2024, and only a sample of those contracts were actually investigated by the AG. She found that $390 million of funds was inappropriately awarded. Even worse, there were 186 conflicts of interest, not one, not two, not that this would be acceptable, and this was only a quarter of all the projects. We can all assume that the damage is much worse for taxpayers.
In light of this damning evidence provided by the AG, the House of Commons of duly elected members passed a motion directing the government to hand over those documents. It was stipulated that they could also be handed to the RCMP, which could investigate whether criminal offences were committed by the government.
What have the Liberals done? They did their best work in delaying and distracting, forcing the Speaker to rule that the government had violated the privilege of the House and all of its members. As representatives of Canadians, wherever we may come from and whatever party we may be a part of, it is our duty to defend and uphold our democratic institutions, especially in light of the overwhelming disrespect being shown by the Liberal government for not just taxpayers but for all Canadians who we represent here.
It is surprising to me that I see a continued silence from the government side, those who are more or less willingly aiding and abetting the government in this. It is objectively wrong, and we all know that. To not stand up against it is simply wrong. This is not a technical disagreement or a procedural matter. It is a direct and deliberate defiance of the authority of Parliament and the fundamental bedrock of our democracy. In turn, the government itself has sabotaged the work of Parliament, preventing anything from moving forward.
The question of course has to be: What are the Liberals hiding? Why are they so concerned about handing over these documents? What are the consequences that they fear so much? Their refusal to release these documents speaks volumes, and Canadians are sick and tired of it.
I would like to narrow in on one specific piece of this plot line, which is on our radical environment minister, whose behaviour epitomises what is wrong with the Liberal government. Before he came to Ottawa to enact his lazy and failed environmental policies, he was a strategic adviser at Cycle Capital, an environmental venture firm owned and operated by an individual who was miraculously on the SDTC board, where millions of dollars were given to this firm. The minister owns shares in Cycle Capital, a business that has profited handsomely during this time. In fact, its valuation skyrocketed roughly 600% since he entered cabinet and, of course, another $17 million were handed over during his tenure.
This is not a lapse in judgment; this is a blatant conflict of interest. It is really a slap in the face to Canadians who expect their tax dollars to be spent wisely, not used to make oneself and one's friends rich. The minister has ignored the law. He has made a mockery of his position and the public trust that he holds.
To summarize in my last two minutes, the Auditor General looked at five years of transactions, 226 deals that were approved, and found 186 conflicts of interest. In different terms, 82% of all the transactions had a conflict of interest. Again, it was not 1%, not 2%, not that this would be acceptable, but this is so far beyond acceptable. The fact that we have seen a government refuse to hand over documents and that members on the government side have not stood up and said that this is something they should probably take a serious look at, that maybe the RCMP should too is why it is so vital that these documents be handed over. At the time, the conflicts of interest were deemed “manageable” by the chair of the board, the Liberal-appointed chair, who has seen this rot and corruption run rampant throughout her time in leading this board.
What is worse is that when we think about the volume of $400 million, it is very difficult to understand what that made-up amount of money seems like. People should think about the taxes they pay with respect to income tax. They should think of their neighbours down the street and all those in their communities, the well over 20,000 people, at the average salary, paying all their taxes just for the government to waste it to make itself richer. At the end of the day, it is vital for the government to be honest, to show a little humility for the first time in these long, miserable last nine years of its tenure.
I hope that some of my Liberal colleagues, after hearing me and many of our colleagues discuss this egregious process that has been taken, will stand up and say that it is time to cut the cover-up, to hand over the documents and face whatever consequences may be entailed. This simply cannot stand. Canadians are watching. They are waiting patiently for a carbon tax election. Let us have that election.