Madam Speaker, we can never have too many Stewarts in the House of Commons. We are holding up the Scottish front over here. We were once royalty, but I will not get into that. I do not want to have to get into that, but it was real. It is true, from the 1300s to the 1800s.
Today I will speak again about the production of documents ordered by the House on the Liberal green slush fund scandal. Who would have thought I would ever quote from a Toronto Star article? This is what they said in an article just yesterday. I will quote the Toronto Star, the very publication in which I used to read my Toronto Maple Leafs news until they did not like Darcy Tucker, and then I could not agree with them anymore. I am actually going to go out of my way and quote them:
Since late September, [the leader of the Conservatives] has gummed up most parliamentary proceedings in an effort to compel the Liberal government to cough up unredacted documents tied to a now-defunct green technology funding agency that was riddled with mismanagement issues.
Imagine the Toronto Star actually calling out the Liberals for the green slush fund being “riddled with mismanagement issues”.
As I have stated before, it is an honour and a privilege to be a member of the public accounts committee. Since we received the damning report from the Auditor General last June, where she found that the Liberal government has turned the once legitimate Sustainable Development Technology Canada into a slush fund for Liberal insiders, we have been trying to get to the bottom of this conflict of interest scandal.
Any good crisis manager brought in to try to get a handle on a scandal of this magnitude, of the Liberal green slush fund, always starts with chronology. Some of us may recall, in my last speech in this place, I discussed the chronological order around the suspicious appointment of Annette Verschuren as chair of the Liberal green slush fund in June 2019, when the culture of corruption really began. I said in my last speech that the lack of consistency in witness testimony around the chair's appointment certainly looked like a cover-up at the highest levels of the Liberal government.
It has only gotten worse this last month. Former industry minister Navdeep Bains has now testified twice at the public accounts committee and at least once at the industry committee. He cannot recall anything to do with his involvement in asking Ms. Verschuren to take on the chair role, even though he was told directly by the SDTC president that it was a really bad idea because of conflict of interest concerns.
I was able to question the former minister myself, but I am going to take us back a little bit to the 1980s. Most of us today are watching Yellowstone, some of us at least, but in the eighties, it was Dallas or Dynasty, Dallas in particular.
There is a reason I am going to talk about Dallas right now and a reason it relates to this speech. Can we remember that crucial episode that everybody was tuning in for, “Who Shot J.R.”? Was it his younger brother? Was it his disgruntled ex-wife? Was it other members of the family? Everybody had to tune in to find out who shot J.R. It was talked about so much, yet I do not even remember who shot J.R. Maybe I was too young to realize it at the time.
My point, though, is that, when I was questioning former minister Bains and when several of these former bureaucrats were brought in for questioning, they all had something in common, something that reminds me of daytime soaps that my mom used to watch, like Another World or Dynasty or General Hospital.
Do we remember that the cast members of these shows would get something called amnesia? I questioned many of these bureaucrats that are now in different positions or retired, or even the minister. Nobody seems to know anything. That is the one trend that persists through everything. Today, we want the production of documents. We want these documents tabled. We want to get to the bottom of this, but everybody who comes in does not remember anything. Sometimes I question if they remember their own names.
Some people did not even want to show up to these meetings, so they had to be dragged in here to the bar, a practice that I do not believe was used for 100 years. Maybe I have that a bit off, but my point here is that nobody remembers their own actions. Nobody remembers what they did when they were hired to work for the Canadian public. Nobody remembers what they did. Ministers do not remember what directives were given. Deputy ministers do not remember things they passed on to their assistant deputy ministers. Nobody remembers anything. It is unbelievable. I have never witnessed anything like it in all my time.
Since my last speech, we have heard from more witnesses at the public accounts committee, but the two who stand out in their utmost ridiculousness are the former deputy minister and former assistant deputy minister from the industry department. As my friend from South Shore—St. Margarets has said, they all must have watched old episodes of Hogan's Heroes because they all parroted Sergeant Schultz's famous lines: I see nothing. I hear nothing. I know nothing.
My point is, how come nobody remembers anything? How come nobody remembers? When this much money was given out illegally, nobody remembers what they did. The Canadian public is not fooled by this. People are going to be watching and they are going to say, of course they remember; they are just not telling because it is wrong, illegal, fraudulent or whatever word they want to use. We may have to call in public health officials because there has clearly been an outbreak of amnesia in every official who has been called to testify thus far.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has three definitions for “amnesia”. Number one is “loss of memory due usually to brain injury, shock, fatigue, depression, or illness”. Number two is “a gap in one's memory”. Number three is “the selective overlooking or ignoring of events...that are not favourable or useful to one's purpose or position”. I think we can all agree with and select door number three as the right definition for all the officials who have appeared at public accounts and are clearly suffering from amnesia.
The former deputy minister from the industry department testified that he has no recollection of Ms. Verschuren's appointment as chair of the Liberal green slush fund in June 2019 because he was retiring that month. He may have forgotten that he was still employed and he was still working on behalf of the people, but he forgot everything because his retirement was more important than the millions of dollars that went out illegally and fraught with scandal and conflicts of interest. He speculated that the president of SDTC did not warn him about the conflict of interest mess because she knew he was retiring. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I know nothing. The trend continues.
Speaking of retirements, I find it rather convenient how many officials chose to retire from the public service once the Auditor General received the whistle-blower's information and began her investigation into the Liberal green slush fund. It is like all the officials saw what was coming and got out of Dodge, or in this case, out of Ottawa.
Let us go back to the former deputy minister from the industry department, who testified to the public accounts committee that he placed his former assistant deputy minister on the SDTC board as his “eyes and ears”. We will see how well that was working.
The former assistant deputy minister, who also retired last year, sat on every board meeting for over five years while $330 million of taxpayers' money was gifted to companies with which the board members had conflicts of interest, and not just conflicts of interest but known conflicts of interest. The former assistant deputy minister sat on every board meeting while another $59 million in projects that were not eligible for funding because they were outside the foundation's mandate were still approved. They were still approved by these very people.
The former assistant deputy minister sat in every board meeting where the Auditor General found that at least 10 of the projects did not even produce green technology or contribute to emissions reductions. The former assistant deputy minister told the public accounts committee a variety of fairy tales. He said it was a well-run board and it was not his job to review conflicts of interest, even though his former deputy minister called him his “eyes and ears” on the board of directors. The former assistant deputy minister also said it was his experience that the Liberal green slush fund's board members recused themselves whenever they had conflicts of interest. They would have had to recuse themselves 200 times, or just shy of that, that we know of.
However, the Ethics Commissioner, in his “Verschuren Report”, stated the former chair did not recuse herself but abstained from voting when her own multi-million dollar projects were approved. Similarly, other board members of the Liberal green slush fund did not recuse themselves but abstained when voting themselves more than $6.6 million in funding.
I will try to explain the semantics, because “recusal” and “abstaining” are not quite the same. When growing up, some of us had a great aunt who, whenever she came for a visit, always wanted a hug and a kiss. I have had a few of them, and some I welcomed. We knew it was coming every time she visited, but we would squirm and accept the affection. That is abstaining. However, a recusal is when we knew our great aunt was coming for a visit and we made the conscious decision to not be there when she arrived, so that way we avoided the hugs and kisses outright. We recused ourselves from that sort of affection. That is my example. I know it is a little bizarre, but this is me. I am a product of my environment, and Miramichi—Grand Lake would like that idea.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary's definition of “abstaining” is interesting. The first is “to choose not to do or have something”. The second is “to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice”, such as to “abstain from drinking”. Third is “to choose not to vote”, as in “Ten members voted for the proposal, six members voted against it, and two abstained.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary's definition of “recusal” says, first, “to disqualify (oneself) as judge in a particular case” and, two, “to remove (oneself) from participation to avoid a conflict of interest”.
For the former assistant deputy minister from the industry department, who attended every single meeting of the Liberal green slush fund's board of directors, to confuse “abstaining” with “recusal” is indicative of all the normal shenanigans that have occurred in this scandal to date. Here are the assistant deputy minister's exact words at the public accounts committee last week.
He said, “What I saw in front of me at SDTC was a regularly functioning board where people would recuse themselves when they thought there was a real reason to.” He also said, “I had no way of independently assessing conflicts of interest by the board.... I'm not a lawyer.” He further said, “I had very limited information upon which to look at issues of conflict of interest”. Here is another quote: “I had no way to independently assess, Mr. Chair, what holdings individual board members had or who, in fact” was in a conflict of interest. He is clearly the best and brightest. As well, he said, “I could only speak to my deputy minister about what I saw in front of me. The conflicts of interest, which have since come to light with the organization, were not obvious to me. They were not presented in a way that caused me sufficient concern”.
These are the exact words of the former assistant deputy minister, whose role it was to be the eyes and ears of the industry department at the Liberal green slush fund board of directors. Again, I see nothing. I hear nothing. I know nothing. The trend continues.
The lack of accountability and responsibility by the very bureaucrats whose role it was to ensure taxpayers' money was being properly spent is shocking to me, and it is shocking to the members of my party. All of my colleagues are deeply shocked, and the lack of oversight by both former industry minister Bains and the current industry minister is outrageous
To recap, we had Annette Verschuren originally tell the industry committee she did not apply for the chair's role on the Liberal green slush fund. She said former industry minister Navdeep Bains called her two or three times, asking her to take on the role. This is after a nearly year-long competition process had been run by the PCO. It had gathered almost 100 names of interested clean tech experts, but the former industry minister does not recall ever calling Ms. Verschuren about chairing the Liberal green slush fund.
Something is not right here. Again, it is, “I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I know nothing”.
It was interesting when I got to question former minister Bains. Ms. Verschuren said she was asked on several occasions and over the phone by Minister Bains himself to take on the position. Minister Bains said that he never called her, but somehow, strangely, he admitted to calling hundreds of other people to tell them when certain board appointments were becoming available. The one he did not remember calling was Ms. Verschuren, but she says that he called her.
Is this why the Liberal government is refusing to give Parliament the unredacted documents relevant to their green slush fund? Is it a cover-up for the former industry minister or the current one? I want to know why the government would want Parliament to deal with this for so long. Let us just think about it.
These documents could provide the missing proof that all of this was totally corrupt and totally scandalous. The last time I spoke on this, I remember talking about the sponsorship scandal and how this scandal is eight times larger. I can remember back when the sponsorship scandal was a big deal in our country and everybody was talking about it. It was dominating headlines. It was dominating journalists. It was dominating everything, in terms of the political landscape, but this one is eight times larger than that, and all we are asking for is documents that the government should be providing.
We have had a series of faceless bureaucrats, who come in and basically do not admit anything they did. They are all retired, or the have entered into a new position, and this is not the type of thing Canadians want to pay for. Canadians want the bureaucracy to provide good service, to give good advice and, definitely, to do a good job with helping to get value for taxpayers' dollars, because public money is being spent.
Taxpayers' dollars are being spent on these projects, and the bureaucrats are not getting value for money. That is one of our primary focuses at public accounts, and it was interesting to me. Witnesses would come in, and they might as well have spat in our faces. However, it is not so much that they were spitting in my face; they are spitting in the face of the taxpayers of this country, because $400 million was wasted. It was all gotten illegally. It is fraudulent. There were nearly 200 conflicts of interest.
We are trying to get the documents, and the government is literally allowing this. The Liberals will not come clean. This is a cover-up.
