Debates of June 6th, 2024

First Responders Tax Credit

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Yes, but in a point of order, we normally have to look at what Standing Order we are specifically looking at because what I am hearing sounds more in the line with a question of privilege, which requires an hour's notice to go to the House.

I do not really want to cut the hon. member off, and I understand the sensitivity around this, but I want to make sure that we are following the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the statement of the member for Saskatoon West, which I read into the record a few moments ago, was very clearly said by the member. It was audible when re-examining the video of his intervention, and that was recorded in the blues. I am going to read it again into the record—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

How about if we speak off-line about this to see what would be most appropriate? It sounds like it may be something that would fall more into the privilege range, and there is a different process for that if we are looking at a specific Standing Order to try to make a case.

I understand the importance of what the hon. member is trying to bring forward, but I think the tool that is being used is not the correct one. I would suggest that we have a little chat, and then maybe come back to this after.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, are you suggesting that this be a question of privilege and not a point of order? I want to make sure, out of respect to you, that I understand you correctly.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I think it would be best to consult with the Table and see how we can tighten it up just a little to make sure that it is in the correct order for hearing in the chamber. Let us do that. We will see if we can come back with that.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will come back to it later.

Questions on the Order Paper

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

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time, please.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Documents Regarding Sustainable Development Technology Canada

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

moved:

That the House order the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Auditor General of Canada each to deposit with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, within 14 days of the adoption of this order, the following documents, created or dated since January 1, 2017, which are in its or her possession, custody or control:

(a) all files, documents, briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or any other correspondence exchanged among government officials regarding SDTC;

(b) contribution and funding agreements to which SDTC is a party;

(c) records detailing financial information of companies in which past or present directors or officers of SDTC had ownership, management or other financial interests;

(d) SDTC conflict of interest declarations;

(e) minutes of SDTC's Board of Directors and Project Review Committee; and

(f) all briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or any other correspondence exchanged between SDTC directors and SDTC management;

provided that,

(g) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly thereafter notify the Speaker whether each entity produced documents as ordered, and the Speaker, in turn, shall forthwith inform the House of the notice of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel but, if the House stands adjourned, the Speaker shall lay the notice upon the table pursuant to Standing Order 32(1); and

(h) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall provide forthwith any documents received by him, pursuant to this order, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for its independent determination of whether to investigate potential offences under the Criminal Code or any other act of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, after nine years, it is clear that the NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost or the corruption. The Auditor General delivered a shocking report this week that outlined a history of wasted money, conflicts of interest, and possible illegal and criminal activity in funnelling taxpayer funds to Liberal-friendly board appointees' own companies.

Let me just set the context. Right now, Canadians are living through complete misery. Government-caused inflation leading to high interest rates means that Canadians are hit with a brutal double whammy of not only having to pay higher prices at the store but also higher interest payments on their debt, everything from lines of credit to mortgages. They are paying more for the goods they buy and for the money they owe. This comes after the Prime Minister promised Canadians that interest rates would stay low for a very long time.

The Prime Minister also promised Canadians that he was going to go into debt so they did not have to. It is cold comfort now for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are facing default on their mortgages, as those rates keep rising, pushing people out of the homes that they have lived in for years. In many cases, there are tragic stories of people moving back in with their parents because they have lost the ability to stay in their house. This is all caused by wasteful government spending, pushing up prices and forcing the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates at the fastest pace in Canadian history to combat that inflation.

The government will tell us that it is not its fault. The Prime Minister loves to spread blame around. He is always looking for people to pin responsibility on, anyone other than himself. The Liberals say ridiculous things like there is global inflation, as if inflation was kind of like the weather, where we might have a warm front move in off the gulf and we might have some pesky inflation plaguing Canadians. Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary problem. It is always caused when governments print money that they do not have out of thin air, flooding the economy with brand new cash without any growth in economic activity to justify that expansion of the money supply.

When the Conservatives point that out to the Liberals, they say that, in fairness, Canada was going through a pandemic and that they had to spend all this money to keep Canadians safe. The Parliamentary Budget Officer found that 40% of all that extra spending had nothing to do with the pandemic. Now, slowly but surely, we are learning what actually happened. The Liberals used the excuse of a pandemic to line the pockets of their friends and waste taxpayer money, not only during that critical period of the pandemic but also in the years that have followed. When Canadians are begging the government to get inflation and interest rates under control, the government keeps borrowing billions and billions to spend, spend, spend, not benefiting Canadians but lining the pockets of its friends.

I have so much to say that I do not think I am going to fit it all into my slot, so I am going to share my time with the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets, Madam Speaker. I know that he has been working hard on this file. He is one of the members of Parliament who rolled up his sleeves and pored through documents, vigilantly looking for waste of taxpayer money. On this side of the House, we know that Canadians work so hard for the money they earn. The least they can expect is a government that respects the value of that hard work and their tax dollars.

I will run through a few of the greatest hits of Liberal corruption during the pandemic. We will remember the time the Prime Minister tried to funnel a billion dollars to his friends at the WE organization, an organization that had paid members of his own family hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees. We will remember former Liberal MP, Frank Baylis, who suddenly, without having experience in the field, developed a medical fabrication company that did not actually produce anything, getting sole-sourced contracts from the government. In the past few months, we have learned more and more about the arrive scam app, where the government ballooned costs for IT services without any accountability or oversight of where that money was going.

It is clear that the Liberals use crises and attempts to fulfill noble causes to hide the corruption that they have become so famous for, and now we have an example.

The Liberals talk about the crisis that Canadians are facing. They try to justify all their wasteful spending and all their massive tax hikes on the backs of existential threats coming from climate change. However, now we know that their efforts to improve the environment have nothing to do with lowering emissions, but everything to do with doling out cash to people who have supported the Liberal Party in a very real way.

Let us look at what the Auditor General found: $76 million in taxpayer money was paid out in direct conflict of interest. That means there were people on the board, people who made the decisions about where the money would go, who should have recused themselves because they had a financial interest in some of the companies that would get contracts.

In fact, the Auditor General found, and through investigations at committee we also found, that there were government representatives in almost all the board meetings when these decisions were being made. There cannot be any excuse the government has that this corruption was happening in some kind of arm's length way. They were in the room when they were being warned there were conflicts of interest. They were in the room when the decisions were made. They were in the room when they found out the companies getting the contracts were at least partially owned, if not entirely owned, by members of the board themselves.

For Canadians who are following this story, basically what the government did was with respect to an existing agency, SDTC, which, by the way, had been fulfilling all its governance requirements up until 2017. Then something peculiar happened. Former minister Navdeep Bains did not like something that the chair of that board said, something about protecting the privacy of Canadians. That rubbed Navdeep Bains the wrong way, so he fired that chair and he appointed one who would be much more co-operative with the Liberal government. That is when the problems started.

The chronology is stark. When he was minister, Navdeep Bains went on to appoint another five controversial board members who engaged in unethical and illegal behaviour by approving funding to companies in which they held ownership or held seats on the board. There are examples of those officials sitting on the board as observers witnessed 96 conflicts of interest, but the officials did not intervene.

We have examples from the Auditor General's report of $59 million being paid out to projects that did not qualify. I want to read what the Auditor General said about that. She said, “These projects were ineligible for funding because, for example, they did not support the development or demonstration of a new technology.” The entire point of this agency, the entire point of this funding mechanism, was to incubate, to find potential technologies that might help reduce emissions and clean up particulate matter from the air. The whole purpose was that the agency would grant some of the funds to scale-up some of these innovative technologies.

What the Auditor General is saying is that in the agency's own project applications, there is no proof that there would be any benefit to the environment, not that it had tried and failed, not that it hoped that some new technology would work and despite its best efforts it was not fruitful. That happens all the time in the world of scientific innovation and inventions. People take ideas, they test them and sometimes they do not work. They learn from that and they go on to the next thing. In this situation, the applications themselves could not even point to any environmental benefit.

There were $6 million charged to taxpayers for projects that were not even built; over $123 million in misappropriated funds; and as I mentioned, over 180 conflicts of interest with the funds. Here we have an example of Canadians suffering through one of the biggest cost of living crises since the Great Depression. Mothers are watering down milk to feed their children; people are moving back in with their parents; and single moms are working two, maybe even three jobs just to tread water, not with any hope of getting ahead but of just keeping a roof over themselves and their family.

While all this is happening, while the Prime Minister is claiming that every single penny he needs to scoop out of the pockets of taxpayers must go to all this spending, we find out that hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted, that there were massive conflicts of interest and that we have another example of Liberal corruption, where the Liberals reward their friends instead of respecting taxpayer dollars. That is why this motion is so important, so we can get all the information handed to the RCMP, because this is so serious we believe this warrants a police investigation.

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

Madam Speaker, 60% of the member's comments were with regard to the economy. It is interesting when he does that. When the world was seeing record-high increases in interest rates and inflation, Canada's performance was far superior than the vast majority of other countries, especially if we compare ourselves to the G20 and the G7.

There is even some good news. For the last four months, inflation has been kept under control. In fact, yesterday it was announced that Canada was the first G7 country to see a decrease in the interest rate. This is all good news.

I am glad the Conservatives now want to start talking about the economy today and the day after, but I wonder if he could provide his thoughts with respect to the good news that Canada is the first of the G7 countries to decrease interest rates.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, we have an Auditor General's report that may very well end up with an RCMP investigation and perhaps criminal charges, and the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader cannot even defend it. There is nothing the member can defend in the Auditor General's report.

Did the Auditor General get anything wrong? Was she wrong when she said that $76 million in taxpayer money was paid out in direct conflicts of interest? Was she wrong when she said that $123 million in total was misappropriated? Was she wrong when she said that $59 million was given out to companies that did not even qualify? No. The member wants to tell us not to worry, that Canadians should take heart that it is worse in some other parts of the world. That is not good enough.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the travesties with this situation has been the workers who have been involved. The government funded the agency 100% from public taxpayer federal money, but then it gave the workers no protection, no union and no protection under laws for whistle-blowing. We have had people come forward. They have lost their jobs. They face sexism. They face racism. They face attacks because they come from French Canada. Some have had their names dragged through the mud consistently on this.

My question is about the justice for these workers who came forward, because none of this would have happened. Three investigations have culminated in this.

Will the Conservatives agree to stronger whistle-blower protection and also move some of the workers who are paid 100% federally under the umbrella system, where they get unionization and representation, so they and their families can have the sanctity of telling the truth, when necessary, to protect all Canadians?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member raises another aspect of this that I did not have time to cover, and I am glad he did, which is the abominable treatment of the whistle-blowers in this whole sordid affair. For example, we found out that Andrée-Lise Méthot is the founder of a green venture capital firm called Cycle Capital. During her time on the board at SDTC, companies in which Cycle Capital was invested received $42 million from SDTC. That is a board member who oversaw the distribution of those funds. Do we know who used to serve as strategic adviser at Cycle Capital from 2009 to 2018? It was the Minister of the Environment. That is some of the shocking things we found out.

The hon. member is absolutely right. There was terrible treatment of these employees. The Conservatives believe in protection for whistle-blowers. It was our government that brought in the Federal Accountability Act, which prevented reprisals against whistle-blowers. We absolutely support measures that would protect those whistle-blowers and those workers who were treated so terribly by the government.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, one of the most shocking things in the Auditor General's report is that she classified two groups of conflict of interest decisions. The first group involved 96 occasions where the board members declared a conflict of interest but then awarded themselves money. The most shocking part is the $76 million, which is another 90 times when these board members did not have the courage to share that they had a conflict of interest. That is 186 times, half of which they hid.

Could the member comment on why someone would be appointed to the board with that kind of ethic?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, I think the member is absolutely right. Canadians would ask themselves why a government would do this. Why would there be government officials in the room overseeing these types of decisions, knowing that there were conflicts of interest? I think it goes back to the fact that this is the desired outcome. It is why a Liberal minister put his friends on the board.

It is said that a fish rots from the top. The Prime Minister faces no consequences for his myriad conflicts, and there are other ministers with similar types of findings against them. The Prime Minister has been convicted three times. Nothing happens to the ministers and nothing happens to the Prime Minister. We can see the culture of corruption that the Prime Minister has created.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin with a slight indulgence of the House. This is a remarkable day in history, the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I just wanted to share a brief story because we probably all have family members who, in one way or another, have a connection to World War II.

My mother's cousin Everett Borgald, my second cousin, from Chester Basin, Nova Scotia, signed up like a lot of young men did in 1942. He ended up landing in Normandy a month after D-Day, in July 1944. He was a tank trooper. He went inland and fought in the brutal battle of the Falaise gap, which the allies won on August 21, 1944, one month after he landed.

Two days later, in the subsequent pushing back of the German army, his tank was attacked by two 75-millimetre shells that pierced the turret and mortally wounded my second cousin. His best friend, who happened to be part of the crew, pulled him out of the tank, but unfortunately he did not survive. He passed away on August 23, 1944. Like many others, I am thinking of family members who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom we have, and I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Today we are debating a motion to have the Liberal government produce SDTC documents and send them to the RCMP. SDTC is a foundation set up 20 years ago by a Liberal government to invest in pre-commercialized green technology. The organization was doing good work. In fact in 2017, the Auditor General did a governance audit and found that it was complying with all of the best practices.

Unfortunately, after that, the chair of the board at that time started to criticize the government publicly around the breaches of data and weak privacy policies, appearing before a parliamentary committee. Former minister of industry Navdeep Bains and his office phoned the president of the green slush fund, as it has become known, and asked them if they could get the chair to stop criticizing the government.

The chair was not taking orders from the government and continued to criticize it. After an appearance at a parliamentary committee two days after that, the former minister's office phoned and said, for some reason, it was going to change the chair, and gave two names. The minister's office told the president to check it out. Former minister Navdeep Bains phoned the president personally and said that they were changing the chair because he was saying things they did not like. They had not been able to keep him quiet, so they gave two names and asked that they be checked out.

The president, Leah Lawrence, testified in industry committee that she checked the two names out. The first person declined because they had a conflict. The second one said they were willing to do it even though they had a conflict. The president advised the assistant deputy minister, Mr. Noseworthy, who was the liaison who sat in the board meetings, that it was an inappropriate appointment of a chair because the appointee was conflicted. She was conflicted because the green slush fund was already doing business with her company.

However, Ms. Verschuren had no problem with being in a conflicted position, because she was doing the same thing at an organization called MaRS in Toronto, which I said also helps with the finance. The former minister came back through the ADM a couple of weeks later and said they were changing them. They phoned the then chair, Mr. Balsillie, and told him he was out. Three days later, Annette Verschuren was in, over the stringent objections of the organization. This included its head of communications, who, only a few months earlier, was working in the Prime Minister's Office, and they phoned the former minister's office to say that this was inappropriate. This is all in testimony.

What happened? It was the fourth or fifth appointment that the then minister Bains had made. It is quite a record of insider dealing and trading, the billion-dollar slush fund. The Auditor General audited a small portion, only five years' worth, and released a report this week. The AG found that board members voted to give companies money, and in 186 of the transactions, board members had an ownership interest in the companies. The Auditor General pointed out that in 90 of the transactions, board members did not even declare the conflict of interest, and that money alone totalled $76 million. The situation led whistle-blowers to go to the government a year and a half ago to seek help and to stop the corruption.

The CFO from the industry department is quoted as saying that this is the biggest scandal since the sponsorship scandal. Actually, that was a Liberal scandal as well, in a previous government. The current scandal is huge in terms of dollars, compared to the earlier one. Almost half of all the transactions in the period of time that the Auditor General audited were transactions in which the board voted money to companies that they owned, almost half of the billion-dollar slush fund went to them, feathering their own interests.

Public office holders have to comply with the Conflict of Interest Act, which says that public office holders cannot financially benefit from any job they are appointed to by the government. The SDTC act, an act of Parliament, says that individual board members cannot participate in and benefit from, for them or their families, any decision that financially makes their situation better, yet the directors did it 186 times while the senior departmental official sat in the meeting. The departmental official briefed his deputy minister at the time, who I am sure briefed the minister, former minister Bains, who did nothing for 46 months. The current minister, over the 46 months this was going on, did absolutely nothing until the whistle-blowers went public.

To give the House some idea of the graft and corruption, Andrée-Lise Méthot, a director appointed in 2016 by former minister Bains, while she was on the board, her companies that she has an equity investment in, received $42.5 million from the green slush fund. Before she was appointed to the board, her companies received $143 million from the green slush fund. She should never have been appointed to the board. She had an immediate conflict of interest. It was in breach of both the Conflict of Interest Act and the SDTC act to appoint her.

Annette Verschuren was the chair. We went through that. She has a company called NRStor, which was receiving government money. She was appointed to the board and should not have been. Guy Ouimet admitted in committee that he sat in committee and voted $4 million to his own company, which he owns equity in, and nobody in the government stopped it. That was a direct conflict of interest. Stephen Kukucha, the organizer for the current Liberal leader in British Columbia and a former Liberal staffer to an environment minister, was on the board, and while he was, his companies received almost $25 million.

This is massive corruption and fraud on a scale not seen in Canada in my recent memory, which is longer, I think, than that of some of the people here; at least, I am told that frequently.

What we have is a situation where last night we actually summoned, and it was the only way we could get him, former minister Navdeep Bains to the industry committee. He now works for Rogers, the largest and most expensive cellphone company in Canada, or the most expensive in the world. He was the minister who was supposed to reduce cellphone prices but actually ended up selling out and joining the most expensive company in the world in the last two years.

I think Mr. Bains was actually zooming, but it looked more like he was some sort of avatar that was programmed with only two answers: that it is a public and open process and that he had nothing to do with it. Obviously, if the former minister had nothing to do with it, then he was directed by the PMO to appoint the Liberal hacks, cronies and swindlers to the board.

He betrayed and said he does not have anything to do with it. His chief of staff said that he himself did not have anything to do with it either. They played the Hogan's Heroes Sergeant Schultz card and said, “I know nothing. Talk to somebody else.” It is typical of the government, and everybody in the government. It is never the fault of the person who made the appointment. It is somebody else's fault. It is the “the dog ate my homework” government.

We are asking the House to pass a motion saying that the corruption has to end, and that not only does it have to end but it has to be investigated by the RCMP now that we have the Auditor General's report. I would ask and encourage all members to please show the ethics necessary for us and for Canadian taxpayers, and ensure that any illegal activity is dealt with by the police.

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

Madam Speaker, to the member's point, the government has consistently acknowledged the work that our independent officers do for the House of Commons on behalf of Canadians. Where there is a need, the government has taken to action address the concerns. We continue to wait, and we will ultimately see what takes place.

Having said that, I would contrast some of the actions of the current government with those of previous administrations. There was the ETS scandal, which was in excess of $400 million, under the Harper regime, which completely ignored the issue and denied any sort of accountability and transparency. The member can feel free to provide comment on that if he would like.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I understand why the parliamentary secretary does not want to talk about the scandal we are debating today.

The issue is this: The government claims to have done something, but it was actually the whistle-blowers who exposed this corruption, because the government was not doing its job. Even after receiving word of it, the government did nothing except call for a study. It was the ethics committee, led by a Standing Order 106(4) motion brought forward by our ethics critic, that called for it to be investigated by the Auditor General. The Auditor General's review was done because of the actions of our side, the official opposition, not because of the Liberals, who are continuing to cover up the corruption.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, yesterday, former minister Navdeep Bains appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. The Auditor General's report very clearly indicates that the minister at the time had the power to request that Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, be audited to see what was happening, so I asked the minister how many audits he had requested. Not only did the former minister not respond, but we know that he did not request any audits. He told us that this was a completely independent fund.

What does my colleague think that Minister Bains should have done at the time when allegations of wrongdoing were already circulating in his department?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, it was an excellent question the member for Mirabel asked at the committee meeting last night. Of course, the automaton, AI-generated vision of former minister Bains just stuck with the process, and the answer, obviously, was zero, because he would not answer it. What former minister Bains could have done in the first place to prevent this was to not appoint corrupt Liberals to the board but to appoint people with ethical approaches to business and to ensure that when he got the monthly reports from the board with respect to the board meetings and what was going on, he did something to stop the corruption with respect to the 186 times the Liberals voted to give themselves money.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, a good example of how this type of situation would escape the current process the government has decided on is an interesting point the member has talked about before. Annette Verschuren is a good example of receiving all kinds of money from several different projects, and even from SDTC, but what about the managers who got bonuses to give money to projects that were not even recommended for acceptance? Why are we not getting the money back from those people? They got the bonuses through corruption and malfeasance, and at the expense of the workers whom I have been trying to raise as the real victims in the situation.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, that is true. Like a lot of things with respect to the government, the management of SDTC was not paid for results but for output, which generated the need for its members to get a bonus when they put money into a project. That was not a great way to go forward.

I would say this about the governance structure of the organization, which deteriorated greatly in 2019: When the chair changed the rules with respect to conflict of interest to suit her own benefit, it actually allowed the directors to buy shares in the companies for insider trading three days after the board approved money for those companies. That is how bad the corruption in the organization was under the Liberals.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Innovation]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this motion. I would like to address the substance of the issues raised and present the government's action to address allegations at SDTC and the actions we are taking to restore public trust and restore funding to Canada's world-class clean-tech sector that is helping deliver climate solutions and create the jobs of the future.

On Tuesday, we announced that we will transition SDTC programming to the National Research Council to enhance governance and ensure public confidence after recent reviews, including, but not limited to, the report of the Office of the Auditor General, which revealed lapses in SDTC's governance. We take those lapses very seriously. Transitioning SDTC programming to the NRC will ensure continued support for clean technology innovations, which, as we all know, is not only crucial for meeting Canada's climate targets, but is also helping companies scale up and grow, strengthening our economy and creating good jobs. The changes announced will provide continuity and stability for clean-tech companies across the country, ensuring that entrepreneurs can move forward confidently with current projects and SDTC employees have opportunities to continue their work to enable homegrown innovation. I will return to these themes in more detail in a moment.

First, let me provide some background on the facts, the specific issues raised, the reaction by the government and the key steps that we are taking. This government expects organizations that receive public funds to be held to the highest standards. When allegations of mismanagement at SDTC first came to light, our government took immediate action to undertake the proper due diligence to understand the facts. These were serious allegations that warranted a careful assessment of all of the evidence. Only with the facts could we then take the appropriate next steps.

As the first step, the government engaged an impartial third party, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, to undertake a fact-finding exercise. That fact-finding exercise focused on a review of documentation and interviews with key stakeholders related to organizational policies and procedures, program governance and the project approval process. RCGT also interviewed employees, external advisers, senior management, members of SDTC's board and government officials. After receiving this report, we took swift action to freeze any new funding to SDTC and we tasked the organization with a management response and action plan. We also began to work collaboratively with the Office of the Auditor General to support a full and comprehensive audit.

Just as the government has high standards for the use of government funds, we expect employees to benefit from a healthy and respectful work environment. Given this, in addition to the RCGT fact-finding exercise, the government took action to address allegations related to human resource practices at SDTC. With SDTC's consent, which was required due to the organization's status as a shared governance corporation at arm's length from Innovation, Science and Economic Development, ISED requested that the Department of Justice appoint McCarthy Tétrault LLP to undertake a fact-finding review of alleged breaches of labour and employment practices and policies at SDTC. Current and former employees were permitted to speak openly and freely to the law firm without violating any applicable settlement agreements or non-disclosure agreements. The report of the review, which the government has made publicly available, concluded that SDTC's leadership did not engage in the type of repetitive, vexatious or major-incident conduct that would constitute harassment, bullying or workplace violence under applicable standards.

Now, let me move on to two days ago, on June 4, when the Auditor General, as we all know, released the report of her audit of SDTC. As mentioned, the government welcomed the Auditor General's decision to undertake this audit and fully co-operated with the auditors. The Government of Canada agrees with the findings of the Auditor General's report on SDTC. We acknowledge the areas identified for improving governance, accountability and conflict of interest practices. Several of the recommendations are already being implemented by the organization, such as revising procedures for funding decisions and project oversight, as well as clarifying roles and responsibilities. The government is committed to working with SDTC to implement further measures that uphold transparency and prudent management of public funds.

Evidence collected from all of these independent reviews revealed lapses in SDTC's governance. We have never once denied that those are true lapses in its governance. The government listened and, as we saw yesterday, we are taking definitive action. To be clear however, the Auditor General did not report any evidence or suspicion of criminal behaviour.

As acknowledged by Ms. Hogan herself before committee on Tuesday, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada has reacted quickly and well in response to the findings in the reports. In October 2023, a management response and action plan was developed, which set out action items aimed at improving SDTC's governance, its conflict of interest management and human resource practices; and at enhancing ISED's oversight of SDTC to ensure that the organization is in full compliance with its contribution agreement. A reinforced contribution agreement with SDTC will formalize the enhanced governance practices and oversight measures set out in the MRAP.

Of chief importance among amendments and complementary MRAP actions are those that clarify, enhance and standardize SDTC's reporting requirements and processes, which will allow the government greater insight into and oversight of the organization's operations and management of public funds. To help restore confidence in SDTC's management of public funds for the benefit of Canadians, ISED has implemented enhanced standards for disclosure, documentation and management of conflicts of interest. Furthermore, active reporting requirements have been established to track conflict of interest disclosures and recusals. This includes measures specific to SDTC employees, external consultants, senior management and the board.

These measures will increase accountability, ensuring that any potential conflicts are managed effectively. They also introduce new requirements for declaring and documenting management of conflicts of interest within the foundation and reporting them to ISED. Collectively, these measures establish stronger governance and oversight of SDTC and will ensure increased transparency, accountability and confidence in the new board's ability to continue delivering benefits to Canadians as the programming transitions to its next phase.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada was created over 20 years ago in 2001. Canada's clean technology ecosystem looked very different at that time and was much less mature than it is today. The funding that has been provided since has helped to commercialize many clean technologies, and these projects continue to make valuable contributions to the Canadian economy, and the environment, today. It has been an example of how Liberal leadership in the environment and climate change has always supported economic growth in Canada, helping good companies grow and helping Canada be a leader in the world.

The governance model adopted by Parliament at that time in the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act provided for a high degree of independence, but the various reviews I have outlined prompted the government to take a close look at whether the governance structure of SDTC continues to be fit for purpose today.

After careful consideration, we determined that a new delivery model for SDTC programming was needed. This is why our government took action by announcing a new delivery approach that includes transitioning SDTC programming and employees to National Research Council Canada. In addition to its proven track record of providing tailored support to Canada's innovative small and medium-sized businesses, the NRC is a Crown agency and is subject to rigorous and stringent oversight of its personnel and finances. This will help rebuild public trust while increasing accountability and transparency in program delivery.

This transition will take several months, so the government appointed new SDTC leadership, made up of highly regarded and trusted individuals, to lead the important work ahead to ensure the terms and conditions of ongoing projects are respected, and appropriate employment opportunities for SDTC employees at the NRC are identified, because it is not just about sound governance; it is about people.

SDTC's employees have a wealth of experience and knowledge of the clean-tech sector and have been integral in helping Canada's clean-tech companies move from seed to start-up to scale-up. Their transition to the NRC will help ensure that Canada's clean-tech companies will be at the forefront in the fight against climate change by receiving the same type of support to innovate, grow and create well-paying, sustainable jobs. This support will continue with resumed funding for new, eligible projects in a sector vital to our country's economy and clean growth transition. In line with the Auditor General's findings, ISED will enhance oversight and monitoring of funding throughout the transition period.

Now, the opposition members do not take climate change seriously. We know that from their many actions and votes against climate change. Conservatives would rather play politics than make sure that Canada's clean-tech sector can keep paving the way for the solutions the world needs. However, we understand that confidence in SDTC must be restored so that these visionary entrepreneurs can receive the funding they need for their businesses. Continuity of support for our clean-tech sector is paramount in the fight against climate change, and to keep growing our economy and keep Canada competitive in a world looking for cleaner solutions.

We know that clean-tech companies have felt the impacts of the funding pause as this government took the time it needed to uncover the evidence and identify a robust governance solution. We have done what we set out to do, and we thank the clean-tech sector for its resilience and patience as we shape the way forward.

The wheels are in motion at ISED, the NRC and SDTC to make the transfer happen while ensuring continuity for clean-tech projects and SDTC employees. By transitioning the support for clean-technology innovators into the NRC, leveraging its robust governance structure, the government will maintain the strengths of the programming that have benefited Canada's clean-tech companies for over two decades.

Going forward, it is crucial that our efforts are focused on supporting Canadian innovators in the clean-tech sector. These companies are generating jobs and developing world-class technologies to respond to the impacts of climate change and build the economy of the future here in Canada.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Madam Speaker, the appetite for Canadians for corruption is very low, but specifically, right now, given the fact that the financial burden of Canadians is becoming quite high, this corruption, after nine years of this Liberal government, is just becoming far too much for Canadians.

We know that of all the individuals being investigated, we are asking the RCMP to look into this one individual, who may or may not be investigated, as it is very concerning. A former industry minister, Navdeep Baines, appointed the chair of the board. Subsequent members to the board, who he knew at the time, had conflicts of interest and doled out $140 million of taxpayer money where directors voted 186 times in instances with conflicts of interest. However, more concerning to Canadians with the burden of the cost of living is that this minister got a million-dollar job with Rogers Communication at a time when he promised cellphone bills would be down 25%, and this government subsequently promised 50%. Rogers has posted its best profit ever off the backs of Canadians.

Canadians demand an answer. Why was this appropriate for this government to treat this individual and others this way and for the further corruption coming from this story and others?