Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge.
I am pleased to rise today as a member of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. We have the pleasure of working in this committee with our colleagues from the Maritimes to advance the development of new technologies and industry in Canada. We have had the opportunity to debate various issues with our Liberal, NDP and Bloc colleagues and we work in very close collaboration. We are truly trying to advance Canada's economy within this committee.
Today I am obliged to talk about what we discovered when we heard something rather alarming. We found out that there had been some misappropriation at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, regarding the green fund. Some people had been appointed to SDTC's board by the Liberals. Those people paid themselves knowing full well that they were in conflict of interest. This has been proven, and not by us.
The Auditor General was the one who discovered that these directors had given large sums of money to their own business, or to organizations they held shares in or had ties with.
I had the opportunity to speak with the former chairperson of SDTC, Annette Verschuren, who appeared before our committee not once but three times at our invitation. The last time I spoke to her, I told her that I had a high school diploma in auto body work. I am a guy who never enjoyed going to school. I graduated from high school with my mother's help and I am grateful to her. That high school diploma in auto body work got me into the workforce. Based on what I learned in school, I always knew that no one can take what does not belong to them, or acquire something through a conflict of interest that they are not entitled to. I always knew that no one should use their relationships for monetary gain or preferential treatment. I do not understand why such a smart, socially-active businesswoman like her could not grasp the position she was in. That is what I said to the former chairperson of SDTC.
This position was actually offered to her by the former minister of industry, Mr. Bains. Unfortunately, Mr. Bains now seems to be suffering from Alzheimer's, because he does not remember appointing her to that position. There was a conflict between these two individuals' different interpretations. Neither of them could remember what was said. No one could tell us how she ended up in that position. To make matters worse, before being appointed, Ms. Verschuren had already received funding thanks to her connections with the fund. She knew full well that by taking the appointment, she would be in a conflict of interest. When I asked if it had occurred to her that she could be in a conflict of interest, she admitted that it had crossed her mind, but that she had not withdrawn from consideration.
The fact that she is no longer sitting on this board of directors would mean that she is no longer accountable. That is interesting, because she and the other board members awarded themselves tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. Those amounts were given to people who were in a clear conflict of interest. I am not the one saying that. It is the Auditor General.
As elected officials, we find ourselves in the House today because of non-compliance with a request that was made by all parliamentarians. Of course, I am talking about the members of the opposition parties, because the government did not want to co-operate in producing documents that would enable us to confirm and verify all these facts. In addition to the projects that these people approved for themselves, the Auditor General identified 10 ineligible projects worth close to $60 million. On 96 occasions, conflict of interest policies were followed, but in 90 cases, they were not, which means that these people allocated money to themselves.
I want to come back to the fact that I just have a high school diploma and a diploma in auto body repair. I was 18 years old when I finished high school, but I already knew that this is not how things should be done. About 10 years ago, I took a course at the Collège des administrateurs de sociétés, Université Laval's college of corporate directors. The first thing we learned about governance was the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest. Imagine if we, as members of Parliament, gave ourselves public dollars belonging to Canadians, either from our MP budget or through other channels. That would be an absolute scandal. In fact, in the past, with the sponsorship scandal, we saw how the Liberals were scheming to help their friends. The same principle applies today.
It is important that we have access to all the documents, because tens of millions of dollars were given to directors who were in a direct conflict of interest. This money may also have been misspent. The Auditor General actually said herself that $60 million was allocated to 10 projects that were ineligible. Who were these people who received that money, and why did they receive money from that fund? People can apply for funding from any number of funds in Canada. What is the relationship between the people who received money and the companies in question?
All the documents requested were sent to us completely redacted for reasons of confidentiality. I heard my Liberal colleague say earlier that the documents could simply be handed over to the RCMP. In Canada, all of us here come before the RCMP. We are here to make laws and implement them. It is our privilege to receive these documents. They were requested on June 10. Today is September 27 and we are still waiting. It is a question of privilege.
This is not the first time that the government has concealed information. In 2015, the Liberals boasted that they would be the most transparent government in this country's history. I think it is fairly obvious that this is far from true. It is really unfortunate that we are still talking about this in the House of Commons even now, when, in fact, it is a question of parliamentary privilege.