Mr. Speaker, they would have to have character for it to be assassinated.
We hear from the parliamentary secretary always the full-court press to try to deflect from the failures of the government to exercise its fiduciary responsibility to Canadians. It is an absolute failure in that responsibility.
What is the connection between the Liberals' billion-dollar green slush fund, with which they allowed hundreds of millions of dollars to go out the door illegally, in contravention of the contribution agreement, and the $60 million arrive scam, or the Prime Minister's being found to have broken the law, or the frontbench ministers over there being found to have broken the law?
What is the connection to the WE scandal? What is the connection to conflict of interest Carney, Mark “carbon tax” Carney? What is the connection to the unwillingness of the government to recognize the will of Canadians? Of course the connection is that every time the Liberals are given the chance to do the right thing, they do the wrong thing, and that could not be more evident than it is with the motion we are dealing with.
My hon. colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable moved an amendment to the motion that the Liberals take great umbrage at, and it is very telling. They are telling on themselves when they do not support it. What is the partisan attack or the character assassination they are worried about? Let us read how mean-spirited the amendment is: “that the following witnesses be ordered to appear before the committee separately for two hours each”. Then it lists a series of government ministers.
They do not want the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. They do not want the Clerk of the Privy Council; the Auditor General; the commissioner of the RCMP; the Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development; the law clerk and parliamentary counsel of the House of Commons; the acting president of Sustainable Development Technology Canada; or a panel consisting of the board of Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
Why do the Liberals not want them to testify? Are they afraid of what they are going to say? Are they going to learn from the parliamentary law clerk that Parliament absolutely has the unfettered authority to order exactly what it did, the production of the documents to be transmitted to the RCMP? That is what they are going to find out from the parliamentary law clerk, but they are terrified of it.
Are the Liberals going to find out from ISED that their minister and their officials did not actually take action on the corruption at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, the billion-dollar green slush fund, until after Conservatives initiated a full-court press against them? That is what we are going to hear.
We are going to hear recordings of one of their officials describing it as “sponsorship...level” of corruption. That brought down a Liberal government, so maybe that is what they are worried about, the corruption and scandals that have been identified by departmental officials in their own government. Corruption is the theme, and when the member for Windsor is looking for a new job, he can actually read the AG's report and see what they found out.
They found out that they allowed it to happen, and I think about the hundreds of millions of dollars they said were for one thing but were really for another, which is the case with so many things with the current government. It is like their carbon tax, which does not reduce emissions but does increase poverty, and does not help our environment but does lengthen the lines at our food banks, their use having doubled after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government.
That is the legacy of the member for Windsor: record lines at food banks; Canadians' not being able to afford their mortgage, not being able to afford their rent and not being able to afford to put gas in their car; and food banks' having to extend their hours so people who have two jobs can come in between their two jobs to pick up food at the food bank.
It is shameful that when the Liberals have the opportunity to save a dollar by not letting it go into the pockets of insiders, they are too beholden to the Prime Minister, twice found guilty of breaking the law himself, to stand up and say they need to do the right thing; the documents need to be transmitted and sent to the RCMP. The RCMP has the option to investigate or not, which is its independent right, but why are they so afraid to send the documents?
The reason we know so much about this is that whistle-blowers came forward and exposed the corruption under the Liberals, who have been desperate to stop it from coming to light. It is not enough to have the Auditor General issue a damning report. It is not enough to have the Ethics Commissioner find the Liberals' hand-picked chair in a conflict of interest. That is not enough for them. Why? It is because it always comes down to helping Liberal insiders. It is incredible the lengths they will go to to protect those who need it the least instead of those who need it the most, Canadians, after nine years of the most unethical government in Canadian history.
Over the summer, any of the Liberals who were brave enough to knock on doors, and I am sure the member opposite was not, would have heard the same thing we heard, which is that Canadians are exhausted and see the government for exactly what it is. It is tired and costly. It has raised their taxes. It has seen crime run rampant. It has put the rights of convicted criminals ahead of those of bona fide victims. It spends more targeting those who follow the law, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, while spending little on those who seek to engage in human trafficking, weapons trafficking and drug trafficking. That is the legacy after nine years.
There is good news, of course, which is that common-sense Conservatives have been doing their homework on the Liberals and the institutions they have corrupted, like Sustainable Development Technology Canada. Liberals will ask, “Wasn't SDTC started by Conservatives?” Yes, it was, and in 2017, it received an audit by the Auditor General and got a clean bill of health. What happened between 2017 and 2023? The Liberal Prime Minister and his accomplice, the leader of the NDP, allowed for Liberal insiders to ransack the place, push the organizational objectives aside and allow well-connected Liberal insiders to get ahead. That is not something we are going to abide. That is why we dug in.
We should look at the work that members have done to bring this to the House for a vote. However, the Liberals are so illiberal and undemocratic that when the House of Commons voted to order something to happen, the Liberals said they did not actually need to do it. What does that tell us about their respect for the rule of law, for Canadians and for the democracy that each of us has been elected into to represent Canadians here in this place? They certainly do not think much about it. They do not think much about the effect it is going to have on Canadians, unless of course those Canadians are their well-connected friends.
The motion and the amendments that have been put forward are incredibly reasonable, as was the original production order. They fall entirely inside the bounds of what this House is allowed to do and must do to ensure the confidence of Canadians in our democratic institutions.
The NDP and the Liberals can flail and wail all they like, but common-sense Conservatives are going to continue to demand accountability and answers for Canadians. When we talk about stopping the crime, we are talking about stopping these guys, because life was not like this before the NDP-Liberals and it is not going to be like it after them.
