Debates of Sept. 27th, 2024

The House resumed from September 26 consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are critical moments in the life of a democracy, and today is one of them.

The government has once again demonstrated how inconsistent it is through its blatant incompetence in managing public programs and its inability to ensure transparent and effective accountability. It is not complicated. The total lack of robust oversight and accountability mechanisms within the current government make the problems that the government gets itself into even worse.

I want to tell the government representatives that they are political officials. They need to show that they are capable of clear and consistent accountability, whether in terms of public spending, tangible results or the assessment of objectives achieved. Government accountability is not limited to vague, incomplete reports, which, as we know, are often filled with technical jargon to cover up failures. What is worse, the lack of transparency makes it difficult to have confidence in democracy. Democracy around the world is struggling right now. We do not need to make things worse.

Ineffective accountability allows secrecy to flourish. It opens the door to abuse of power, corruption and the gradual erosion of democratic institutions. Instead of promoting efficiency and equity, poor program management leads to chaotic management of public resources, which plunges essential services into paralysis and prevents citizens, the taxpayers, from having their needs met.

Instead of talking about housing, inflation, lack of cell phone coverage—a major problem in Laurentides—Labelle, the industrial transition, the energy shift, increased benefits for seniors aged 65 to 74, we have been talking about the government's failings and secrets since yesterday. We are staring down the barrel of another scandal.

After the Liberals came to power, we saw the WE scandal. I have been here since 2019, and I have spent hours at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. It ended with prorogation. There was the Prime Minister's vacation at the Aga Khan's island; the Trans Mountain pipeline purchase; the COVID-19 conflicts of interest; and the latest, ArriveCAN, which cost millions of dollars in public money.

While all that is going on, we are neglecting our people. That is unacceptable to the public. Because it holds executive power, the government needs to be accountable to the legislative branch. Of course, preserving, protecting and treasuring the separation of powers is important. These days, the line between these three branches is becoming increasingly blurred. We have to protect the separation of these powers. This must not be used as an excuse. The government is accountable to the House.

Parliament's authority to demand government documents is clearly established. The only limitation on the House's ability to demand information from the government as it deems necessary is the good judgment of the House, not the goodwill of the government.

We must avoid setting a bad precedent. The government does have the right to disagree. However, it must respect an order of this House. The government must respect Parliament and its members. It cannot simply carry on as usual. Can we set aside partisanship? That is what we are dealing with here. If there is one party that can speak out against partisanship, it is the Bloc Québécois. I urge my colleagues to show respect for our democratic institutions. In closing, I call on the government to get its act together.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit confused by the member's speech. She talked about preserving, protecting and valuing the separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. She touched upon the lack of democracy across the world and the degradation of public institutions.

My question is on what we are trying to do here. With Parliament using the supreme power it has, are we not trying to interfere in the workings of public institutions like the RCMP? What is her position? It was not very clear. If she could elaborate on it, I would be happy.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to go back to the beginning. When there is an order of the House indicating that the documents requested have not been produced and the House refers that obligation to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to shed some light on it, that does not mean recommending that the RCMP investigate. We said so yesterday. It is about respect for the institution.

The question of privilege was brought forward yesterday and was upheld. The government may not agree, but that is the privilege of the House.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the Bloc Québécois member's comments. According to the Auditor General of Canada, at least $300 million was paid out in more than 180 instances where there was a conflict of interest. She said the Liberals were entirely responsible. On top of that, $58 million was allocated to projects for which no environmental benefits were demonstrated.

Why does the Bloc Québécois continue to support this scandal-ridden government? Why are they not voting with us, the Conservatives, to trigger an election?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we in the Bloc Québécois are responsible, and it turns out that we are the adults in the room.

When I tell my constituents that, in her report on Sustainable Development Technology Canada, the Auditor General stated that in 90 cases, representing a total of $76 million in funding, there were conflicts of interest and that the government must be held accountable, I think that is being very responsible.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member started off with the litany of moral failings we have seen from the Liberal government. However, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that Canadians and Quebeckers would be correct in assuming that they get a bit of the same thing regardless of whether they vote for Conservatives or Liberals.

We have seen a litany of problem with the Liberals. Yesterday in the House, I brought up challenges with the moral bankruptcy of the Conservatives. I think about Harper's Senate scandal, the Afghan detainees and the misappropriation of funds for the G8 when Harper was in power.

How does the member think we should propose to Canadians that there is a better path when, regardless of whether they vote Conservative or Liberal, they end up getting the same thing: corruption and moral failings?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am so discouraged. When we go out into the communities, people stop and talk to us and ask us what is going on, what is happening to our democracy. Our party has to shed light on this affair, denounce the secrets and ensure that the institutions are respected. Partisanship has no place in any of this. There is so much talk about elections these days. Today, we are talking about an important topic and some people are trying to distract us.

I have said enough.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. I appreciate the opportunity to share my time with him and to talk about this important issue. We agreed with and supported not only the original motion but also the ruling by the Speaker.

It is important because this gets to some of the essence of the principles of democracy and information related to SDTC, which is Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and the misappropriation of funds and information that took place there. In particular, it also brandished some very good companies that are being lumped in with this. I am disappointed in the Conservatives' not focusing any attention on protecting those organizations and companies that did nothing wrong and were sucked into what is basically a patronage system that was set up by the Liberals, along with Annette Verschuren and others on the board of directors.

The focus for the New Democrats has always been on the whistle-blowers; they have taken a hit with regard to loss of employment and loss of pensionable years. We had asked for them to be transferred to any federal public service agency they chose. They are going to an agency, NRC, which has an association and not a union, but at least it is a step forward. However, at the same time, many people have left, and they had to sign waivers and confidentiality agreements. We are now asking the government to rip those up, to make sure that those individuals no longer have that hanging over their employment record in the federal public service. It is unfortunate that this has not happened, and we will continue to request that.

We also want a third party to investigate and review the new model of SDTC, in terms of a working environment, because there has been some good work done there. Quite frankly, what the Conservatives also do not mention in this is that they actually have been the custodians of SDTC in the past, in large part. I would certainly like to see more light shed on what went wrong. Their simple analysis of it is that, basically, the Liberals picked their own people, who did not live up to their expectations. However, I can tell members that I have a long list of Conservative appointments that have never done the same.

What we would rather see is a better process that would actually be more robust and protect against this patronage system that continually rewards Ottawa insiders who have been close to those political parties in particular. It has been a carousel, at times, of appointments that are based upon not the merits of one's contributions to the general public and to an issue but the merits of one's contributions to a political party, in my opinion.

SDTC has fallen into that issue, in the sense that it sucked in a number of different employees and companies that actually do good environmental work. I think there is an edge on this too. However, the Conservatives do have a point, in the sense that there was a motion moved to get the documents. On that, I also want to highlight the difference between the Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP in all of this. We believe in more open, accessible, transparent government, which is actually coming up across the planet, especially with the other G7 nations that we are part of.

I am talking about Crown copyright, where information, studies and other types of documents are more readily accessible to the public. Our original law was crafted in the early 1900s, and it has not been substantially overhauled since then. Can members imagine if we still drove around in vehicles that were originally crafted in the 1900s and never substantially overhauled to this day? At the same time, the United States and other nations have opened up their information-sharing systems quite significantly differently.

This has allowed us to protect these so-called independent associations, but for the taxpayers, as well as in terms of the Conservative and Liberal strategies on how to deal with these issues, it is important to note how they create these agencies. This one was created to be independent from Parliament and the minister, but the government stocks it full of appointments when they choose. Later, when there is a problem, those in government claim they had nothing to do with it, because it was an independent process. They say this even though the association reports wholly to the federal government and the employees are actually 100% federally funded.

As such, the employees do not get the whistle-blower protection they should. They do not get the union representation they should.

At the same time, when their friends either get sloppy or enter into practices that allow this type of malfeasance to take place, then they can claim that they are at arm's length, which gives them the ability to basically try to punt on this. I will talk a little about a particular number of things that took place at the boardroom of SDCT. There is no reason whatsoever that the Conservatives could not have changed this situation in the past. They had such industry ministers as Maxime Bernier, Tony Clement and others who behaved scandalously as well and who were perhaps not interested in addressing the fact that SDTC had an opening to allow this to take place.

People are wondering what took place at these corporate boardrooms. We can imagine that, if we were in a boardroom of a not-for-profit charity or a municipality, we would have to declare a conflict of interest on things that are financial or personnel matters. There is a very prescribed system. However, what happened is that, a number of times, this was not followed. The Auditor General even points this out.

I asked this of the witnesses who came forward, such as board members, chairpeople and so forth: Were the rules provided? They said that, yes, they were, but at the same time, they were not followed. Nobody could really explain the next part. They do not know why they did not follow the rules; they just did not. Therefore, there was a lazy corporate boardroom culture there.

I asked the following questions of a couple of witnesses but never had a straight answer: Were they socializing together? Were they doing things outside the workplace? I suspect they were. In this country, we saw in the past how many deals were cut on a golf course somewhere at the expense of consumers, the rights of people, and insider business and other businesses that were competing legitimately because they had the inner edge.

In this case, at SDTC, this was very much the case, which is why we are doing this investigation. Therefore, in the motion that was put forth, we requested procurement of more of those documents. We gave a time plan and, in fact, studied and talked about this at committee. I would point out that Conservatives also did so. However, it is hard to understand some of their strategy on this because they have smatterings of it across several committees. It is almost as though they are not even interested at getting at the final, real, good result, because it is being put in three different places. One would suffice to get to the bottom line of all of this at the end of the day, instead of shopping around and having us do different parts here and there.

At any rate, we asked for more documentation to be provided to us because we want to make sure that there is accountability as funds are restored to the program. The program was suspended by the Minister of Industry for a brief period of time and then reinstated. Therefore, there is a legitimate concern about what happens next, especially because we still do not know the full oversight that is going to take place with the NRC and so forth. Thus, we asked for those documents and gave them sufficient time, but we have not received them to the fullest extent. That is why we are here today.

It is important to note that this is unnecessary in terms of House time, which could be spent on other significant issues. There is the Israeli issue with Lebanon that is taking place internationally right now. We also have the issue that I have been working on in committee to try to advance the credit card rates. We are getting a study on that, but the Conservatives brought forward another motion that we had to deal with; if we do not watch it, we are maybe going to lose some time with regards to that study. However, in all fairness, some answers are deserved here, and the motion has merit.

To wrap up, as we send this issue back to committee, we have to be very careful about how we handcuff committees, if we are going to do that. Those are some of the questions that we still have to answer as we go forward. At the same time, we need more open, accessible government. There are better ways to do this. This is a situation arising from a structural flaw in our current Parliament. It has been done before with other issues, for example, the detainees in Afghanistan. Therefore, again, I would call for a better process in Parliament. However, I have a lack of faith at the moment because the two political parties that have been in control of Canada have wanted to control access to information for their own political reasons, depending upon the political time, versus actually exposing it publicly and letting the public come to its own conclusions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the potential blurring of the independence of the judiciary and our system here.

I am sure the member is aware that we are asking for a collection of information that would then be handed over to the RCMP. That is what is clearly being indicated, which raises a concern about that potential blurring. Could the member provide his thoughts with regard to the fact that the Parliament of Canada has phenomenal power and authority? Does he have such concerns?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that was a good, relevant question.

I guess the backstop for me about that issue is that we still do not control the RCMP or tell it what to do. The RCMP will get the documents and come to a decision from their own deliberations, investigations and so forth. The RCMP is similar to the Auditor General and the Competition Bureau. Suggestions can be made to those bodies, but it is up to them to decide whether they should go farther with the information and do the next part.

For those reasons, I still feel comfortable with that process. I appreciate the question, though, because it clarifies one of the misconceptions out there, which is that we are directing law enforcement. We are not. They are going to be able to look at the information and make their own independent decisions.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has been an active participant at parliamentary committee hearings on this scandal, both at the industry committee and the public accounts committee.

In addition to the respect that we all have for the whistle-blowers who started this process, could he comment a little more about how he felt about the testimony of the chair, Annette Verschuren, in defending the 24 conflicts that the Ethics Commissioner revealed in testimony at committee?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question; the hon. member has done extensive research on this file and has been very engaged with it.

We saw the indifference of Annette Verschuren and other board members. As the member knows, I sometimes called out some of the organizations and recipients of funds who were more concerned about getting their funds than they were about the whistle-blowers. It was very alarming. This is why I hope that, at some point in time, we can actually enhance the necessary protections for whistle-blowers. It is also why I believe they need to be within the public service alliance to get better protection than what they are currently getting from their association.

This is one of the things that I think was lost in the equation. All 24 conflicts took place and were significant. It is just unbelievable. They have real consequences for the actions of the workers, who often gave different advice from what the board followed.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in 2005, the Auditor General published a devastating report on these federal foundations.

Today, 19 years have gone by, including 10 years under the Harper government. The Sustainable Development Technology Canada foundation, or SDTC, still exists and there is still no control over its funding. Does the hon. member agree with me that the SDTC case is indicative of a generalized cancer, that of federal foundations without any oversight?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with a symptom of the illness that has taken place. That is why the NDP has proposed real, concrete modernization techniques for an open, accountable government. That is what separates our party from other parties with regard to having that, in terms of not only what we say but also proposing it through legislation. That is quite different from what we see at the table.

This is just going to rear its head again. It has become a battle between the Conservatives and Liberals as to who thinks they have better patronage appointments. I can tell the House that none of them are better. What we actually need is a better process and better transparency to ensure that taxpayers are protected.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I sometimes feel that I am the only one left with a good memory. I am so glad that the hon. member for Windsor West also recalls that the SDTC has done lots of good work. There were a lot of good firms associated with it. I want to give credit to the Hon. Gary Lunn, the former member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. That is unusual, I suppose. I have not mentioned his name here in a long time, but he was a member of the Harper cabinet whom I defeated to be elected here. He did a lot of good work in setting up SDTC. Groundbreaking renewable energy firms and others started receiving grants in that period.

In the years since, we have seen a steady deterioration of basic good practice within the Government of Canada, with outsourcing to Deloitte, outsourcing to McKinsey and outsourcing of the kinds of things that allowed the ArriveCAN app scandal to happen. I also see the same kinds of behaviour here. Does my hon. colleague from Windsor West agree with me, and could he comment on that?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely correct on this. Some great work has taken place.

The challenge is what the Conservatives are going after. Is it attacking the environmental programs of everybody that has been involved and sucking in victims by accident or getting to the bottom of this and structurally changing it? I would like to structurally change it for higher accountability, but have the program function like it was supposed to, to combat climate change and the environmental challenges we face, and then reward the companies that face extreme competition from the United States and European countries that are massively subsidizing corporate entities and not-for-profits that we have to compete with.

These are some of the things that we face.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow my colleague from Windsor West, the dean of the NDP caucus, in this important debate.

As our dean just said, our caucus has always been concerned about government transparency. When we look at all the NDP governments across the country, we see that they have not only been transparent but also that they are much better financial managers than the other parties. I am not the one saying that. It is the federal Department of Finance, whose end-of-fiscal files show that, over the past 40 years, NDP governments, as a collective body, manage the public finances better than all of the other political parties. We are very proud of that. We are waiting for the NDP to have the chance to form the federal government, because then we will be able to put the fiscal house in order.

As my colleague from Windsor West just said, the NDP has always advocated for whistle-blower protection. It is extremely important, because protecting whistle-blowers means having the opportunity to get the real information and prevent scandals from happening. That is something we pushed hard with the former Harper regime. We are still pushing today. We think it is important to protect whistle-blowers to both avoid scandals and bring them to light. It is important that we enable workers to report the misuse of public funds to the public while being protected. We also want to strengthen the independent offices of officers of Parliament, such as the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. All of these elements add up to better protection for the public.

When we look at this Sustainable Development Technology Canada scandal, we see that the Liberal government's failure to strengthen these independent officers of Parliament has reduced their ability to expose the misuse of public funds. My colleague from Windsor West just mentioned this. It is clear in this case that Annette Verschuren, who was the chair of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, handed millions of dollars over to companies she had ties to. Obviously, that was absolutely inappropriate, and we need to get to the bottom of it.

Every time we have had minority governments, the NDP has sought out the truth and has tried to get to the bottom of things. Whenever scandals were exposed in one way or another, the NDP always pushed to get to the bottom of things and pass on important information to the general public. As I mentioned earlier, the NDP has also highlighted the importance of implementing solutions to prevent scandals like this from happening again. The NDP is waiting for an opportunity to put all these protections in place, because we cannot keep going in circles as Liberal scandals give way to Conservative scandals that give way to Liberal scandals that give way to Conservative scandals. During the last two Parliaments, we have at least had an opportunity to expose and get to the bottom of every one of those scandals.

In a minority Parliament, because the NDP has more weight, we have been able to expose these scandals. The much larger scandals we saw under the Harper government were all covered up, because the majority Conservative government simply refused to put into place the protections that allow taxpayers to know money is being spent in an effective way.

What I found most reprehensible during the Harper regime was the fact that not only did Conservatives cover up these scandals, and I will come back to those in just a minute, but they also strangled the Auditor General of Canada and the PBO's office. They cut funding dramatically. They did that because, of course, when Conservatives are in power, they do not want independent officers of Parliament trying to get to the bottom of these many scandals. Under the Conservatives' watch, it was terrible. It was the worst financial management we have seen in a party's history. There were myriad scandals.

We can talk about the Senate scandals and the scandals through the PMO, but let us just talk about some of the Conservative scandals that were covered up by the Conservative government members when they were in power. Unlike now, where we have a motion that is being debated, that I am sure will pass and that will direct PROC to actually do its work, in each of these cases in the Harper majority regime, Conservative MPs simply slammed the door shut on any investigation of the myriad scandals of the Harper government.

Let me just enumerate a few of them. First is the ETS scandal, which represents $400 million. We talked I think quite legitimately about the misuse of funds around the ArriveCAN app, which was $60 million. The ETS scandal was many times that, and yet Conservatives clamped down to make sure that no parliamentary committee could review it, no documents were exposed and there was no way for the public to ever know the truth of what was a misspending of nearly half a billion dollars. It is unbelievable.

However, it is not just that. I think of the Conservatives putting in place the Phoenix pay system, which cost over $2 billion. It is a scandal we are still seeing the repercussions of today. The Conservatives forced the Phoenix pay system to move forward, a system that had not worked in other parts of the world. It had not worked in Queensland, Australia and had been rejected by other governments that understood the importance of not saying yes to a pay system that was so clearly inadequate, yet Conservatives forced it through and cost Canadians billions. Even today, we are still paying for the repercussions of that.

Members will recall, of course, the Harper regime clamping down on the F-35 procurement scandal. We still do not know how that money was used. Fortunately, very good journalists were part of exposing the Harper regime and the Conservative scandals around the G8 funding, the gazebos and the money that was misspent. Up to a billion dollars was misspent around the G8, and again Conservatives clamped down to ensure that the public never knew the truth. On anti-terrorism funding, $3.1 billion disappeared, could not be found, and yet Conservatives again clamped down to ensure that the public never knew the truth.

While we are having this important debate, while we are openly referring this to committee to ensure we get to the bottom of this scandal under the Liberal government, we cannot forget the fact that the Conservative government was absolutely reprehensible in shutting down any sort of parliamentary ability to get to the bottom of things, in clamping down to ensure that the billions of dollars that were misspent or could not be found were never gotten to the bottom of and to ensure as well that they would cut the funding of the independent officers of Parliament, who do such an effective job of ensuring that the public gets the information that is a vital part of democracy.

Transparency in financial affairs is an essential component, a foundation of our democracy. What we saw under the Harper regime was all of those rules being thrown out the window. Billions of dollars were misspent, could not be found, and the Conservatives would never allow any of those scandals to actually be exposed to Canadians.

This is a matter of relevance coming to a possible election, because of the preponderance of corporate lobbyists now on the Conservative national executive, and the fact that the member for Carleton's closest advisers are lobbyists. If the Conservatives were bad under the Harper regime, we can imagine how much worse they would be now. We need transparency. That is why we need an NDP government in this country.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a good example of where the NDP's fake stand on progressive values is exposed. It talks big when it comes to progressive things like climate change. It fights against climate change except when that becomes politically inconvenient. When tough action is needed, when a tough stand is needed, NDP members run away. This is the same thing. They talk big when it comes to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and how privacy and confidentiality are important to Canadians. Again, when it becomes politically convenient, they do not mind joining hands with the official opposition in trying to throw a stone here.

Does the member not respect the division of power that is there between the executive legislature and the judiciary?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is a whole ton of rhetoric there and not any substance at all. I think this is the problem and why the Liberal government has become so unpopular. It is because of stands like the one my hon. colleague has just taken, regarding getting to the bottom of what is clearly a scandal. When we have somebody who is appointed by the Liberals to run an agency and we are seeing money then going to companies connected to that person, it requires getting to the bottom of.

I think the Liberals should have taken the NDP's response, rather than the Conservative response, which was to just tuck it under the rug. That was the problem under the Harper majority government and certainly under the Liberal majority government. Neither Conservatives nor Liberals ever respect independent officers of Parliament and ensure that public transparency on the use of public funds is paramount. This is why I think it is time to throw out Liberals and Conservatives and elect an NDP government.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in 2017, the Auditor General did an audit of SDTC and gave it a clean bill of health, saying that it was being run effectively. That was under a chair appointed by the Conservatives. This has totally changed since the Liberals have interfered, putting in friends and contacts despite warnings not to do this. We have a total mess, with hundreds of millions of dollars wasted. There was conflict of interest.

This is not just a Liberal scandal. This is also an NDP scandal, because the NDP is propping them and is keeping them in power. What we lay on the Liberals, we also lay on the NDP.

Will the member not take responsibility for his party's participation in this scandal?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my goodness, I do not know what is in the water in the House this morning, but these are very strange and bizarre questions. The reality is that this member was involved with the Harper regime, which cut the funding to the Auditor General, which is unbelievable, and yet no Conservative has ever apologized for cutting the funding for independent officers of Parliament, the Auditor General and the Parliamentary Budgetary Officer.

They are absolutely essential. They are foundation stones for transparency and democracy. The reality is that at no point during the Harper regime, in all of the scandals that I just enumerated when billions of dollars were misspent or could not be found, did Conservatives ever consent to actually getting the information to the public. That is shameful. I wish one Conservative MP would stand up and apologize for it.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments. I am pleased to know that his party will not be supporting the government on this, because transparency is needed, and that can be achieved at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, of which I am a member. There is some good news.

My colleague seems to have a strategy, based on what he just said. His party wants to shed some light on this matter, but to some extent, it has also been involved for years now in this bungling and all the secrecy. What are they trying to hide?

I would like to ask my colleague whether this is another attempt to move a motion of non-confidence ultimately to avoid shedding light on this matter.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have always advocated for transparency. As the member well knows, the NDP has always advocated for protection for whistle-blowers. That is extremely important. The NDP has never changed its position on this.

We will keep pushing to get to the bottom of all scandals, whether Conservative or Liberal.

Business of the House

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the House to adopt the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order, or usual practice of the House:

(a) Bill C-76, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act, be deemed read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed; and

(b) If proceedings in relation to the debate on the motion in relation to the question of privilege standing in the name of the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle regarding the alleged failure to produce documents pertaining to Sustainable Development Technology Canada are not disposed of at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment later this day, it be deemed adjourned until Wednesday, October 2, 2024.