Blaine Calkins

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, my simple answer for my colleague is that when one is mired in scandal and paranoia sets in, one is unable, through paralysis, to get anything achievable done. This is where the current government is and that is why it is unable, in my opinion, to even deliver something as a simple as a budget two years after the last one.

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, again, as I outlined in my speech, the Liberals obfuscate and ask questions not relevant or even germane to the topic at hand. Asking me about climate change during a motion about accountability at a committee shows just how out of touch the member and his government are.

If he does not believe me, we can just check with the reputation of the Aga Khan, or the reputation of the office of the Governor General or the reputation of the past Liberal ministers who have been cast aside. We can check with the reputation of those who organized the WE Charity. We can check with the reputations of those at SNC-Lavalin. We can check with the reputations of everybody the Liberals have thrown under the bus who have gotten in their way or they have cast aside through their mismanagement and the fact that they have been exposed for their dealings with well-connected insiders.

That is what this debate is all about today, and I am sorry the hon. parliamentary secretary has not figured that out.

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, first, today is my youngest son's birthday; he turns 19 today. As a result of the pandemic, he missed his graduation last spring from high school and spent his first year of college basically at a computer in one of the rooms of our house. He is a student who is trying to work his way through the pandemic.

In answer to my colleague's question, integrity matters in all aspects of what we do in government and what we do in business. If we do not conduct ourselves with integrity, then there is no ability to move forward, whether it is donating to the charitable sector or getting it to do work. Whether it is in business or in government, integrity is what matters, and the current government is sorely lacking it.

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House and represent the people of Red Deer—Lacombe. I am proud to stand in my place, holding a Liberal government to account, using one of the precious few opposition day motions we have to try to force the Liberals to live up to even the minimal ethical standards Canadians expect from their government.

Today's motion is seeking answers. It is seeking to support and empower members of Parliament in their important work and to end the Liberals' coordinated cover-ups at the defence and ethics committees.

It is deeply disturbing that the Liberal MPs on the committees are continuing to block key witnesses from testifying on both the government's WE scandal and the Liberal cover-up of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. How did we get here? In both cases, the short answer is that we got here because of Liberal cover-ups.

As members and most Canadians will remember, the WE Charity scandal came about when the Prime Minister and the then finance minister Bill Morneau gave a sole-sourced contract to run the Canada student service grant. The program announced was worth upward of $1 billion, including over $45 million in fees to WE Charity, an organization with close ties to both the Prime Minister and the Morneau family.

These ties were so close, in fact, that WE received at least $100,000 in recent donations from Mr. Morneau and his wife. The charity also employed Mr. Morneau's daughter. As for the Prime Minister, WE Charity had paid his family members hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees. Since the Kielburgers' recent testimony at the ethics committee, it is not clear what that exact figure is, but it could be as high as $566,000.

Recent evidence from the ethics committee has raised additional contradictions to the Liberal government's claims that the public service recommended WE Charity to run the program. Craig Kielburger wrote to Ben Chin, a senior adviser in the Prime Minister's Office, saying, “Hello Ben, Thank you for your kindness in helping shape our latest program with the gov't. Warmly, Craig”.

This interaction appears to be in complete contradiction to the Liberal government's talking points, reigniting the concerns of corruption this Prime Minister previously attempted to quash when he prorogued Parliament. Kielburger's explanation that Mr. Chin had no role and that this was a personalized message sent from a staff member is simply bizarre. It simply does not make sense, and it deserves further scrutiny.

On a matter as important as this, we need the truth. That is why we are asking two senior staffers from the Prime Minister's Office and one from the finance minister's office to appear at the ethics committee, so they can explain their interactions with the Kielburgers in respect to the selection of WE Charity to run the Canada student service grant program.

The second cover-up is equally as disturbing and involves the Minister of National Defence's failure to address allegations of sexual misconduct at the highest levels in the Canadian Armed Forces. When the former military ombudsman brought an allegation forward to the minister regarding then chief of the defence staff General Vance, the minister refused to even look at it. Instead, he attempted to pass the buck on to the civil servants in the Privy Council Office. He did not follow up. He did not ensure that the complaint was handled appropriately, and he certainly did not ensure that this matter was treated with the seriousness that it ought to have been.

The minister abdicated his responsibility, and in doing so, he failed the people, particularly the women, serving in the Canadian Armed Forces who came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct. He has tried to claim he was avoiding political interference. The reality is that it appears he was trying to avoid doing his job because it was going to be difficult, uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing to the government.

While the minister was not willing to investigate or ensure an investigation took place, or to even make sure that the right mechanisms existed for investigating the man at the very top of the Canadian Armed Forces command structure, he was still able to give him a pay raise.

Throughout this whole ordeal, we have seen shifting narratives of who knew what and when, and of what the Prime Minister knew and when he knew it. Canadians deserve the truth. Serving members of the Armed Forces deserve the truth. Women serving in the Armed Forces need the truth. Since the Liberals seem all too happy to coordinate a shameful cover-up, we are left with few options.

In some ways, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have slowed time down to a crawl. While November 2015 may seem like ages ago at this point, Canadians have not forgotten the commitments made to them back then by the government. This Prime Minister was the one who promised sunny ways and transparency. He promised to be open by default.

Back in November 2015, the Prime Minister wrote a message to his ministers as part of his document “Open and Accountable Government”. Do members remember this document? It was made up of lovely words, but they were extraordinarily short-lived in the current Liberal government. Today's motion is essential because of the government's complete abdication of its responsibility to the principles outlined in that very document.

I could easily go back and talk about cash for access, billionaire island or SNC-Lavalin to make my point, but the current Liberal government has such a poor track record when it comes to ethical behaviour, I do not really have to go back that far at all. Just in considering the WE scandal and the Liberals' cover-up of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, which are the two topics that this motion is dealing with, we can demonstrate that the Liberals have gone back on virtually every notion contained in the Prime Minister's flagship message in “Open and Accountable Government”.

This is not an exaggeration. If the House will indulge me, I would like to refresh for Canadians the Prime Minister's words in that document, “To be worthy of Canadians’ trust, we must always act with integrity. This is not merely a matter of adopting the right rules, or of ensuring technical compliance with those rules.” By refusing to look at evidence of sexual misconduct against the then chief of the defence staff presented by the then military ombudsman, the Minister of National Defence did not act with integrity. Refusing to speak with the ombudsman again afterward is not acting with integrity. Turning his back on members of the Canadian Armed Forces who want accountability for sexual misconduct is not acting with integrity.

The next part reads, “As Ministers, you and your staff must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny.” When it comes to the WE Charity scandal, honesty and impartiality are less achievable than a balanced budget for the government, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister's and former finance minister Bill Morneau's ability to arrange their private affairs, which they have both admitted when they acknowledged they should have recused themselves from the selection process for the Canada student service grant.

The document continues, “This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.” Even if acting within the law was the high bar, the government would have tripped over its own shoelaces two steps in. For those who do not believe me, let us count the number of ethics laws the Prime Minister has already broken.

The document goes on, “The trust of Canadians will also rest on the accountability of our government. In our system, the highest manifestation of democratic accountability is the forum of Parliament. You are accountable to Parliament for the exercise of the powers, duties and functions with which you have been entrusted.” In response to the WE Charity scandal, the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament in the middle of a pandemic to ensure that the full extent of his misdeeds did not come to light. When Parliament resumed, we saw countless hours of filibustering to avoid the truth and the Prime Minister even threatened an election during the pandemic just because members of Parliament wanted to create a committee to investigate the WE scandal, all to avoid accountability.

The document goes on to state, “This requires you to be present in Parliament to answer honestly and accurately about your areas of responsibility...” When it comes to both the WE scandal and the defence minister's failures to address sexual misconduct, we have seen countless revisions to the stories about who knew what and when. Honesty and accuracy have been replaced by deception, deceit, duplicity and the distortion of so-called facts, so much so that they bear little to no resemblance to the truth at all.

It continues, “to take corrective action as appropriate to address problems that may arise in your portfolios, to correct any inadvertent errors in answering to Parliament at the earliest opportunity...” Corrective action has been in short supply. Instead, the government has continued to double down on mistakes by trying to cast the blame on others, like the former military ombudsman, or civil servants at ESDC or the Privy Council Office. The only problem that the Liberals seem to try to actually address is their problem of parliamentary accountability and the pesky opposition members who continually demand the truth from them.

Instead of working to live up to the high standards they claim to have for themselves, they coordinate filibusters across numerous committees, while repeating clunky talking points in the House of Commons that, at best, dance around the question or do not even relate to the topic at all.

The excerpt ends with the following, “and to work with parliamentary colleagues of all political persuasions in a respectful and constructive manner.” This is where we can hold out a little hope. So far, we have seen very little constructive and respectful engagement from the Liberal government. The Liberals prefer to use procedural manoeuvres to keep Canadians in the dark, refusing to allow the sunshine that they once touted as the best disinfectant to shine in.

However, this is the Liberals' opportunity to change. This is the opportunity to demonstrate that they believe what they said five years ago, that it was not just virtue signalling put forward at the beginning of their mandate, that it was actually something that they continue to aspire to even when it is inconvenient. I guess we will see how the vote goes.

I would like to move the following amendment. I move:

That the motion be amended in paragraph (b) by replacing the word “10:00 a.m.” with the following: “11:00 a.m.”

[Enhance Energy, March 10th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, last week, my colleagues for Red Deer—Mountain View and Battle River—Crowfoot joined me for a visit to Enhance Energy's carbon capture project in my riding of Red Deer—Lacombe. I am very proud to report that, just yesterday, this company celebrated one million tonnes of carbon captured and sequestered near Clive, Alberta.

Enhance Energy is sequestering CO2 at a rate that is the equivalent to taking over 350,000 cars off the road. It captures the carbon in the industrial heartland of Alberta from a refinery and fertilizer plant. Enhance then compresses and ships it down the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line to Clive, where it is pumped back into the ground. This CO2 then helps produce some of the lowest carbon oil on our planet, and Enhance Energy has only scratched the surface of what is possible. We have the capacity to do much more with carbon capture and sequestration.

I send my congratulations to Enhance Energy, an Alberta company leading the way.

[Canada Revenue Agency, February 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, tax time can be stressful, especially after a year like 2020. Residents in my riding have been calling my office because of a dramatic decline in service by the CRA. Getting to speak to an agent about their locked-out CRA account is taking at least a three-hour time period. It takes hours on the phone simply to change their address, and that is if they are lucky enough not to get disconnected while they wait. Simple reassessments are dragging on for months, putting people's homes, savings and benefits at risk.

Why are Canadians not able to speak with the CRA? Why will the minister not address this staggering failure?

[Petitions, February 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to table a petition today.

Albertans have contributed a net $600 billion to federal coffers in the last 40 years, and much of that largely funded equalization. The generosity of these Albertans is due to the resource revenues and their hard work and sweat. Due to the massive shift in policy from the current Liberal government against this resource sector, this necessitates a shift in equalization formulas to reflect that change.

Therefore, the petitioners are calling on the government to renegotiate the formula for equalization immediately.

[Points of Order, February 24th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, not to belabour the issue, but my understanding is that the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country did not withdraw his comments from the record and his apology was not unconditional. I would ask for clarification on that.

For some clarification for my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway that might help in the future is that I think the rule and the principle is that the camera must be on to determine authenticity and ensure that it is the actual MP who is actually voting, speaking or, in this particular case, asking a question. Without the presence of the camera, the authenticity cannot be determined. We need to ensure that, and I think it will be a helpful guiding rule in the future to make sure that we can ensure that authenticity.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, February 22nd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I think it would be largely irresponsible for the government to use the budgetary process or the fiscal snapshot process to enable the Liberal Party to position itself favourably for an election. There has been a lot of commentary in the media and even some hints from the Prime Minister and senior Liberals about that possibility.

We should be focused on actually helping Canadians. We should be focused on getting through this pandemic as quickly as possible. We should be focused on giving people back their liberties and freedoms as quickly as possible by procuring vaccines, implementing the use of rapid tests and other therapeutics that will help us get back to life as normal, as soon as possible. That should be job number one for every member of Parliament in the House of Commons: getting us through this situation as quickly and painlessly as possible both financially and when it comes to our mental health and our businesses. That is job one. It should be the focus of everyone.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, February 22nd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, Conservatives have supported some of the programs put forward by the government that directly assist people. Seniors are very vulnerable and have had to bear some of the costs of this as well, such as drug dispensing fees due to shortages of medication, along with a number of other costs that were pandemic-related. If there is a need for this, I think that all members of Parliament would look to the government to do what is right on behalf of Canadian citizens.

The real frustration that I have is the expenditures just racking up the debt on the credit card. We seem to have no positive outcomes for it. We are fiscally adrift right now globally. We have no anchor to attach our fiscal ship to. Things are going to get a lot worse for us in the future if we do not make smarter decisions on where that money is going. That should not be politically motivated; it should be in the best interest of Canadians.