Madam Speaker, integrity, character and trust are what I ran on in my first election in 2014 and what I have run on in every subsequent election. Nothing means more to me than protecting my integrity and character and ensuring that my constituents in Foothills have their trust in me.
I have to question how my Liberal colleagues will go home for the Thanksgiving constituency week and look their constituents in the face and say they can still trust them and they have integrity and character, when they know there is a green slush fund of more than $400 million that the Prime Minister is doing everything he possibly can to hide from Canadians. That is a big number. There is no question about that. However, in my opinion, the size of the corruption in a scandal does not matter as much as what it says about the person involved in it, who is the Prime Minister.
He campaigned in 2015 about wanting the most accountable and transparent government in Canadian history, and he has certainly fallen well short of that goal. The epitaph of the government, when it falls in a very short amount of time, will be “Promises made, promises broken”, or perhaps “Here lies a government that took care of its friends despite the needs of its constituents”. I am not exactly sure if that is a legacy I would want my constituents to see in me.
The role of Parliament and all parliamentarians is to hold the government to account and oversee government spending. By refusing to comply with the Speaker's decision to produce documents, the government is undermining the principle and integrity of this House and is setting a very dangerous precedent for what I think Canadians expect from all of us in the House of Commons. Parliament is the House of the people, the people in our constituencies across this country who trusted and elected us to represent them, be their voice and ensure that we are good stewards of every single one of their tax dollars. Canadians, perhaps more than ever, as they struggle with the cost of living crisis and try hard every day just to put food on the table and pay their mortgage, deserve to know that their tax dollars are being spent prudently and on programs that will impact their lives in a positive way.
I often give constituents or stakeholders tours of the House of Commons and Parliament. We have a running joke, as my constituents have elected me as a Conservative member, to watch their wallets and hold their purses tight, because if they pass by a Liberal, they may ask for a donation or pick into their pockets. We do that as something fun, in jest, to have a little laugh, but unfortunately, the joke has turned into reality, as the government is reaching into the pockets of every single Canadian to fill the pockets of Liberal insiders and their friends.
Honestly, the level of this scandal is, in no uncertain terms, disgusting. It is enough to make most Canadians, and certainly the Canadians in my riding, quite sick to their stomach. Canadians deserve better. They deserve an honest, accountable and hard-working government that does not abuse their hard-earned paycheques, that fights for the people, that respects voters, that follows through with the promises it has given to protect and govern this prosperous country and that leaves it in a better condition and shape than when it got there. However, what is happening here flies in the face of what I think most Canadians would expect a government to do and steward forward for them.
The RCMP commissioner said quite clearly that the directors of this green slush fund, who were hand-picked by the Prime Minister, were abusing Canadian tax dollars at an unprecedented level. I would love to say that this is unusual for the Liberal government, but unfortunately, this is just the latest on the list of scandals the Prime Minister has wreaked on Canadian taxpayers.
The level of this corruption has Canadians outraged and disgusted because the Liberals have taken advantage of their position of power to enrich their friends to the detriment of Canadians. I would like to say that this level of scandal is unprecedented, but I cannot, and that is unfortunate. Scandal and corruption have become a habit with the Prime Minister. This is not a one-off.
Two million Canadians are going to food banks every single year and food insecurity is up 111%. That means millions of Canadian families are unable to feed their children and struggle from meal to meal. A quarter of Canadians are skipping meals just to make ends meet. At a time of very extreme financial difficulty, the Liberal government seems to have no problem pilfering the pockets of Canadians and wasting tens of millions of tax dollars just to ensure that political friends and insiders are well taken care of.
Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which was supposed to be managing a green energy fund for the benefit of Canadians, has abused Canadian tax dollars. What is interesting is that this did not happen once; it did not happen twice; it did not even happen three times. This has happened 186 times in just this one program. If there are 186 conflicts of interest in one Liberal program, imagine what else is out there. I think the Liberals are scared to table these documents because the level of scandal that will be uncovered is something Canadians have never seen before.
Let us go back in time. When I talk to my constituents about this issue and in the emails and letters I am getting, they compare it to the sponsorship scandal, which brought down the Chrétien-Martin government. The one similarity is they were funnelling tax dollars to enrich their friends and political allies. The difference is that the SDTC scandal is five times bigger, given the amount of money we are talking about, than the sponsorship scandal. If that scandal brought down a government, I hope Canadians will demand the same thing with the SDTC scandal.
We need to emphasize that this is not Liberal money. This is Canadian taxpayers' money. This is money that taxpayers have worked hard to earn. When they pay their taxes to the government, they expect those taxes to go to building bridges and roads, paying for hospitals and schools, hiring doctors and teachers and building important infrastructure and social programs, not to Liberal insiders. We know it involves $400 million, but it could be even higher. How many hospitals would that build? How many roads, ports and bridges would that maintain? How many meals would that serve? How many schoolteachers would that hire? How many people would that feed?
The former chair of SDTC, Annette Verschuren, who is the face of this disaster, was hand-picked by the Prime Minister despite warnings from a previous chair of her conflict. She tried to get $6.8 million for the Verschuren Centre in Cape Breton through the slush fund. She also tried to use her influence on the green slush fund to get a further $10 million for the centre from Industry Canada and ACOA. This is just one example of the many levels of corruption the Liberals are trying to hide from Canadians.
The Prime Minister's appointees were doling out taxpayer monies to companies that the board of directors of this fund owned. They did not think twice about abusing this program 186 times. However, despite warnings that the chair was in conflict, the Prime Minister, as always happens, got his way. Ethics and conflict be damned, he put this person in that role, and he is trying to hide the level of that scandal by withholding documents from the House.
As they always like to do, the Liberals are saying that there is nothing to see here. However, there is something to see here; there is a scandal of 400 million taxpayer dollars stolen from Canadians and given to Liberal insiders.
I was thinking about this a bit, and I know that some of my colleagues have been doing that as well. I find myself, now and again as we are discussing Liberal scandals and corruption, saying a lot of “Oh my gosh, I forgot about that one” and “Oh my God, there was that one.” I kind of get the feeling that the Liberals bring up another scandal as often as possible so we have to forget about the ones that happened in the past.
I do have to give the Liberals a bit of credit; I do not know how they manage all of these different scandals, keep them in line and remember which one is which, whacking this mole and that mole. I have to give them credit because I do not know how they keep track of the bag men. They are removing tax dollars from one friend in one alley and from one company to another. That has to be a lot of logistics. If the Liberals only put that effort into actually governing the country, imagine where we would be, but that is not what they are doing.
Maybe if I have time I will list off the incredible collection of greatest hits that the Prime Minister has had of the scandals under his watch. It is a very long list. However, I thought of something else. I mentioned earlier in my speech that the Prime Minister campaigned in 2015 on having the most transparent and open government in Canadian history. I will share some of the greatest hits of his quotes. He said, “I think we're going to have to embark on a completely different style of government. A government that...accepts its responsibilities to be open and transparent”.
In 2013, our Prime Minister claimed:
We will be coming out shortly with a way to open up and be more transparent about all our expenses in a way that will restore Canadians' confidence and trust in holders of public office....
We will certainly offer a level of transparency that hasn't been seen before.
Maybe it is our fault as Canadians, but when he said that we will have a level of transparency and accountability like we have never seen before, I was thinking the other way; however, what has happened is that he has kind of gone the opposite direction, and he has slammed the door shut on accountability and transparency when it comes to accountability for Canadian tax dollars.
Let us go back a bit further in time. I find this one very ironic. When the member for Papineau was just a sitting member of the third party, his first private member's bill as an opposition MP was a transparency act. He offered bold promises to revitalize the access to information system. Where is that wide-eyed parliamentarian now? He came in with all this gusto, saying that he was going to shed sunlight on the House of Commons. I guess he was practising very early on the idea that promises are made to be broken. He started trying to fool Canadians in 2013, but Canadians are not fooled anymore.
Even in a recent podcast with his Liberal colleague, the Prime Minister admitted that he courted the fair-vote folks, who are usually NDP supporters, promising them that he would change the electoral system, have electoral reform and make sure proportional representation was part of the discussion. Then he admitted in the podcast that he had no intention of ever entertaining proportional representation. He had only said that to win over NDP voters, and then when he got elected, it was pushed to the side and long forgotten. It was a promise made and a promise broken.
In 2015, after he was elected, the Prime Minister said, “Canadians voted for change, and we are committed to delivering that change. We are committed to being an open, honest, transparent government....all ministers, including the Prime Minister, [will] be held to greater account.” He is the same Prime Minister who is doing everything he can to skirt the rules on transparency and accountability just to hide his scandalous actions.
In 2016, the Prime Minister said, “Canadians can be reassured that we have always followed all the rules, and we always will, as well as upholding the principles and values under which Canadians have confidence in their government, principles like accountability, transparency and openness.” Ya, right.
He said:
The reality is that this system requires a high degree of openness, transparency, and accountability in order to maintain Canadians' confidence in our democracy and system of government.
I can assure Canadians that our party always follows all the rules and that it also supports all the values and principles associated with those rules.
He said, “The fact is, the Liberal Party is always following all the rules and the values that Canadians expect in terms of openness, transparency, and accountability, and we will continue to uphold the trust of Canadians.” Honestly, I do not know how he keeps saying this with a straight face.
He also said, “This is important to all Canadians, and we are following the rules because we know that people need to have confidence in their government, in their ministers, and in how political parties operate. That is why we are always transparent, accountable, and open about our fundraisers.” I think my colleagues have talked about the fundraisers and how well that has gone for him. The “cash for access” with business owners and millionaires from communist China is yet another scandal that has been a part of the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister said, “We in the Liberal Party and this government, have always believed that sunshine is the best disinfectant.” That is a classic. He went on to say, “That is why we have moved forward on openness and transparency in ways that, yes, perhaps open us to a few more attacks from the members opposite, but ultimately create the confidence that Canadians must have in their...institutions”.
He does not seem to be so excited about being held accountable by the opposition today, which is a lot different from where he was in 2015.
He then went on to say, “We will continue to take very seriously the trust that Canadians placed in us by remaining open, transparent and accountable to the opposition and to Canadians.” If he were so committed to working with the opposition, to ensuring that we had access to the information that our constituents are demanding, why has he had such a quick change of heart? Why is he trying to hide the documents that Canadians deserve to see?
The Prime Minister also said:
I believe in sunny ways. I believe in staying focused on Canadians, and that is exactly what we're doing. I believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant. Openness and transparency is what Canadians expect. That is always what we will always stand for.
I respect the member opposite tremendously for his responsibility to ask difficult questions, and to press the government on it. I am going to stay focused on doing the right things the right way, and ensuring our team is doing that....
I could go on. I have a long list of comments that he has made over the years.
I cannot pass this one up: In 2019, he said, “Under my leadership, we have raised the bar on transparency.” I have no idea how low the bar was, or he thought it was, if this is as far as we have gotten and this is what he thinks. In fact it was not as hard as I thought it would be, but I had my staff look up how many times the Prime Minister has said the word “transparency” in the House. In Parliament, he has said the word “transparency”, and talked about how important it is, more than 400 times.
However, now secrecy and obfuscation are the hallmarks of the Liberal government. Like I said, the Prime Minister's statement should be “A promise made is a promise about to be broken.” All of this begs the question, “What are the Liberals hiding?” How bad is this?
I know that the questions from my colleagues say that we are infringing on the Charter of Rights if we try to ask for the information. I would love for the Liberal members to go back to their ridings this week and say to their constituents, to their face, “Hey, you don't deserve to know how bad this scandal is because we're just here protecting your charter rights.” Give me a break.
I will leave members with this, a great thought from the member for Carleton: When I get robbed, I don't form a committee to discuss it. When I get robbed, I call the police.
The police deserve to see the information. Canadians deserve to see the information, because the level of the scandal and the robbery of Canadian taxpayer dollars needs to be brought to light. The Conservatives will continue to fight until it is found out.
