Kevin Waugh

[Committees of the House, October 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, presented on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, be concurred in.

It will be interesting to talk today about the concurrence motion coming out of the heritage committee. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

I have been on the heritage committee for years now, but last month I asked my constituents of Saskatoon—Grasswood for their views on the public broadcaster, the CBC. It was in response to the CBC paying out bonuses that added up to over $18 million, which were approved by the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Privy Council. Of that sum, $3.3 million went directly to CBC executives. Forty-five executives had their hands in the pocket of that $3.3 million, and it averaged out to $73,000 each for one year in bonuses. I could not believe the number. I see that even some Liberals are shaking their heads. They cannot believe that number either just for the executives.

I asked in a mail-out what we should do going forward with the CBC. Should we do nothing or keep it as is? Should we keep the CBC but make some changes, or simply defund it? Defunding the CBC has been the narrative of this party for months, if not a year and a half now, and for very good reason. I had literally hundreds of responses. It was probably the best response I have had in the nine years I have been a member of Parliament. Some 86.5% were in support of overhauling or even defunding the entire operation of the CBC.

CBC CEO Catherine Tait admitted recently, about two weeks ago, that Canadians want to defund the CBC entirely. She was caught off guard that Canadians were talking about defunding her operation. She said that maybe she should have responded sooner to the public's outcry on how the corporation is compensated by the federal government.

In its corporate plan summary, tabled in the House of Commons, the CBC said viewers are leaving television, especially young people. They are going to streaming devices and have been doing so for many years. That is certainly not a surprise. However, a big surprise to me was the ad revenue. It has dropped another 9.6% in the last 12 months, which is a concern. I think trust in the CBC News organization, as we have seen across this country, has also dropped.

Here we have trust, viewership and revenue dropping, but what did not drop? The bonuses did not drop, surprise, surprise. In the last year, $18 million was handed out, and when Ms. Tait came before the heritage committee for the third time, she talked about the key performance indicators, better known as KPIs. She said that those determine the bonus structure. Amazingly, despite viewership, revenue and trust dropping, the bonuses remained. Why? Well, the CBC honchos, in their wisdom, decided to lower the key standards from a year ago so they could justify the rich bonuses. Only CBC executives would huddle up and determine that despite everything going down, they needed to protect their bonuses. They agreed to this and the Liberals bought in, agreeing to $18 million for the top-up.

Since 2018, CBC viewership has collapsed nearly 50% and the CBC has failed to meet 79% of its key performance targets. Did I mention that the executives who got these bonuses were the same ones responsible a little over a year ago for cutting 800 jobs? These cuts amounted to about 10% of the entire workforce of CBC/Radio-Canada. The federal government, as we know, compensates the CBC. It gives the CBC about $1.3 billion a year, so the public broadcaster, to me, already has a head start over the private broadcasters in this country.

It does not stop there. It is even worse, believe it or not. The CBC was given millions in last year's fall economic statement. It was 21 million gift dollars last year, and another $21 million this year. On top of that, it generates about $400 million in ads, even though, as I just talked about, ad revenue is going down. Canadians need to understand that their government is choosing to give more than $1.3 billion to a company that already makes $400 million in advertising. Canadians are tired of their money being spent on bonuses for absolutely dismal performance.

I questioned CBC/Radio-Canada's CEO at the Canadian heritage committee. Hundreds wrote in to us and others and took to social media to express their dismay about the arrogance and entitlement at a time when so many are hurting in this country. It is astonishing. One person said, “These elites live in their own bubble, protected from us by their entitlements and their social status. They simply do not care what we think, and are shocked that we would speak up against them. It is time to clean out the corrupt federal bureaucracy the Liberals have built.”

Broadcasters need to have accountability and fairness for people to have trust in them. How can Canadians possibly have any faith in an institution that rewards its executives after cutting hundreds of jobs in the last year? Canadians are tired of seeing their taxpayer funds mismanaged by the Prime Minister and his cabinet. It is no wonder nobody trusts the government anymore with their money.

The Liberals fail to see that Canadians are struggling in every aspect of their lives. Their response is that they will give $18 million to the CBC, to their corporate buddies, at a time when a record number of Canadians are heading to food banks. In my city of Saskatoon, there was an outcry yesterday by the Saskatoon Food Bank, which is asking the public for help, as it is running out of the most essential items it gives out.

The Saskatoon Food Bank has seen a 40% increase since 2019, in five short years, yet the CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada believes it is appropriate to ask for millions of dollars in bonuses for executives after letting hundreds go. It is arrogance and is absolute tone-deafness. The CBC was failing to deliver all along on its key performance indicators, so it just changed the indicators. It lowered them from the year before and thought nobody would notice. Well, we noticed, and obviously Canadians have noticed.

The government has no remorse about giving out massive amounts of money, simply handing it out no questions asked. It is handing money over to the public broadcaster rather than supporting small and medium-sized newspapers. That was the issue with Bill C-18, some may recall. It was a bill designed to help the newspaper industry, but telcos and the CBC, the public broadcaster, took it over. They thought they were going to get millions of dollars. It ended up that Google said it would give them under $100 million and they could disburse it, but there we go again. It was the CBC with its hands out; it was right there. The Liberal government is absolutely out of touch and the CBC is out of touch

That leads me to its CEO, Catherine Tait, who was appointed by the government in 2018. Since taking over, viewership, as I mentioned, has been cut in half. What worries me now is that Catherine Tait has not had a bonus in 2022-23—

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I have been involved in sports for some 45 years. I have enjoyed it and seen a lot, but how dare the Liberals suggest that we should keep funding an organization that contributes to a culture of abuse in sports?

Here is part of the issue I have. In the spring of 2018, the then sports minister proposed, and in fact held a news conference, that the government was going to roll out a new safe sport agenda for Canada. Good for the minister. However, within probably two weeks, one of the biggest sex assault scandals in sport in this country took place in hockey. Sport Canada, which was in charge, failed to even follow up with Hockey Canada.

We heard nothing from Sport Canada, which should have suspended funding immediately. That is its mandate, and it was not following through on its mandate. It stayed silent and did nothing until May 2022. Why? It is because a prominent sports reporter broke the story about the sexual assault allegations from the Hockey Canada gala in London, Ontario, which had actually taken place four years earlier.

Only when Sport Canada was embarrassed by its lack of due diligence, I believe, did it even begin to take half-hearted measures to manage the crisis. At the time, Sport Canada funded hockey. Canada did absolutely nothing. The government proved its incompetence and its unwillingness, I believe, to support safe sport in this country.

Then we found out that Hockey Canada paid out, from a slush fund, $3.5 million as a settlement to a woman known as E.M. We found out in testimony from Hockey Canada that it had an equity fund. It was actually set up long before, to take money from hockey membership registrations paid by parents, just to cover uninsured liabilities that included sexual abuse claims. Again, where was Sport Canada?

This is the issue I have. Understandably, minor hockey parents in this country were livid about the allegations of Hockey Canada's taking registration money and putting it into the fund. It paid out $7.9 million for nine claims out of the national equity fund. Of that, $6.8 million was for the settlement related to Graham James in my home province of Saskatchewan when he was head coach of the Swift Current Broncos.

The government set up the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner to investigate complaints in a timely and impartial fashion. However, we have received numerous anonymous calls to my office here in Ottawa from individuals, parents and athletes who are concerned that the rules are not being complied with in a timely manner by OSIC. That is right; my office is receiving anonymous calls because people are very concerned about the repercussions of even speaking out about abuse.

Sport Canada was told it must hold national sports organizations, all 62 of them, accountable. However, it is silent. We know from the Hockey Canada debacle in 2018 that it failed to do this. Sport Canada is not fulfilling its mandate.

We also heard from a number of members of the Canadian women's soccer team on their concerns about pay equity. It has affected their training and preparation for World Cup matches. Again there has been nothing from Sport Canada.

The funds must be fully accounted for and transparency must be disclosed, which it has not been. Since only national sports organizations are captured by the Office of the Sport Integrity Commission, OSIC, it is now essentially doing the job that Sport Canada was asked to do for many decades. That is the issue I brought up earlier: Sport Canada is not fulfilling its mandate. OSIC is another level of bureaucracy by the Liberal federal government, which has spent millions of dollars to set up safe sport in Canada, to the embarrassment of Sport Canada.

We would think in this country that is where we should start the conversation about safe sport. How does anyone know, when they drop off their children at soccer, ringette or hockey, that they are safe? It is provincial jurisdiction, and all the sport organizations do is ask for a police check of the coaches and volunteers. We know that every organization in this country is grappling with the lack of volunteers. Many organizations will take anybody from the sidelines; they simply invite them onto the field or the ice.

The disappointment is that the heritage minister knew of the 39 recommendations, still funded Hockey Canada and funded only six recommendations.

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for the Bloc, who spent hours, along with other Conservatives and me, on the safe sport committee. It has been a failure since day one. The government is clearly trying to support Sport Canada, which has never done its job; it never checks in with the 62 national sport organizations. That was evident with the sexual assault charge against Hockey Canada in London, Ontario in 2018. Then the government added the OSIC. That is another layer of bureaucracy that is now doing the work that Sport Canada should have been doing all along.

To the member from the Bloc who put this concurrence motion forward today, what are his thoughts on what the government should do with Sport Canada? My own thoughts are to disband it altogether.

[Privilege, October 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, all I have to say is that Canadians are hurting. I go everywhere in my riding. I go to rinks and the legion and I door knock. In fact, we are having a provincial election right now. It is funny, because Scott Moe, who is the premier, is not running against the provincial NDP. He is running against the national NDP and the Liberals, and he is going to win next Monday on that. People in my province are fed up with the federal Liberals and the NDP, and on Monday, we will see what happens in my province. They will be returned again. Mr. Bill Waiser wrote a wonderful editorial today in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. This will be a historic election win for the Saskatchewan Party on Monday night.

[Privilege, October 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, what is at stake is the 186 ethical violations of this organization, which started out very well in 2001. I talked about a lot of good things that Sustainable Development Technology Canada did. However, since the Liberals took over and filled the board with their Liberal cronies, we are seeing some issues. There are 186 ethical violations, totalling $390 million. Canadians deserve an answer.

[Privilege, October 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I would say one thing for the hon. member for Winnipeg North, and that is to call a carbon tax election.

The government does not want to hand over any of the documents or tell Canadians where the $390 million went. The Conservatives and the RCMP have an idea where it went. The Auditor General has an idea where it went. It went to the Liberals' friends, and they are embarrassed about it. Obviously, they do not want to provide the documents because it would be troubling not only for those involved in their companies but for the Liberal Party of Canada and the government.

[Privilege, October 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo has done a great job on this.

As I said, the sponsorship scandal back in the day was $42 million and all Canadians gasped. What are they saying about this? It is 10 times the amount, $400 million. We do not know all the specifics because the Liberals will not hand over the documents to the RCMP. All we are asking is they hand over the unredacted documents to the RCMP, and then we can move on. Canadians deserve to know where $390,072,774 went.

[Privilege, October 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, if I could be a fly on the wall in the Liberal caucus meeting tomorrow we might know. The Prime Minister has not been here for weeks. He is facing a revolt within his own caucus. The Liberals are 20 points down in the polls. Do they want to be here? Probably not, but two or three of them are here talking about this. They should hand over the documents so we can move on. A government bill has not been debated in the House for over two weeks, and it appears Liberals are in no hurry to do that, which is a crime for all Canadians.

It is not the fault of opposition members. It is the government's fault that it has not sent the unredacted documents to the RCMP so we can move on.

[Privilege, October 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, there is no confidence anymore in the country. The member is from Nepean. I look at the Toronto condo industry right now, which has collapsed. Why? It has absolutely no faith in the government. It has destroyed the housing industry in nine short years. We have tents cities in every city. It is deplorable. When I walk down Bank Street in Ottawa, I see our big friend Mike outside in his tent. We all talk to him. He used to be from Saskatchewan. Has the member ever stopped and asked him why he has been in that tent for the last three years? I have. He has a tent and his dog. He cannot afford anything. Canadians cannot afford anything. Two million-plus Canadians are lining up at a food bank, and that member thinks we are okay right now. I really cannot see it. Canadians are hurting more than they have ever hurt under the Liberal government.

[Privilege, October 22nd, 2024]

As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, Saturday marked my ninth year as a member of Parliament, which is bittersweet because the Conservatives lost the government that year. What is interesting is that Sustainable Development Technology Canada was a pretty good organization. It was started in 2001. It did a lot of good work in energy, agriculture, transportation and cutting greenhouse emissions. Jim Balsillie was once the chair of SDTC. It was run pretty well until the Liberals took over and filled the board with their cronies. In 2017, all of a sudden, Sustainable Development Technology Canada changed.

As I mark my ninth anniversary, I look at the scandals of the government. Almost immediately, that Christmas, we had the Aga Khan, with the Prime Minister taking that paid vacation. Later, there was SNC-Lavalin, one of the biggest controversies we have had in the last nine years in the House. There was the Winnipeg lab; the WE Charity, which cost the former finance minister his job; and the arrive scam, when $60 million was paid for an app that should have cost maybe $80,000 to produce.

Now we have another one, the green slush fund. In nine years, we cannot count how many scandals the Liberal government has been involved in. We are on day 12 of this debate. The Liberals, of course, are refusing to obey an order of the House, which would permit the distribution of the documents regarding a $400-million scandal. Canadians have seen countless scandals in the last nine years, and I have mentioned a number of them already. However, this one reaches new heights that we have never seen in the House of Commons. The Liberals have gone to tremendous lengths to make sure the public, the RCMP and even the House do not obtain access to these documents that would expose the injustice done at SDTC.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada turned into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. The program was made to give away taxpayer dollars to green technology initiatives, some even in my province of Saskatchewan. It is important to note that the government was directly in charge of appointing the board members of this fund. This means the Prime Minister would have personally appointed some of those board members.

What happened to those Liberal insiders who directed funds meant for green technology toward, unfortunately, their own companies, totalling $400 million and 186 conflicts of interest? Those were 186 incidents where money from taxpayers, like us, could have gone to help many families in this country, a good portion of whom, in fact, are dealing with the cost of living. We could have helped small businesses in this country stay afloat. Instead, the money was funnelled to companies with ties to senior Liberal officials.

Furthermore, the Auditor General found that, on top of those staggering numbers, $58 million was given to companies that were not eligible for the fund. There were 10 ineligible projects, and I have them right here, totalling $58,784,613. That means not only that taxpayer money was given to people who should not have received a single nickel, but that $58 million plus was given to those who should never have been considered for the fund. It is ridiculous.

The current Prime Minister's Canada is where so many are now forced to line up at food banks, including in my city, with over 20,000 a month in a city and a province that feeds the world. What has happened in this country in the last nine years is disgusting. Let us think about that. I met with SARM, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, this morning. My province feeds the world, yet when we look at Saskatchewan these nine years out, from 2015 to 2024, there are lineups in every community for food because of the cost of living.

We wonder about the contracts that were given out to Liberal insiders. It is important to note some of those 186 conflicts of interest just to give Canadians an idea of the Liberal corruption we are seeing today.

There was a board member appointed to the green slush fund way back in 2016. Interestingly, that was a year after the election. The board member runs a venture capital firm called Cycle Capital. Her company received a total of $250 million from the green slush fund. Some of that came before she was even a member, but $118 million came to companies that she had invested in while she was on the board. The value of her company, amazingly, tripled when she was there. The Minister of Environment was a strategic adviser for Cycle Capital from 2009 right up to 2018 before joining the cabinet. In fact, he also owned shares in that company, which is interesting since the company got so much money from the green slush fund.

The green slush fund director Stephen Kukucha previously worked for a Liberal environment minister and as an organizer for the Liberal Party on behalf of the Prime Minister in B.C. That is how someone gets a job on the board of the green slush fund. Unsurprisingly, companies in which he had financial interests received $5 million from the fund. Even worse, when questioned in a committee hearing, he downplayed the issue by stating that it was just a small amount of money, no big deal at all. It was $5 million, but it was no big deal to the Liberal insiders. That is the attitude of the government and of the board of SDTC.

A lot of us have been on boards. We have taken governance training. I was part of Johnson Shoyama, a group out of Regina. I cannot believe they were not scolded long before this. These are board members who, when they were put onto a board, went through governance training. They should not be in the room at all when there are votes on certain issues dealing with companies they are associated with.

Why are we surprised? The finance minister stood in the House and said the budget would not exceed $40 billion this year. We are into mid-October and we are at $47 billion. Nothing surprises us. We are already 17% over budget in the middle of October. Liberals know how to spend. They know how to spend to keep their friends happy. This is ridiculous.

I think Sustainable Development Technology Canada, 20 years ago, was put in place when we needed it. It was for innovation. I look at my province of Saskatchewan with regard to agriculture. Saskatchewan companies are the most innovative in the world when it comes to agriculture, and the SDTC fund certainly helped them. They continue to be among the best in the world. They do not need government money to be innovative. Our companies are doing it on their own.

Insider favouritism, at the expense of taxpayers, has become all too common with the Liberal government. One thing is for sure: It really pays to be a Liberal insider. We have seen it with all the violations: the WE Charity, the arrive scam and SNC-Lavalin, along with SDTC. However, this is $400 million. This is not a chunk of change. This is $400 million of taxpayers' money. What could we do with that? We could do a lot in this country.

It is only fair to assume the Liberals do not want to comply with the will of the House in order to cover up this scandal. The Speaker has ruled that this failure to adhere to the will of Parliament constitutes a breach of privilege, which is why all business in the House has been stalled now for 12 days. Canadians from coast to coast to coast have a right to know what is inside the documents and what the Liberals are trying to hide.

Conservatives want to see the documents released not only to give Canadians answers, but also because the RCMP has concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe an offence under the Criminal Code may have been committed. The people of Saskatoon—Grasswood who send their hard-earned tax dollars here want to know where that money went. They want to know where the $400 million is. We have 10 ineligible projects, totalling $58 million. There were 90 cases where conflict of interest policies were not followed; that was $75 million. All totalled here, it is $390 million.

I was looking over the testimony by one of the whistle-blowers, who said:

I know that the federal government, like the minister, has continued saying that there was no criminal intent and nothing was found, but I think the committee would agree that they're not to be trusted on this situation. I would happily agree to whatever the findings are by the RCMP, but I would say that I wouldn't trust that there isn't any criminality unless the RCMP is given full authority to investigate.

To give “full authority” would be to give the papers over. That was part of the whistle-blower's comments, whom we commend for stepping up and helping this country defend $400 million of taxpayers' money given to Liberal insiders. It is unreal that this has taken place in Canada.

I read an interesting article. I know a lot of my friends on the other side probably will not agree with this, but I am going to quote it. Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, stated:

The most outrageous show of contempt has been the government’s months-long refusal to hand Parliament a complete set of documents that they were ordered to produce in a motion passed by the House last June.

The Liberals argue that the production order goes too far....

More importantly,...were the reference to the RCMP not in the order, the Liberals would find other excuses—

They have, Mr. Speaker.

—not to hand over documents about Sustainable Development Technology Canada — or to release only some of them, with heavy redactions, as it has done so far.

That’s because the federal Ethics Commissioner and the Auditor-General both found dozens of cases where SDTC handed out grants totalling tens of millions of dollars without following conflict-of-interest guidelines.

This is an editorial in The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, not the Conservative Party of Canada. This is a well-respected media outlet in this country. According to The Globe and Mail:

...the government has no choice but to turn them over. The House has the absolute power to order the production of government documents, and only it can decide if the order has been respected – as the Speaker ruled on Sept. 26.

The Globe and Mail editorial states:

The power to order the production of documents is essential to Parliament’s role as a check on the government. Without it, it cannot do the work it was created to do. The Liberal government’s efforts to subvert that power is a direct attack on Parliament and a show of contempt for the institution.

That was from the editorial board for The Globe and Mail, last Thursday.

Canadians know this is far from the first scandal of the current government. I named nine or 10 already that were in the nine years that I have been here. They include SNC-Lavalin, Winnipeg labs and WE Charity. We had a number of ventilators by a former Liberal MP, Frank Baylis, that came through here.

I know my colleagues on the other side of the House like to think this is just incompetence on the government's part and has nothing to do with them. Let me remind them that the government is supposed to be accountable, and every one of the ministers is supposed to be accountable for their departments. Let me make them aware that taxpayers in this country are watching the people involved and making sure taxpayer money is spent correctly without corruption.

The Minister of Innovation, who the Auditor General said was at fault, is clearly not being accountable for his actions in this case. If these actions are criminal, like the RCMP has indicated they could be, would this not be a cover-up of criminality? The whole scandal could end if the Liberals simply hand over the unredacted documents today. If the RCMP finds nothing of value in the documents, then so be it. Then we move on to Randy versus Randy. That is another one that we are going to be talking about in the House very shortly.

Over a span of five years, the board approved 405 transactions. Out of those, the auditor found 186 conflicts of interest, which equals about 82%. That means that in 82% of the examined transactions, individuals gained from their own decisions to sign over the money. This lack of oversight, as highlighted by the Auditor General, has allowed for more conflicts of interest to persist without even being addressed, ultimately contributing to a very serious ethical lapse within the government's handling of these transactions.

Canadians have a right to know where $390 million has gone. They pay their hard-earned taxes, each and every one of them, and it is deplorable how the government has wasted that $390 million. Not one of the Liberals has stood up in the House in the last 12 days to talk about government waste, and this is a form of a violation. We need to have those documents sent to the RCMP, unredacted. It needs to see them, and we can move on to another corruption that I think the House will deal with, and that is Randy versus Randy.