Madam Speaker, that is one of the first comments I think I have ever heard the hon. member make that I might agree with. We agree that it seems as though the minister in question sees every government program as a personal opportunity. That is what we are talking about today. It sounds like the hon. member was making the same point I am.
I was going back to the conversations I have had in year-end panels with the minister, where just the two of us, sometimes three when an NDP member from Edmonton was there, talked about situations with the federal government and the impact on Edmontonians or Albertans. The minister constantly repeated government talking points as they relate to, for example, the energy sector in Alberta. As mentioned earlier today, there are few industries more committed to indigenous involvement and meaningful indigenous contribution and benefit than the energy sector in Canada, yet the minister constantly stands in opposition in the House to the energy sector in Alberta.
I had the opportunity to do four constituent round tables last week, and it is unfortunate that with the scandals facing the minister today, he is not able to take part in meaningful conversations at cabinet. I believe there is a cabinet meeting tomorrow. I suspect this cabinet meeting will be more consumed with the side hustles of the minister than talking about employment, the workforce or official languages.
What my constituents are concerned about is our broken systems across the board. The government seems consumed with experimental policy on housing, immigration, public safety, energy and the environment. All of these issues were things that constituents were consumed with at the four constituent round table meetings I had over the past week. They are very concerned that their Liberal government, propped up by the NDP, is not just lost in the conversations but completely incompetent when it comes to dealing with the very real issues that Canadians are facing today.
With the indigenous procurement strategy, the outcome was supposed to be a stimulating of economic activity that benefits indigenous people, with a 5% set-aside for indigenous businesses. Of federal contracts, 5% were supposed to go to indigenous businesses, but before this even came up, a concern was raised, which has been raised over the last little while. There are three different areas of abuse that we can point to: instances where non-indigenous companies claimed to be indigenous and came to be regarded as indigenous by the federal government; instances where the joint ventures between indigenous and non-indigenous companies, which meant the joint ventures could access set-asides, led to the work and benefits bring monopolized by non-indigenous partners; and instances where small, nominally indigenous companies received contracts and then subcontracted them to non-indigenous companies. The first of these instances is what we are dealing with right now.
Even before this conflict, many of us, many of my constituents and, I would say, most people in Alberta believed that it was time for the minister to resign. The context to the conversation we are having today is that there was an underlying conversation about indigenous procurement and, as we have talked about, this concept of pretendians, as they have come to be known.
We were already having this conversation, and then it came to light over the last week that the minister himself and the organization, the company that he is a part of and has been a part of, is engaged in this same activity. I believe the lobbyist that he is tied to has received $110 million in government funds, which are taxpayer funds. Let us be clear on this. We are not talking about government money. The government has no money. Individual Canadians have money taken from their paycheques, money that would otherwise be used for things such as food, housing and maybe the odd vacation, if they can afford it. Instead, this lobbyist received $110 million. Then, while the minister was a partner in the company, it received a further $8 million in government contracts. In fact, he was a director in the company. There was already a conversation happening about that, and then this new situation came to light.
I will point out a couple of things that are really important in terms of the conversation. In question period today, we will notice something about the responses from the government on this particular question. No one denied that, before he was a minister or a member of Parliament, the minister pretended to be indigenous and that his company applied for federal funding. Even in the answers in question period today, nobody denied that this is the case. The government House leader, I believe, did an interview after question period today, and this is what she said. We should listen carefully to the wording. She said, “We addressed the fact that that business was never listed as an Indigenous business on the procurement site, and it in fact received no funding from the Government of Canada.”
I would hope the Prime Minister is holding his cabinet ministers to a higher standard than that. The assertion is that, before he was a minister, the minister pretended to be indigenous and his company applied for funding meant for indigenous procurement. The fact that the government did not give it that funding does not change anything about the minister's conduct and the question of whether the minister meets the standard that Canadians would expect.
I do not think there is any doubt that most Canadians would say that the minister needs to resign and that, if he does not resign, he absolutely needs to be fired by the Prime Minister. I would bet that, if we polled Canadians on that question and let them know exactly what the circumstances are, it would be 99% in favour of the Prime Minister firing the minister. I would be surprised if it were not. That is how serious this circumstance is that we are discussing today.
I am curious about the questions I will be asked. The Speaker is signalling to me that there is no time for questions. I will miss the member for Winnipeg North asking me a question today.
I will comment further on this. I want to point out something interesting: It seems that even the minister's cabinet colleagues have questions. It was interesting again today, in the early part of question period, that in question after question, no other minister was willing to stand up and defend the minister. It is very rare to see the minister have to stand up. He did not actually respond to or answer the questions. After question period, when a reporter asked the procurement minister clearly about the situation, he said, “It's for [him] to continue explaining the circumstances.” He named the Minister of Employment, not the other Randy.
Even Liberal ministers do not want to carry the water for the Liberal minister. In the larger picture, his time is up. His time is almost certainly up as a minister. Even as incompetent a government as this government is, there is no way it can possibly continue having the minister serve in the capacity that he is serving in. His time as a member of Parliament will be up too, because there is no way that even the staunchest supporters in Edmonton Centre will support him. They were not going to vote for the Liberal government anyway, but they certainly are not going to vote for this member of Parliament when the time comes.
I will conclude by saying that we look forward to the debate this week. We hope that ministers in the government and maybe the Prime Minister, if he is able to make it out this week, have some responses to this. We also look forward to seeing how every member of the House votes on this motion.
