Nathan Cullen

[The Budget, March 19th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for that ruling.

As I was attempting to listen to the finance minister deliver the budget speech, it was, of course, impossible for any member in the House, perhaps even those adjacent to the finance minister, to hear the speech. It is a long-standing privilege in this place that we are able to hear one another, even in the vigorous debates this House sometimes enjoys.

I wonder if there might be a path forward, through you, Mr. Speaker, to allow the small discussion that was attempted prior to the speech taking place. That would enable us to actually continue with the business of the House today and hear the speech, so that members of Parliament and Canadians, through us, can understand what the government is proposing in its budget.

[Justice, February 28th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the former attorney general gave a detailed and devastating account of a relentless campaign to try to force her to break the law. The Prime Minister first said that if the former attorney general had a problem, she should have complained. Well, she did, and the bullying and the pressure and the veiled threats got worse. Then he said that she just should have quit. Well, thank God that she did not, because when she was there, she was standing up for the rule of law.

Yesterday, Canadians watched a fearless and courageous indigenous woman who stood up against the most powerful men in this country. When are the Liberals going to have even a scintilla of that courage to call for a full public inquiry?

[Justice, February 28th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, does anyone still wonder why the Prime Minister made sure his last question period happened before the explosive testimony from the former attorney general? Because I do not.

Then the Prime Minister had the audacity to tell Canadians that he rejected this damning and detailed testimony, and then admitted that he had not actually listened to it all. Talk about arrogance. Talk about tone deaf. She told us of a consistent and sustained effort to politically interfere in a public prosecution, and a B.C. Liberal said that this was all sour grapes and she just was not a good “team player”. I guess being a good team Liberal player means a willingness to break the law.

When will they stop with the misogynistic smears and just agree to a public inquiry?

[Natural Resources, February 26th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for this genius pipeline-owning Prime Minister, the one who handed over $4.5 billion to a Texas oil company after its pipeline was thrown out of court. Now he is looking to spend another $10 billion to $15 billion of our money.

The National Energy Board admits that this pipeline will hammer the environment, hurt indigenous relations and further wreck our climate. Governing is about making choices, and the Liberals are actually weighing the choice between protecting an orca population, repairing indigenous relations and actually fixing our carbon emissions, or building their pipeline. Which one is it going to be?

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to comment on this very important debate. We should all take some lesson in this. There is no satisfaction in a day on which the allegations against a sitting Prime Minister becomes so intense and important that the House of Commons seeks to call that Prime Minister under oath before a committee.

We are talking about incredibly serious allegations, about a Prime Minister's story that has changed almost on a daily basis, the story of very well-connected executives being able to lobby a government 50 times in less than a couple of years in order to get the federal laws changed to allow them a plea deal in a criminal investigation, in a criminal case, in which they have been found guilty of bribery and fraud and the constant pressuring of the former attorney general, which may have gotten her fired for resisting.

For my Liberal colleagues to say that there is nothing to see here because the company did not yet get its plea deal, that it has not yet been successful, the attempt of that obstruction of justice is also a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

I will quote somebody I think the Liberals might be interested in hearing from:

It's really frustrating to see the level of mistrust and disgust that Canadians are having towards Parliament, towards the prime minister right now. It's time the prime minister showed some leadership and actually came clean on everything he knew, and the only way we're going to be able to do that, unfortunately, is if everybody testifies under oath.

Who said that? The current Prime Minister. He believed that Prime Minister Harper needed to testify under oath because of a changing story, because the allegations in the Duffy-Wright affair were so significant that Canadians needed to understand that. The Liberals now say that they are different, that when corruption happens with the Liberals, they should not be held to the same standard as everybody else. That is exactly how the sponsorship scandal was born, bred and executed.

We are talking about power. The Liberals can continue to heckle, but voices will be heard. We are talking about a very powerful man, perhaps the most powerful man in Canada, the Prime Minister. He is using his solicitor-client privilege not to allow the former attorney general to speak her full truth, which she asked for just last week in the House of Commons. She wrote to the justice committee today. She says that until the Prime Minister is able to waive that privilege, she is unable to fully testify and explain what happened. The one who has the power to allow this indigenous woman, this indigenous leader to speak fully is the Prime Minister of Canada, the only person who has that power.

For someone who professed to Canadians that he would be different, that he believed in transparency, that he believed in the rule of law, the only person who could allow the full story to come to light is the Prime Minister. The irony must be rich for those Liberals, who have talked about transparency, reconciliation and being better than they have been in the past, to watch this whole scandal slowly and terribly unfold in front of their very eyes. We have a woman sitting in the House seeking to speak and a Prime Minister refusing to allow her to do so. If he has a good story to tell, then he can come in front of committee under oath and tell it.

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, this is a serious matter. Parliament is not often presented with a motion in which the sitting Prime Minister is being called to testify under oath in front of Parliament. It did happen in a previous Parliament when Stephen Harper was here. The Liberals joined with us, I suppose in some form of alliance they were happy to participate in then, to call the then Prime Minister Stephen Harper to testify under oath at committee.

The reason that was so serious was because the concerns and allegations under the Nigel Wright-Mike Duffy affair went right into the heart of the Prime Minister's Office. What had taken place had money exchange hands, which was rightly concerning to Canadians. My Conservative colleagues do not always want to remember those days, which is fair enough, but that was something that Canadians, including even Liberals in that case, wanted to know about what was going on in the Prime Minister's Office.

However, now the allegations that have been put forward into the public, on which the Prime Minister is constantly shifting stories, is that within his office the former attorney general may have received constant and unrelenting pressure to allow a plea deal to a company that had extensively lobbied the government for special treatment. That is special access. That is two sets of laws: one for specially connected people and companies, and another set for everyone else.

When we are dealing with this gravity of power and the potential abuse of that power, is it not time for Canadians to hear from the Prime Minister himself?

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this may in fact be a point of order. With an apology to my friend, this could also be translated into a question, I suppose.

However, recently a letter was made public by the member for Vancouver Granville, the former attorney general, to the justice committee. The reason I rise on a point of order is that I think it is highly pertinent to the issues we have been discussing here, particularly around the issue of solicitor-client privilege.

Much of what has been said by the Prime Minister earlier today, both here and in public, and by the Clerk of the Privy Council, has inferred that somehow solicitor-client privilege may not apply with regard to the former attorney general's testimony at committee, which of course is something we are all eager to hear.

Let me just read a small section. This is the point of order that I wish to raise to clarify what has been misrepresented by particularly government members. I know my keen friend from the Liberal ranks will want to hear what his former attorney general says. She says:

The government can waive solicitor-client privilege and Cabinet confidence. I cannot. As to the sub judice convention, I believe that it would be useful for the Committee to have before it an authoritative statement of the scope....I would prefer not to schedule my appearance before the committee until we have whatever clarity we can have about these issues. Once we have that clarity, I would be pleased to present before the Committee until we have whatever clarity we can have about these issues. Once we have that clarity, I will be pleased to appear before the Committee at the first available opportunity.

The reason I raise this for my friend is that it has been inferred many times by the clerk and by the Prime Minister himself that just simply saying that she can testify and speak to whatever she believes is pertinent, does not meet the test of waiving solicitor-client privilege.

This is germane to the debate and it is central to the Liberals' argument today that the former attorney general is able to speak freely, that she is no longer bound by solicitor-client privilege. We have a letter from her and she is referencing her counsel, former Supreme Court Justice Cromwell. This is clearly relevant to the debate today and clearly pertinent to the Liberals' central argument that there is nothing preventing the former attorney general from testifying.

It seems to me that in her own words and in correspondence we now have from her, this is something the Liberals should stop saying. We should allow the Prime Minister to simply decide if he is going to waive this privilege and allow the former attorney general to speak freely.

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, my friend across the way believes that if he takes something that is not true and yells really loud about it, it sometimes will somehow become truthful. We have seen him time and again in this place wander around an issue without directly speaking to it.

He speaks about jobs. Some Liberals have claimed that white-collar crimes are victimless crimes, but they are not. Those very same SNC-Lavalin employees' jobs are at risk right now, because Liberals have soft-on-white-collar crime policies and SNC-Lavalin executives who committed bribery and corruption crimes are skipping any kind of sentencing at all. It is all the employees themselves who are somehow now culpable because Liberals will not enact this.

I will read a quote that is interesting:

It's really frustrating to see the level of mistrust and disgust that Canadians are having towards Parliament, towards the prime minister right now. It's time the prime minister showed some leadership and actually came clean on everything he knew, and the only way we're going to be able to do that, unfortunately, is if everybody testifies under oath.

Who said that? It was the current Prime Minister about the former prime minister during the Nigel Wright-Mike Duffy affair. He said correctly that Canadians lose faith in our institutions when they watch the Prime Minister not answer fully and faithfully the questions that are put to him.

We have asked the Prime Minister time and time again to waive solicitor-client privilege. We have asked the Prime Minister to come forward. We have asked Liberals at committee who resist every step of the way.

If Liberals really cared about jobs, why has the Prime Minister not visited Oshawa yet? If Liberals really cared about jobs, what about the Sears pensioners? What about the Aveos workers? They claim that this is what it is about, when really what it is about is entitlement and access to the Liberal government. The wealthy and well-connected have total access.

If we need to change the law for SNC-Lavalin to get it a plea deal, what about changing the law for pay equity? What about changing the law for pensioners? What about changing the law for all those Canadians who do not have the access that a wealthy and well-connected company like SNC-Lavalin has?

[Natural Resources, February 25th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has claimed that climate change is the fight of his life. He has claimed that there is no relationship more important to him than that with indigenous peoples and he has claimed that he really, really cares about protecting our west coast.

When the National Energy Board said that the Trans Mountain pipeline will, one, have major impacts on our climate; two, significantly damage indigenous rights and title; and three, potentially wipe out the southern resident killer whale population, it seems like this decision would be a no-brainer.

This is a test for the Prime Minister. Between the principles he claims to hold and a pipeline he so desperately wants to build, what is it going to be?

[Justice, February 21st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, what is she talking about? The Liberals claim this whole thing is about protecting jobs, but where were they for Sears workers? Where were they for Aveos, for Rona and for GM workers?

If the Liberals actually cared about working people, maybe they could start jailing their corporate friends when they break the law. Instead, the Liberals are too busy getting them sweetheart deals. Liberals claim to care about the rule of law, but instead, in their world there is one set of laws for the wealthy and well connected and there is another set for everybody else.

Just yesterday, the Prime Minister voted against an inquiry while his former attorney general properly abstained. Does the Prime Minister not get conflict of interest, or does he not care?