Peter Kent

[Ethics, December 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, ethical lapses have become the hallmark of the current government. The Liberals seem determined now, in their final year in office, to set a new record in the number of simultaneous police investigations into Liberal-member activities. With regard to the most recent investigation, involving the member for Brampton East, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and a suspect real estate deal, can the Prime Minister confirm whether law enforcement has been in touch with his or the minister's office?

[Ethics, December 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, opposition members of the ethics committee today unanimously supported a motion to call the Clerk of the Privy Council to discuss accumulating questions about the former Liberal member for Brampton East, questions involving gambling, wiretaps, money laundering, terrorist funding, outside employment, the embarrassing India trip, and an RCMP investigation. Unfortunately, the Liberal majority on committee voted to defeat our motion. What are the Liberals hiding from Canadians?

[Public Safety, December 4th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, page 3 of this first report of the new committee lays bare a process that allows the Prime Minister to censor the report not only for national security, but to prevent his embarrassment under the guise of international relations.

The report was supposed to address the clumsy use of intelligence to excuse how a terrorist got on the PM's trip that sparked a diplomatic incident with India. Instead, the committee's six findings on supposed foreign interference are completely redacted.

Will the Prime Minister get off his asterisks and release the findings?

[Public Safety, December 4th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister blamed the member for Surrey Centre for inviting a convicted terrorist on the PM's disastrous India trip. However, one of the few lightly asterisk-redacted chapters in the committee report shows it was the PMO that put Jaspal Atwal on the guest list.

As an RCMP officer belatedly observed, a google search would have identified the risk if the guest list had been provided to security.

Will the Prime Minister now accept responsibility for this security breakdown?

[Prime Minister's Trip to India, December 3rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, let us get specific. The Prime Minister's Office now says that the PM did not invite any of the business people who joined his ill-fated trip to India. The member for Brampton East, who said he would resign because of a gambling addiction and did not, says he did not invite a director of the Goreway Heaven company involved in the suspect Brampton real estate deal, and the economic development minister claims ignorance of it all.

Again, will the Liberals at least tell us who invited the Goreway Heaven executives on the Prime Minister's trip to India.

[Member for Brampton East, December 3rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is getting to the point where we need a criminal investigation flow chart to understand the relationship between a Liberal MP, a Liberal minister, the Prime Minister, a clutch of Liberal financial supporters and three RCMP investigations. Now we have learned that the City of Brampton wants the Mounties to investigate a land deal after confidential information was allegedly passed to the member for Brampton East and the Minister of Economic Development.

It is time for the Liberals to drop the “We don't comment on RCMP investigations” stalling and tell Canadians the truth.

[News Media Industry, November 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear from that answer that the Prime Minister does not understand the economic and technological realities that have created this crisis for our free and independent Canadian news industry. This bailout is not a long-term remedy. It is a temporary patch that ignores, for example, suggestions from the Public Policy Forum, like ending tax writeoffs for advertisers on foreign digital platforms or resizing the mandate of Canada's semi-private public broadcaster.

Why will the Prime Minister not listen to Canada's independent journalists?

[News Media Industry, November 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a week since the Liberals announced their undefined, mis-targeted, temporary patch of a $600-million plus election year bailout for Canada's struggling new industry. Owners and publishers who get million dollar cheques and bonuses and partisan big union bosses, not surprisingly, praise the bailout, but dozens of this country's most respected journalists have denounced it because it casts a dark shadow over the independence of their craft.

Does the Prime Minister now understand how unacceptable this bailout is an election year?

[Ethics, November 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, major ethical lapses are a hallmark of the Liberal government. Today, we learned that Raj Grewal, the former member for Brampton East, has been under RCMP investigation for months in connection with millions of dollars in gambling activity using suspect funds, this at the same time the Ethics Commissioner has been investigating the MP's extra-parliamentary employment and for greasing the way for that employer to attend a prime ministerial event in India.

Again, I will ask a question that has been asked so many times in the last three years: When did the Prime Minister become aware of this RCMP investigation?

[General Motors Plant Closure, November 26th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, earlier today, Dennis DesRosiers, an expert consultant to the automotive industry, said that, despite the dedication, the expertise and the commitment of the workers at GM's plant in Oshawa, the closure of that plant by General Motors should be seen as the canary in a coal mine. Mr. DesRosiers said he believes there will be other closures. He does not know where, he does not know when, but there will be closures unless the current government goes beyond sympathetic words and creates meaningful action to increase the competitiveness of this industry. I wonder if my colleague could expand on the fears of Mr. DesRosiers.