Rachael Thomas

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, my response is that I have two questions for the hon. member.

First, in those 5,000 pages, how many pages were blacked out? It was a great deal, in fact the vast majority of the text.

Second, with regard to the member's comment concerning June and August of last year and information known then, since when does the truth expire?

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

We have heard the line that these are “unprecedented times” over and over again. While I do not disagree with that statement, it is beginning to sound like a broken record, in particular when the line is used to avoid accountability.

Over the past 12 months, we have witnessed behaviour by the government that is incredibly inappropriate and, I would even say, exploitive. We could say that the Prime Minister has acted in a way that is truly unprecedented. I would say that a pandemic is not an excuse for unethical behaviour. The Liberals are doing their very best to block witnesses from testifying on both the Prime Minister's WE scandal and the mishandling of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces.

Today, before the House is a motion by Conservative members. It calls for critical witnesses to be brought forward to testify on these issues. Having served as the former chair of the ethics committee, I will focus the majority of my time on the Prime Minister's WE scandal. However, I do believe that it is of utmost importance to comment briefly on the second part of this motion.

We know that the Prime Minister and the defence minister were made aware of sexual misconduct allegations against the former chief of the defence staff three years ago, and yet did nothing. Nothing at all. As part of the motion before the House today, we are calling for crucial witnesses to come to the national defence committee to testify. Up to this point, Liberal members on the committee have continued to block the appearances of key staff members whose testimony would provide answers on the allegations of sexual misconduct against the chief of the defence staff, General Vance.

The Prime Minister claims to be a feminist, but he continually fails to protect women. Canadians have placed trust in the government—great trust, I would argue. The reality is that if they are going to place that trust in the government, then they do deserve to know the truth. I cannot imagine what it must be like for a victim of sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces watching the ping pong game of their story being made light of. It is wrong.

For someone who claims to be such a staunch feminist, it is astounding how hard the Prime Minister Minister and his government are fighting to cover up this sexual misconduct and the way it was handled. It has become clear the the Prime Minister would rather protect his own reputation than the brave women who have signed up to serve with their lives. It is sad.

The second part of this motion calls for key witnesses to testify on the WE scandal. Last year, as part of the government's pandemic spending, the Prime Minister gave his friends at the WE Charity a sole-sourced agreement for half a billion dollars. That is half a billion of taxpayer dollars. This same organization gave the Prime Minister's family roughly $500,000 in the time leading up to that agreement.

Something happened in June last year, which is is that the Prime Minister got caught. As revelations began to surface about his involvement in this sole-sourced deal, Canadians were shocked and, as we can imagine, also frustrated and even outraged. Why was there no competitive bidding process put in place? Who was involved in making this deal happen? Why is it so hard to get to the bottom of this? What is preventing the Prime Minister and his government from being honest?

As the pressure from opposition parties the media and the public increased, we can only assume that the Prime Minister and his office saw that shutting down Parliament was the only answer to stop the truth from coming out. In the middle of a pandemic when billions of dollars were going out the door, when plans needed to be made for economic recovery and when Canadians needed to see leadership the most, the Prime Minister decided to shut down this place. The Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament.

As a result, all of the studies on the WE scandal went out the door, which was convenient, because the Prime Minister was then no longer forced to answer important questions and no longer to be held accountable for his actions. He could tuck himself away in his cottage and pretend for awhile that everything was going to be okay, that his scandal-riddled past would not catch up to him. After all, he had already been convicted of two other ethical breaches and now this was his third. If he got away with the first two, then why would he not get away with this one?

The truth is that perhaps he still will get away with it, but it is incumbent upon those of us on this side of the House to hold the government to account, to ask the difficult questions and to request the information that Canadians deserve to have come to light. Canadians have placed great trust in the government and it is incumbent on us to hold the Prime Minister accountable.

Since September when Parliament resumed, we have been working hard to try to get to the bottom of this scandal. The Liberals have fought relentlessly to defend their leader. They have filibustered for hours at committee. For a government that brags so much about openness and transparency, I do not remember seeing one prior that was so secretive, so unaccountable and acted so unethically. After all, we are talking about the only Prime Minister that has ever been convicted of an ethics scandal. In fact, not just one, but two, and now is being investigated for a third time.

The motion before the House is necessary to uncover what is taking place and have the truth made known to Canadians. It is a result of hearing contradictory testimony from the Prime Minister's Office, the Liberal ministers and the Kielburger brothers who founded WE Charity and are good friends with the Prime Minister and others high up in the PMO. Conservatives are calling for key witnesses to come forward and to be able to give testimony.

I should add that this is not a game. The Liberals would like to paint it as such. They like to accuse us of “playing petty politics”, but in what world is the pursuit of truth petty? Only in a Liberal world.

When the Kielburgers first appeared before the ethics committee, they testified that Ben Chin, a senior adviser in the Prime Minister 's Office, had no role in setting up this program. However, documents that were released at the finance committee last summer show us otherwise.

On June 27, 2020, a LinkedIn message was sent from Craig Kielburger to Ben Chin, which said: “Hello Ben, Thank you for your kindness in helping shape our latest program with the go'vt. Warmly, Craig.” Two days later, Ben Chin responded to Craig Kielburger with a message saying, “Great to hear from you Craig. Let's get our young working!”

Given the contradictions at play, the fact that he-said, she-said does not line up, the ethics committee must hear from the Prime Minister's top advisers with regard to this scenario.

On the Prime Minister 's website under the section entitled “Open and Accountable Government”, it says:

Our plan for an open and accountable government will allow us to modernize how the Canadian government works, so that it better reflects the values and expectations of Canadians. At its heart is a simple idea: open government is good government. For Canadians to trust our government we must trust Canadians, and we will only be successful in implementing our agenda to the extent that we earn and keep this trust.

Nothing could be more hypocritical of the government to state this and then try to shut down committees. Liberals are both evading and covering up the truth and keeping it from Canadians. They have filibustered at more than 20 ethics committee meetings and the Prime Minister went so far as to shut down Parliament.

When it comes to national defence, the Prime Minister has been asked numerous times if he was aware of the allegations against the former chief of the defence staff and has repeatedly denied it. Instead of being honest, the Prime Minister has decided to try to mislead Canadians about his involvement in the cover-up, and that is wrong, because, again, yes, an open government is a good government. That is why we stand here in this place today calling on the House, its members, who are duly elected to defend the truth and to promote democracy, openness, transparency and accountability, to support the motion.

With this motion we are giving the Prime Minister an opportunity to fulfill one of his advertised priorities: openness and accountability. It is time to end the cover-ups; it is time for the Prime Minister to tell the truth. Today is his opportunity.

[Ethics, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, after three decades, investigations into the Prime Minister's behaviour, a half-billion dollar, sole-sourced deal with his friends at WE Charity, replacing Parliament with a committee where only specific questions are allowed to be asked, and a record number of cover-ups, filibusters and tactics to delay this place, the trust that Canadians have put in the government is beginning to wane.

The Liberals may think highly of themselves, but ultimately they are accountable to Canadians. The Prime Minister likes to talk a lot about his values of openness and transparency; remember the phrase “sunny ways”. Unfortunately, his actions have not reflected his words.

We, on the other hand on this side of the House, are committed to taking real action. Canada's Conservatives will put the country first by enacting the toughest accountability and transparency laws that Canada has ever seen. We will toughen the Conflict of Interest Act and impose higher penalties. We will toughen the Lobbying Act to end abuse by Liberal insiders. We will increase transparency to end the cover-ups.

It is time for action. It is time to restore trust. It is time to serve Canadians.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, March 22nd, 2021]

With regard to the government’s decision to require airline travellers arriving from outside of Canada to quarantine at a designated airport hotel: (a) what specific evidence or facts did the government use as a basis for the decision; (b) what is the detailed breakdown of how the more than $2,000 collected from each traveller is spent, including what amounts went for (i) transportation to the hotel, (ii) security, (iii) the hotel room rate, (iv) testing, (v) other type of expenditure, broken down by type; (c) is the government operating on a strictly cost-recovery basis or will the government be making a profit from the funds collected from the travellers; (d) how were the hotels chosen; (e) is the government paying a premium for the hotels over the regular government room rate and, if so, why; (f) were the hotels chosen through an open tender process or were they sole-sourced contracts; (g) if the contracts were solesourced, what specific measures were taken to ensure that the contracts were awarded fairly and without political bias; and (h) what are the details of each contract with the hotels, including (i) the name of hotel, (ii) the location, (iii) the amount of the contract, (iv) the contract start and end date, (v) the number of rooms provided?

[Canada Revenue Agency, March 22nd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the government can only work effectively if it has the trust of Canadians. That trust, however, is eroding.

To access benefits, Canadians have to provide their personal information online. However, according to cybersecurity experts, the government is not doing an adequate job protecting that information. The CRA has now closed own 800,000 accounts because hackers are gaining access.

My question is simple. What is the government doing to beef up security measures to make sure bad actors are not accessing Canadians' personal information and using it against them?

[Committees of the House, February 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, certainly with a business like Pornhub, the parent company MindGeek, which hosts millions and millions of videos, I suppose that it is possible for one's soul to eventually stop functioning and for one's conscience to eventually stop convicting them. I suppose that it is possible for those individuals to forget and that is a shame.

My hope would be that as a Canadian society we are not okay with it and that we would take a stand for these women and girls who find themselves victimized by companies like Pornhub and by those individuals who posted their videos. My hope would be that we would stand up and say that although they may not have a soul or a conscience, we do and we will hold them accountable. We will take a stand for the sake of this great country and our future. Most important, we will take a stand for the sake of those who have been impacted and who could potentially be impacted in the future. Again, this is about people.

[Committees of the House, February 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, I do believe that education is very important and it must be a very strong component going forward. Those predators, those who seek out young children to then sell them into the sex trade, or to exploit them, or use their bodies and monetize them, work in our schools, our malls and other workplaces. They are throughout Canadian society. We must do all that we can to educate young people to identify who those individuals might be in order to keep themselves safe. We must also help parents identify them. We must help society at large, so together we can protect the vulnerable.

[Committees of the House, February 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, many would consider slavery to be a thing of the past, and many would consider it to be something that does not happen in the western world, but only overseas in developing nations. This is a myth. It happens right here in our own country, on our own land.

Human trafficking is, in fact, modern-day slavery. It is the world's fastest growing crime. It generates a profit of $150 billion per year, and of this, commercial sexual exploitation of women, girls, boys and young men contributes $99 billion, the vast majority of that revenue. In 2017, an estimated 40.3 million victims were trapped in modern-day slavery around the world.

Trafficking is a pervasive transnational and domestic phenomenon that is happening right now in urban and rural communities across Canada, so it is with a heavy heart that I come before the House today to talk about this issue. It is not something we can look at from a distance. It is not something we can only consider based on stats from other countries. It is not something of our past. It is something of our present, and if we do not take action, it will be something of our future. As parliamentarians, it is incumbent upon us to take action to make sure it stops now.

Designating February 22 as national human trafficking awareness day, I believe, is a necessary step in educating those who are unaware that this crisis is taking place across the country. People's lives are being exploited and destroyed altogether. I would say we have an obligation to uncover the horror that is taking place on a daily basis and do something to stop it.

Sometimes that something is as simple as speaking up. Sometimes that something requires legislative measures. Sometimes that something requires the RCMP or local police involvement. Sometimes that something requires border security and safety measures. Sometimes that something requires all of the above.

We know that 93% of Canada's trafficked victims come from within our country. They are here within our borders. The vast majority of these victims of human trafficking are women and girls. Over 70% of the exploitation that takes place is for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and so it there I will focus the majority of my attention today.

I believe a great deal of light has been shed on this topic as of late, and Pornhub comes front of mind. Numerous national articles have been written on the topic of women and girls being exploited online, and of consent not being granted. This is a form of human trafficking. It is severe in nature, and it cannot be ignored.

I believe that prostitution and trafficking are connected, and most researchers would agree with that. Prostitution, in most cases, is not a choice. The trafficked individual is often under age when they begin, and therefore, cannot legally consent. The individual is often a young girl when she starts, often for socio-economic reasons. Again, it is not exactly a choice.

It is out of survival that she enters into the business of selling her body, and sometimes that exchange results in money for her, but other times, most times even, it results in money being given to someone who is exploiting her body. This is, in fact, trafficking. I would like to defy and challenge the myth that trafficking is somehow a choice. It is not her choice.

This is not only happening abroad, and it is not a thing of the past. Human trafficking, and especially sexual exploitation, is happening right here, in our own country, today.

I would like to share a number of stories pertaining particularly to the tech giant Pornhub, which, of course, is an online platform where individuals can post videos. Now, it is not necessarily the individuals who are in the videos who are posting them. In fact, many of the videos are posted by other individuals who took the videos, sometimes in bathroom stalls and sometimes during a sex act. Sometimes they pressured a girlfriend or another girl in their class, for example, to present them with nude shots or videos of various accord.

Pornhub attracts 3.5 billion visits every month. That is more than Netflix, more than Yahoo and more than Amazon. Some have said it is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy-cam videos of women showering or using the bathroom, again, often underage.

It is footage of women that is then made available online. I should clarify that it is not just women. It is women, girls, young boys and some men, but again, predominantly it is women and girls. These images are uploaded and then made available.

Cali is one victim and will I quote her. She said, “Pornhub became my trafficker.... I'm still getting sold, even though I'm five years out of that life”.

Another individual, Taylor, said, “They made money off my pain and suffering”. A boyfriend who had pressured her into providing a video had then secretly posted it to Pornhub. The students in her class had it available to them within days and, of course, from there we can imagine the type of bullying and conduct that took place at school.

She talks about walking down the hallways and weeping as she went to class. She then talks about trying to take her life several times, but was not effective in doing so. She now lives with the horror of what has happened to her. It is an example of trafficking, an example of sexual exploitation.

Another individual called it soul destroying. Another individual talked about how Pornhub is making money off the worst moment in her life. It is making money off her body. She talked about how two American men paid her when she was 16 for a sexual encounter that they then filmed and posted on Pornhub. Even though she asked repeatedly for Pornhub to remove the video, it refused to do so.

Another individual said that it is an assault that never ends and that the suffering is unimaginable. She went on to say that they are getting so much money from her trauma.

These individuals are just a handful of the many, many women and girls across this country and throughout North America who are consistently exploited. This phenomenon is not just taking place in other countries. This is something that is right here within our borders. This is something that legislators have the opportunity to do something about, but it is also something that we must invite the general public to be a part of, which is where awareness and education come into play.

It is so important that we name a national day because it helps bring it to light. Every single year we would have this day that would stand as a reminder that these things do occur in our country, but we, as the Canadian people, do have the power to stop this behaviour. We have the ability to stand up for these individuals who are trafficked, and we have the ability to say “no more”.

We have to remember that this is about people. This is about preventing the crime. This is about protecting the victim. This is about prosecution of the offender. This is about working in partnership with various agencies, and this is about empowering victims. That is what this is about. It starts with a day, but my hope is that there would be greater action that would take place from there.

Serena Fleites came to the ethics committee a few weeks ago. When asked what would she tell the people at Pornhub about what they did to her, she said:

I would tell them that they're really selfish. They need to really look at themselves in the mirror because they're prioritizing money and content over actual human beings' lives, because obviously, they don't care that much....

I would tell them to look in the mirror and re-evaluate themselves. They need to figure out where their real priorities are and not be so focused on money and content rather than real humans' lives and what they're doing to them.

We are talking about human beings. We are talking about people. We are talking about their present and their future.

For this reason, because of people, because of their innate value and because they deserve us to stand up for them, we ask for this national day.

[Natural Resources, February 4th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, Line 5 is an essential part of Canada's energy supply chain, providing half the oil needs of Ontario and Quebec. It is currently under threat of being cancelled, but the Prime Minister has not even lifted a finger. Canadians need to fill up their gas tanks, heat their homes and cook their food. Energy is, after all, the fuel of life.

Wait a second. Is that why the Prime Minister promised to plant two billion trees? Are we going back to wood-burning stoves?

[Democracy, February 3rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, on the Liberal Party's website it says, “Parliament works best when its members are free to do what they have been elected to do: be the voice for their communities, and hold the government to account.”

That is interesting. Last week during question period, the Prime Minister accused opposition members of trying to “score cheap political points” when they asked questions. This is an affront to democracy. These members were fulfilling their constitutional obligation to hold the Prime Minister to account and defend Canadians. To disagree, to seek clarity, to ask questions or to point out misconduct is not wrong. These things are at the very heart of democracy: this place.

The Prime Minister has replaced Parliament with a committee. He has prorogued it to cover up his unethical behaviour. He has refused to answer questions that he does not like. However, Canadians are watching, and they are catching on.

Despite all the rhetoric of openness and transparency, the Liberal administration is proving to be one of the most undemocratic and dictatorial this country has ever seen. Canadians deserve a leader who will fight for true diversity, including diversity of thought.