Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in this chamber. Interestingly, my great friend from South Shore—St. Margarets, whose office is directly across from mine in the Confederation Building, has been talking about this scandal now for the better part of a year. When we begin to look at the sordid details that exist in this particular case, it is very disheartening for me, as a Canadian.
I would also suggest that it is disheartening because there have been so many scandals from the NDP-Liberal government that Canadians have tuned them out. It is $50 million, $100 million or $300 million; sadly, Canadians have said, “Well, whatever.” Another thing I wonder is how the Prime Minister continues to get a free pass on these scandals. It is absolutely shocking to me.
I realize I have only been in this place for three years, so I am not going to get in the DeLorean that my wonderful friend from Barrie—Innisfil was in. That is not the road I want to go down. However, that being said, I would suggest that we need to prosecute the issues that are in front of us at this time. Certainly, the SDTC scandal is front and centre, and it involves hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps almost a billion dollars.
If I might, I would like to go back a bit to look at the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund. It was established in 2001, and when we look at the mandate of the actual fund, it seems to make sense. It is a federally funded non-profit that approves and disburses over $100 million in funds every year to clean technology companies. We are in an era when we understand that there are certain things we need to do to help protect the climate. A theme that has resonated on this side of the House forever is that we need to use technologies and not taxes. This is a fund that would actually seem to make sense.
The ISED website states, “through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act, [SDTC is used] to fund the development and demonstration of new technologies that promote sustainable development.” As we look at the set-up of this fund, it makes sense: “It is an arm's length, not-for-profit...organization that was created to support projects that develop and demonstrate new technologies that address issues related to climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil.” In my estimation, these are all good things.
The website also says, “SDTC is responsible for the administration of the SD Tech Fund in accordance with the...guidelines per the Funding Agreement with ISED.” As we look at those things, on the surface, we would say that this makes sense. I was a family physician before I came here, so politics was not top of mind, and one always wonders about these things. We hear about people being appointed to boards, and we wonder what they do and whether they make money doing this. People really have a difficult time understanding this.
From my perspective, this brings forward a significant underbelly of what everyday Canadians hear about someone serving on a board. People wonder what they do. What did the people who have served on this board do, including the chair? I am not entirely sure, but as I read the documents, it would appear that they used their influence, sadly, to award at least 330 million dollars' worth of taxpayer funds to corporations they control. This created significant conflicts of interest.
As we look at that, we wonder how board members make money if they do not get paid to be on a board. Apparently, this is one way they do it: They prop up a company that they have a significant financial interest in and award it taxpayer dollars.
What else happened here? We know, as I said, that this fund has been ongoing since 2001. Indeed, the Auditor General did an audit on SDTC in 2016 and praised it for its great work and how well it was run. It had 15 years of being run very well. Things changed thereafter.
Many people here would know who Jim Balsillie is. He was the chair of this committee and he began speaking out against certain legislation that the Liberal government at that time was bringing forward. It would have caused a scandal to get rid of him. That being said, when his contract came to an end, the Liberals decided not to renew his contract. Of course, that left them in a bit of a quandary to appoint someone else.
In 2019, former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains began appointing conflicted executives to be in charge of SDTC. He was warned against this. He was warned that Annette Verschuren would have significant conflicts because the companies she historically had some dealings with had already received funds from SDTC and continued to receive them on an ongoing basis. As we look at this, we begin to understand the troubles that existed from the very beginning of the appointment of the new chair.
What happened then? The Auditor General and Ethics Commissioner initiated separate investigations because whistle-blowers came forward. If we have time, we have some testimony from whistle-blowers that is actually shocking and needs to be read into the record. They had allegations of financial mismanagement and that is why those investigations were initiated. I will have more to say about the Ethics Commissioner as we go forward. I took an opportunity to sit on committee and hear the testimony of the Ethics Commissioner, which, in my mind, was quite shocking.
The Auditor General's investigation found a severe lapse in governance standards and uncovered that $390 million in funding was awarded to projects that either should have been ineligible to receive funding or was awarded to projects in which board members were conflicted, and that was only during a five-year audit period. As we begin to look at those numbers, we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars.
Realistically, the change began in late 2018-19 when former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains decided that SDTC needed a new CEO and chair, even though he was warned that there were significant conflicts. The Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office, who were warned about appointing a conflicted chair, decided to move forward with that regardless. There was not just one warning, but there were repeated warnings to say this was going to cause chaos and conflict.
The new chair went on to create an environment where conflicts of interest were tolerated and “managed by board members”. What happened then? Of course, SDTC went on to award funds to companies in which board members held stock or positions. That is allowing the person who has the keys to the cabinet to go ahead and disburse the funds for their own benefit. I am not sure there are many things that are worse than that.
As my esteemed colleague from Barrie—Innisfil said repeatedly, we are charged with several things here in this place, and one of them is to be good stewards of taxpayer money. It became very clear here that did not happen.
As this conflict of interest environment went on, Minister Bains appointed two other controversial board members who engaged in unethical behaviour in breach of the Conflict of Interest Act by approving funds to companies in which they held ownership stakes. Not only do we begin to see that the chair of the board allowed this environment to cultivate, but we see other members of the board who saw that this was done and benefited from it themselves. As an elected official, I find that this is very unsavoury behaviour.
Officials from ISED were also there watching what was going on. They observed these 186 conflicts of interest and also, sadly, did nothing. In November 2022, whistle-blowers started raising concerns with the Auditor General about these unethical practices, and the Privy Council was also briefed by whistle-blowers about these allegations.
As I said, I have been hearing about this from my friend from South Shore—St. Margarets for more than a year now. In September 2023, the whistle-blowers took the allegations public, and the minister agreed to suspend the SDTC funding. Is that a good thing? It is, until we come to the rest of the story, which we will in a few minutes.
In November of last year, the Auditor General announced an audit, and then in June of this year, the Auditor General's report was released, finding severe governance failures at SDTC. Of course, in June, there was the motion adopted in this place for the production of various documents, to be turned over to the RCMP for review. In response to the motion, and this is actually shocking, departments either outright refused the House order or redacted documents turned over, citing provisions of the Privacy Act or Access to Information Act.
Certainly, here in this place, we did not contemplate that there were going to be redactions. We would also argue on this side of the House that the House itself enjoys the absolute and unfettered power to order the production of documents that is not limited by statute. These powers, of course, are rooted in the Constitution Act of 1867 and the Parliament of Canada Act.
In response to this failure to produce documents, the Conservative House leader raised a question of privilege, arguing that House privilege had been breached due to the failure to comply with the House order, and subsequently, of course, here we are arguing the point over and over again. Realistically, in terms of a charge of corruption and a lack of transparency, certainly on this side of the House we believe there is ample evidence to prove that charge.
I might just cite some examples that are a matter of public record but I think are very important. I will talk briefly about the environment that was cultivated at the top by the chair of the committee, Annette Verschuren. There were two other people who were appointed by Minister Bains and by the Prime Minister. They were both directors.
One was particularly aggressive, appointed in 2016 by the Prime Minister: Andrée-Lise Méthot. She runs a venture capital firm that is called Cycle Capital, and this story gets to be very interesting. Cycle Capital, of course, invests in green technologies, and when we begin to look at this, her company, before her appointment, had received $250 million in grants from SDTC. This is already, obviously, a conflict when someone says, “my company has already benefited from being here, so I think I will get on this gravy train”. When she became part of the board, what did she do? She allowed $114 million more to go to green companies that she had invested in.
During Ms. Méthot's time on the board, the value of her company, Cycle Capital, tripled, because it was getting money on a regular basis from SDTC, stamped by the Government of Canada, and that allowed that company to profit. It could raise other funds, and, as I said, the value of her own company tripled in that time.
The other strange part of it is that, sadly, her in-house paid lobbyist for 10 years before he was elected to this place was the current radical Minister of Environment. While he was a lobbyist for this company, Cycle Capital, he received, shockingly, and I know that everybody in this place will gasp when I say it, $111 million.
Yes, it is incredible. The minister, according to the registration of lobbyists portion of the Lobbying Act, lobbied the Prime Minister's Office before he came to this place. As for the industry department, he lobbied all of these folks 25 times in the year before he was elected. All of this is shocking. We cannot even believe it. Of course, for all of this hard work, he also owns shares in Cycle Capital, and, not surprisingly, he still owns the shares in Cycle Capital.
When the question is put to the minister as to the value of these shares, as we all know that, of course, they have likely gone up in value because they were granted before the company was given the incredibly generous support of SDTC, the minister refuses to provide the value of those shares. It is shocking.
As we begin to look at the depth of what is happening here, it is way beyond what anybody would actually expect. The amoeba of this culture of entitlement and thievery from the government came forward and said that the director, Ms. Méthot, went on to the Canada Infrastructure Bank board. The first thing that she did there was award $170 million of Infrastructure Bank money to a company owned by the chair of the green slush fund. Talk about not just patting ourselves on the back but patting our friends on the back, and, for the friends who sent us someplace, giving them a gift as well. There are gifts for everybody.
Annette Verschuren sought $6 million for the creation of the Verschuren Centre at Cape Breton University, because it was failing. Not only do we raise the money for it but we name it after ourselves. It is all incredibly strange. Maybe this is a little tiny shining match of a light: SDTC said no when they went through the process because there was a conflict. However, there is more to the story. In emails, it said that SDTC would help her find the money from other government departments. Soon after that, the Verschuren Centre received $12 million from ACOA and ISET, sadly enough.
Her other companies received $50 million from Natural Resources Canada, and then, of course, there was the Infrastructure Bank money as well. If at first we do not succeed, as the old saying goes, try, try again. As I said, these stories are actually beyond belief and there are many other things that we could talk about here.
A gentleman named Guy Ouimet admitted in the committee that $17 million of green slush fund money went to companies that he has a financial interest in. He said it was a small amount of money. I do not think $17 million is a small amount of money. Interestingly enough, his actual shares in those companies, and this is an investment that anybody would love to have, went up 1,000% since that investment was made in 2019. It is gobsmacking. It takes our breath away when we hear these actual numbers.
In this place, I would suggest that we are charged to look at these things. I would say that one of the saddest days was when I went to watch the committee in action for a very short period of time. The Ethics Commissioner was there and was giving witness testimony and was questioned by my friend from South Shore—St. Margarets. My friend from South Shore—St. Margarets asked the Ethics Commissioner why he had not investigated the other eight Governor in Council appointments put out in the Auditor General's report as having conflicts of interest, where money flowed to companies they had an interest in.
Shockingly, the Ethics Commissioner asked what the point would be of investigating these Governor in Council appointments of people who are no longer on the board because he could not influence what happened to them. We now have an Ethics Commissioner who says that because they are gone now, he does not think we should investigate them, even though we know that 186 conflicts of interest happened, and now at least almost $400 million worth of taxpayers' money is gone and we need to shine a light on this.
