Madam Speaker, it is always a privilege to stand in the House to speak about important matters, not only to my constituents but also to all Canadians. It is always good to be able to do so in great detail, delving into the various areas of importance of a given issue.
Clearly, the House has not yet had ample time to consider the matter of privilege set before us or the full ramifications of the government's failures. We are happy to continue in our quest to help the government understand this issue. We will give it an opportunity to consider its position, and perhaps even reconsider it, and take the steps that the House has been requesting for some time now. That is to stop holding up the House's business and the business of the nation, as well as to turn over the documents so that we can get back to the pressing issues concerning Canadians, rather than the political issues that appear to be so concerning to the Liberal government.
The passion for secrecy and cover-ups that defines the government is deeply troubling. When we look at the scandals of the government, of the failed and corrupt Prime Minister, it is really quite astounding. We have the Aga Khan island scandal, SNC-Lavalin, WE Charity, billions of dollars in so-called COVID spending that found its way into the pockets of Liberal insiders, the ArriveCAN scam, McKinsey, the green slush fund, foreign interference, and the degree to which China has been allowed to infiltrate this country and put our citizens at risk.
The list goes on and on, and most of that is just from the Prime Minister. If we throw in a few of his ministers, the list gets exponentially longer. Every time, the Liberals seek to cover up the truth from Canadians. They refuse to produce documents, refuse to be transparent and refuse to answer the most basic questions; they cannot even bring themselves to tell us who the real Randy is. It is just sad. It is no wonder that a growing majority of Canadians no longer trust the Liberals and are champing at the bit to throw them out of office.
I had to laugh the other week. The Minister of Innovation is the same minister who was in charge of overseeing Sustainable Development Technology Canada, also known as SDTC, this green slush fund that we are going to keep talking about. He is a nice guy, but he said the other week that the question being asked on every street corner in Canada is why the Leader of the Opposition will not get his security clearance. That just shows how out of touch with Canadians the government is.
It tells me that the minister has not even ventured very far beyond Wellington Street in recent months. I can tell him that this is not the question Canadians are asking. They are not asking that of me in my riding, and I am talking to my constituents. Do members want to know what I hear every single day, often multiple times a day? I am asked when we can get rid of the Prime Minister. People say we need to get rid of him; we need to get rid of the corrupt Liberals who are destroying our country.
It does not matter if I am at a community event, a high school, a farm, a church event or even at Remembrance Day events. I have had the opportunity, as I am sure all of my colleagues have, to attend those Remembrance Day services during our constituency week. It is always a privilege to participate, particularly to meet our veterans and their family members. However, it is always the same. Even at Remembrance Day events, the question is the same: How and when are we getting rid of the Prime Minister? The Liberals are destroying the Canada people knew, loved and fought for. It is a sad indictment of the failed government and its radical, woke policies.
On the other hand, Canadians like our leader. There is a reason for that. The difference is that the Leader of the Opposition is listening to Canadians. He is not lecturing. We can watch the Leader of the Opposition at a rally or an event with staff. He will stand there, sometimes for hours, and meet every single person. He will take the time to talk to them, to ask them about themselves and their concerns. He takes the time to listen to Canadians.
I have seen the Leader of the Opposition go for three-plus hours at events. He is not telling people what to think, to feel or to believe. He is not talking down to them or going after them if they say something that he disagrees with. He is actually listening to Canadians. He is listening to their concerns and offering up common-sense solutions. Canadians are common-sense people, and they trust him and our great team over on this side of the House, Canada's common-sense Conservatives, to fix the problems that the government has created.
Trust is a big deal. Once that is broken, it is awfully hard to win it back. When someone breaks trust, when they get caught often enough, as the Liberals have, it is broken. When the people cannot trust the government, that spells disaster for a country. In a democracy where the government does not trust the people, that is equally disastrous. The current government does not trust the people.
It refuses to trust them with the truth. It refuses to listen to the growing majority of Canadians who are begging for the Prime Minister to step down, to give them the election they are asking for, a carbon tax election, a referendum on its disastrous record. Speaking of disaster, the government has often been compared to the Titanic, particularly when it comes to shuffling some of these failed ministers. The ship is plowing straight ahead toward an iceberg, another scandal. Rather than switch course, the Prime Minister is busy rearranging the deck chairs. This combination did not work for the Titanic and it is not going to work here either. However, he continues on with that. He shuffles the chairs. He sees a minister failing in one or two portfolios and he promotes them to a third.
I think there is a secondary way we could look at this comparison, particularly in relation to an iceberg being a scandal, including the scandal of SDTC. When we see an iceberg, 90% of it is under water; it is hidden from view. That is often how scandals work. We only see 10%. We only see a sliver, and there is an indication there is something going on here. Something does not feel right. Something is amiss here, but it is only 10% of the real scandal. There is 90% hidden from view. They want to keep talking about this motion because they want to keep covering it up. They refuse to hand over the documents. It begs the question: what else are they hiding? What else is that 90% that we have not even discovered?
It is dangerous to Canadians, but it is far more dangerous to the government and the Prime Minister to shed light onto that. The sad part is that these Liberals are desperately trying to cover up their latest scandal to protect the Prime Minister who is not worth the cost, the chaos or the corruption. Canadians are hurting and they are afraid. Like I said, I go home every weekend so I can connect with and hear from my constituents. A lot of folks cannot afford to eat, heat or house themselves in Canada. Many of these folks have good jobs, and some of them have more than one job. They work hard, they work long hours, but they still cannot afford the skyrocketing cost of living under the government.
The government has borrowed, printed and spent money so recklessly as to double the size of our national debt. The Prime Minister has spent more money than every other prime minister and government in our history combined. They are addicted to spending. There are solutions for people who are addicted and that is to get addictions counselling. I think that is what the government needs. As a result of this addiction, everyday Canadians are forced to make sacrifices and they are getting tired of doing it. They are sick of the corruption they see happening here in Ottawa. They are sick of the government having its hand in its pocket. They are sick of being told what to think, feel and believe. They are sick of the arrogant, “I-know-better-than-everyone” attitude that pervades the Liberal government. They are fed up with seeing their hard-earned money that should be going to feed their kids, fix the house, maybe go into a savings account for a rainy day, go into the pockets of wealthy and well-connected Liberals, like what has happened at SDTC.
Here, on the opposition benches, at least Conservatives are saying that we understand, we hear them, we agree. We are standing up for Canadians and their interests in Ottawa. We are here trying to hold the government accountable for the money it has stolen. Yes, I mean stolen. It has stolen it from the taxpayer. SDTC, this green slush fund, where Liberals took taxpayer dollars and gave them to their own companies, that is theft. ArriveCAN was theft. The government and the Prime Minister need to be held accountable. To what extent they must be held accountable we will not know until we actually see the full damage, until we see the documents and until Canadians know what was happening with that 90% under the water.
As I mentioned earlier, the sad reality is we sit here debating what is really undebatable. The folks at SDTC took nearly $400 million of taxpayer dollars and gave it to themselves. That is indefensible. The sad reality is, while we are here debating this, there are other important issues we are not able to address.
The government's failure to be transparent has bogged us down in process for weeks now. All the Liberals need to do for the House to continue with the good work that it should be doing is come clean and present the documents unredacted, as they have been been requested to do by the Speaker of the House. Then we can all get back to important issues. However, they will not do that. They refuse. They are way more concerned with their own plight than that of the people they are supposed to be serving.
I would like to take a few minutes to talk about some of the issues that folks in my riding of Provencher are bringing to me, who tell me what could have been done with the $400 million. I have already mentioned some of the scandals, the Liberal corruption and the desire for the Prime Minister to finally take a hint and resign. I have also mentioned some of the major issues for my people. I think for the country it is about the cost of living, but here are a few more issues.
The abuses heaped by governments at all levels on citizens during COVID still remain a major issue in my riding. Restrictions and vaccine mandates damaged the social fabric of our communities and a generation of young people.
Two years ago, when we were debating Bill C-293 in the House, I raised the troubling reality that some 51,714 documented Canadians had suffered vaccine injuries as a result of their COVID shots. At the time, I reported, based on the numbers available on the government's website, that 10,501 people had suffered severe reactions, including 874 anaphylactic reactions, 1,342 cases of myocarditis, 104 thrombosis cases and 382 reports that had an outcome of death. I also shared that despite all of that, the government's vaccine injury support program had paid out a mere eight claims. Many Canadians do not know this, but the government does have a vaccine injury support program. It is called VISP. It can be found on the Government of Canada's website.
That was in November 2022. Two years later, in November 2024, where we are today, the number of injuries has risen to 58,712, with 488 reported deaths. After two years, do colleagues know how many claims have been approved? After thousands of injuries and thousands of claims, a mere 183 claims have been approved. There is still a question as to whether compensation has actually been issued. The truly bizarre thing is that back in April, the government added another $36 million to the existing $75 million it had allocated to the vaccine injury support program. Why are folks not getting their money? The folks over at SDTC seemed to have had no problem disbursing nearly $400 million in fairly quick order.
These injured folks did what the government told them to do. The Prime Minister and all of his ministers looked down the lens of a camera and told Canadians to get these shots, that they were safe and effective. Every day, we heard from the Prime Minister. Every day he came out and told Canadians to get the shot; it would prevent them from getting sick. That did not work. It was supposed to prevent them from transmitting COVID to somebody else. That did not work. It was supposed to prevent them from going to the hospital. That did not work. It was supposed to prevent them from being in the ICU. That did not work. It was supposed to prevent them from dying. It did not prevent that either. In fact, the greatest number of deaths from COVID occurred among those who had been triple vaccinated.
