:
Mr. Speaker, I am privileged, yet saddened, to rise to honour my former boss, my mentor and my friend, Robert Sopuck. I thank all my colleagues for allowing me this opportunity to honour this great Canadian, the former member of Parliament for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.
Robert, or Bob as he was known by his many friends, passed away suddenly, but peacefully, last week in his home near Lake Audy, Manitoba. He is survived by his beloved wife, Caroline; two children, Tony, and his wife Lainee, and his daughter, Marsha, and husband Graham; three grandchildren, who he simply loved to teach about the outdoors, Eden, Senon and Esmee; by his sister, Joyce, and brother, Tim; by many nieces and nephews; and by so many other loved ones across the country who simply cherished Bob.
I want to offer, on behalf of the Conservative Party, our appreciation to Bob's family for sharing him with us, particularly his beloved wife, who he often referred to so proudly as “the inestimable Caroline.” His love for her serves as an inspiration for all of us who have been lucky enough to witness it.
Today I hope to do justice to a great parliamentarian, and a great man, and I apologize in advance as I may get emotional. I have some family with us today. My wife and I were married, but we had our big wedding celebration on Saturday, and we were expecting Bob and Caroline to be with us.
Back in 2016, I was hired by Bob after a very robust interview process. I went to his office and we talked about life and politics for about two hours over a scotch. He cared about the person, not the résumé. Little did I know at that time the profound impact he would have on my life.
Bob was described by a newspaper he surely never read, the Toronto Star, as the “right-wing environmentalist”, which is actually a very good way to describe him. However, he was not an environmentalist, he was a conservationist. He believed that those who lived, worked and played on the land were our best conservationists and the true environmentalists. He recognized the value of modern agriculture, of ranching, of natural resource development and all of the rural communities that those industries supported. He was an avid outdoorsman, a true conservationist himself, and perhaps the strongest advocate that hunters, anglers and trappers in Canada have ever had.
Bob was born to parents of eastern European descent and immigration, and while he was raised in the city, he spent his summers in Whiteshell, where he learned his love of the outdoors. He caught his first fish at the age of four with his father, which kicked off a life of outdoor pursuits.
Bob went on to receive an honours degree in science from the University of Manitoba, and then a Master of Fishery Science from an ivy league school, Cornell University, with a particular focus on rainbow trout. From there, he held a wide variety of careers in land, water and wildlife conservation. He worked as a fisheries biologist at both the provincial and federal levels before he decided he wanted to purchase a beautiful, sprawling piece of farmland near Lake Audy, just south of his beloved national park, Riding Mountain National Park, on which he built with his own hands a beautiful, secluded log home.
He spent a lot of time in the Arctic and did a lot of work there, focusing on Arctic char research, and had so many amazing stories. He had such respect for the people he had the chance to live with, the Inuit. He did some of the earliest environmental impact research on the long-proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline, and I think one of his greatest regrets is that pipeline never came to fruition.
Bob was a farmer. He was a guide. He was an outfitter. He was the environmental adviser for the former premier of Manitoba, Gary Filmon. He went on to be the environmental director at the Pine Falls paper plant, improving water quality, quantitatively. He worked for Delta Waterfowl, and after retiring from this place, returned as a board member there. He did environmental monitoring in the oil sands. He understood policy, because his boots were on the ground.
He often joked, when somebody would introduce him to do a speech, that it was reasonable to think “Can this guy not keep a job?”, but those jobs and those experiences formed his views on conservation and on natural resource development and the rural way of life.
I list this depth of careers because it highlights that he earned his stripes, which allowed him to be an incredible advocate and an even better member of Parliament.
Bob was a brilliant communicator, and he knew how important effective communications were, that words mattered. He was brilliant not because he was suave, some fast-talking salesman-type guy, but because he was authentic, honest, thoughtful, direct, articulate and had a heck of a vocabulary on him. He was wicked smart, and he always preferred to stand up for the little guy. He was not willing to lay down to the mobs, to the loud minority that wanted to shout down views like his at times. It was an inspiration when he so proudly and so frequently stood up and bluntly said what needed to be said. He had been doing it for decades.
Starting back in 2001, Bob wrote a regular column with the Winnipeg Free Press, in which he refused to shy away from issues like hunting and angling. Those essays beautifully articulated the spirituality and connection to family and nature that so many millions of Canadians enjoy today. He explained why so many of us felt that it was vital to protect the rights of those people and their ability to take part in those traditional heritage activities.
He went on to compile these essays into a wonderful book, A Life Outdoors, which, looking back while I was reading it last night, I think is an unintentional biography, from catching that first fish with his dad at four years old to his life as that avid outdoorsman. It is a wonderful book. I would encourage people to pick it up, particularly if they enjoy outdoor activities. It also has some phenomenal recipes for wild game, which I have tasted and are very good.
Bob had the chance to elevate those communication skills and decided to run for office back in 2010. He ran because he knew he had something to offer. He wanted to make a difference and to fight for what he believed in. That is what he did in this place every single day of his nine years as a member of Parliament.
Bob had an incredible understanding, which I was so lucky to have witnessed, of what this job was. The first was, obviously, to represent our local communities, to fight and advocate for them, and try to get things done for them. This is something that each and every one of us in the House works to do. The second was to do what was right for Canada, the big-picture country that has diverse views and many challenges at times, to fight for what was right and to fight with that same level of passion that he did for the communities he so proudly represented.
He knew his constituents. He knew their way of life, their values, their struggles, their challenges, their hopes, their dreams and their aspirations. He had the benefit that he had worked in politics in his early days with the Manitoba government, as had his wife, Caroline, which allowed him to be all the more effective. He knew when to be loud, when it made sense to pick a fight, and do it publicly, to try to move the needle on something. He also knew when it made more sense to keep it behind the scenes to try to quietly get things done. He knew to keep it on the ice, and that is why he was so respected and liked by colleagues from across party lines.
Locally, he was so proud to have helped deliver funding to pave Highway 10 through Riding Mountain National Park. Anybody who knows the area or lives in area and commutes through it knows how important it is. Anyone who has the chance to visit that beautiful national park will be a benefactor of the work he did lobbying to get that done, as has anyone who benefited from funding through the recreational fisheries conservation partnership program.
That program was launched back in 2013 and supported fisheries habitat restoration projects led by recreational angling groups, fisheries groups and conservation groups. There are lakes across Canada where spawning habitat has been restored, aerators have been installed and anglers will reap the benefits today, tomorrow and for the years ahead. Just as Bob wanted, it was done with the people who care so much about the natural world, who will get in hip waders, get into the water and want to make meaningful impacts on our fishery stocks. He knew the best people were those who wanted to get things done, who not only wanted to talk about doing things but they put their money where their mouth was.
Through perseverance, persuasion and perhaps just sheer stubbornness, he was able to convince former Finance Minister Flaherty and Prime Minister Harper to enable this plan, and it is an ever-lasting legacy for the projects that it undertook. It would never have happened without Bob Sopuck. I would go so far as to argue that, single-handedly, Bob has saved more fish in our country than anyone else ever has.
Throughout his career, he was an effective and long-time member of the fisheries committee and loved every minute of it. I think his colleagues appreciated him there, too. That committee was always, and I think still is, rather cordial with many unanimous reports. He was also on the environment committee, which at times is a little less polite.
Bob was a pit bull. Given his Ivy League education and his series of careers prior to being elected, not many people were going to best him at any topic at those two committees. That included the bureaucrats who I remember once telling Bob, whenever he was there, that they knew they had to be on their toes. He was so very proud of that. He just revelled in the opportunity to rip apart some pompous executive who thought they could get away with saying things that were not actual answers. He would fight to get the answers and he would run circles around them.
Now, I am a proud member of the environment committee, and the lessons I have learned could not be more clear. Some of those officials now know where I learned it from. I have to mention the Fisheries Act specifically, because Bob wrote a paper back in 2001 entitled “The Federalization of Prairie Freshwater”, which was the policy framework used by the Harper government when making important changes to the Fisheries Act.
It was 10 years after he wrote it that the catalyst for those changes finally happened: it was overland flooding in Saskatchewan. At the Craven country jamboree, threatened due to excess rain, a campground was unable to be pumped because DFO declared there was water there now, so clearly fish could be there. There was habitat so we had to prevent it from being pumped. Normal person logic said that was not really fish habitat, it was a campground, but it was the definition of fish habitat in the act that was the problem.
Bob knew it and identified it years earlier. He went on to lead the charge drafting that legislation to make those important changes to stop ridiculous overreach from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that had a real impact on rural Canadians and our prosperity. He understood that unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats had to be kept in check, that they did not understand our way of life, that he had to be involved in educating them.
Bob was the founder of our Conservative hunting and angling caucus with the help of his close friend, the member for . That member has carried the torch ever since. I know for a fact he will not only keep Bob's legacy alive, but he will be the steadfast advocate that community needs and will continue to work on their behalf. He is joined by so many of my Conservative colleagues, such as the member for , who are dedicated to protecting these communities. There are so many more; they know who they are, and it is appreciated.
There are millions of law-abiding firearms owners in this country, of hunters, of anglers, of people who contribute directly to enhancing our wildlife populations, and as Bob would always say, are the environment's best friends. We would not think communities like this necessarily need protecting, but, unfortunately, they do. For the most part, rural Canadians do not really care what happens in big cities. They just kind of want to be left alone, but for some reason, many of those radical environmental and animal rights activists living in their concrete jungles have a real keen interest in what happens on our private landscapes.
We need great MPs like my colleagues to continue to stand up for that now in his honour. I am proud to join those efforts and will continue to take part in any of those future fights. When I think back to some of the fights, he revelled in a good fight. One I remember he led the charge on, which was important, was Bill . It was an animal rights bill that would transfer human rights to animals. What it was going to do was destroy modern agriculture, animal livestock agriculture. It was going to destroy hunting and angling in this community.
He led with help from across party lines, using those relationships he had built by being the guy he was, to kill that legislation. I remember when the RCMP decided to try to appease those animal rights activists and get rid of the iconic muskrat hat for Mounties, Bob was having none of that. He wanted to protect the livelihood of those trappers across the country and the warmth of our frontline police officers serving in our northern communities. He walked the walk and he was a true friend of the trapping community. Many of us may remember him strutting around here with a fur jacket, with his own muskrat hat and these big old skunk mitts. He was the real deal.
Bob was always on the lookout for government overreach, or efforts that would impact the people he was sent here to represent, which is why he was great. He was not just about defending, he was vocal in supporting and promoting, proactively working to set the stage to communicate with the average person who otherwise might not think about these issues or even realize they cared about them. In many cases, these were urban audiences, like when he was writing for the Winnipeg Free Press.
What might be less known is the impact he had on so many people, directly, personally, individually and, particularly, on young people. I think it is important to highlight the legacy that this leaves behind. Bob freely shared his wisdom and his wealth of knowledge with young people around him, understanding that it was not just about today, that it was about tomorrow. Anything he could do to nurture the next generation, he was willing to do.
He was a mentor to so many of us, to those who worked directly for him and to our friends he got to know, he would spend time with and to whom he would give, generously, of his time. We, each and every one of us, loved him. He gave so much time. He would answer questions candidly, provide advice when asked and sometimes when not asked. He would share his life experiences and those incredible stories that he had amassed over that wonderful life of his. He treated us like part of the team or the family, which is why I think he was referred to as Uncle Bob by so many people. He made us believe that we actually had something to contribute, that we mattered.
I know I am going to miss some names on the list, but I want to give a bit of a scale of some who have been impacted. I think of Duncan, Brett, Michael, Blake, Olivier, Jay, Megan and the Simms boys, just to name a few. Just like him, he wanted us to be authentic and humble. He wanted us to be proud of where we were, what we were doing, where we were going and what it meant.
Simply put, he wanted each one of us to believe in ourselves and he made that a little bit easier. He loved telling stories and he had so many profound statements. I do not know what to call them other than Bob-isms. I can think of a couple, one of which was, “I take the view that if you give up fat, sugar, and alcohol too, you may not live longer, it will just feel that way.”
On a more serious note, there are two quotes. “Life is about chapters. You have to turn the page on one before you can start the next.” “Nothing lasts forever, and nothing stays the same.”
He lived in the now. He was not one for birthdays or arbitrary reasons to celebrate. He preferred milestones and achievements. He espoused sharing stories of the past, not living them, of looking to the future but not dwelling on it, enjoying the moment, and being proud and happy with where you were, being rational and thoughtful, asking questions and acting with purpose, and recognizing that the best way to achieve success was to do it with passion and to embrace the challenge in front of us and to find the opportunity within it.
When Bob retired, our relationship did not just stop like we would expect with many bosses and their employees. He called in regularly to catch up. I would go visit Bob and Caroline at the farm. He was the first to pledge a donation when I called him with the crazy idea that I was going to run for politics. He was the one I had introduce me at the nomination campaign launch. He has been by my side since the day we met and I will forever appreciate his friendship, as I know so many others do.
The best part is that I am not unique. There are so many others. I am part of a massive group of people to whom he has meant more than he can ever know. I am going to miss Bob. I thought we had more calls. I thought we had more business on the farm ahead of us. I will be forever grateful for all he has done for me.
In closing, I want to share a quote from one of Bob's favourite writers, Henry David Thoreau. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Bob lived and lived well. He was a great Canadian and he will live on in all of us who had the privilege to know him. I cannot think of any higher achievement, any higher recognition of a life well lived, than having those who knew us proudly say, after we are gone, that we lost one of the good ones but that I am happy I knew him.
He achieved that. We will miss him and we will never forget.
:
Mr. Speaker, what a privilege it is to stand here, as I am preparing to do a speech in a completely different direction, and have the opportunity to reflect on a colleague with whom I had a chance to serve for many years in the House of Commons, Bob Sopuck. It was such a privilege to listen to my hon. colleague's fantastic speech and reflections. My thoughts are, as everybody else's are, with the family.
Moving to the issue we have been discussing for quite some time and will potentially discuss for quite some time, I imagine until there is a resolution, the best way to start my comments today is to read from the opposition motion that precipitated the conversation we are having right now. It was from back in June, and I believe it passed in the House on June 10, which is a key date, as members will hear when I read from the motion.
The opposition motion, which passed the House with the support of the NDP, the Bloc and the Conservatives of course, stated:
That the House order the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Auditor General of Canada each to deposit with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, within 14 days of the adoption of this order—
The order was adopted on June 10.
—the following documents, created or dated since January 1, 2017, which are in its or her possession, custody or control:
(a) all files, documents, briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or any other correspondence exchanged among government officials regarding SDTC;
(b) contribution and funding agreements to which SDTC is a party;
(c) records detailing financial information of companies in which past or present directors or officers of SDTC had ownership, management or other financial interests;
(d) SDTC conflict of interest declarations;
(e) minutes of SDTC's Board of Directors and Project Review Committee; and
(f) all briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or any other correspondence exchanged between SDTC directors and SDTC management;
(g) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly thereafter notify the Speaker whether each entity produced documents as ordered, and the Speaker, in turn, shall forthwith inform the House of the notice of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel but, if the House stands adjourned, the Speaker shall lay the notice upon the table pursuant to Standing Order 32(1); and
(h) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall provide forthwith any documents received by him, pursuant to this order, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for its independent determination of whether to investigate potential offences under the Criminal Code or any other act of Parliament.
We are sitting here five months later and are continuing to debate this because the conditions in this opposition motion, passed by the House, have not been met. Of course, as soon as the House came back, our raised a question of privilege, and that question of privilege was debated at length.
In your ruling, Mr. Speaker, you referenced the adoption date of June 10, and we get a chance, from the speech you made when you made your ruling, to talk about some of the issues. As I was preparing for this speech, I took the time to read some of the comments you made. I have sat here and listened to government members, or future opposition members, hopefully in the near future, raise some of their concerns. I was not here for the debate when we were raising the question of privilege in the first place, but I did not realize that those concerns had been raised. You, Mr. Speaker, dealt with them and made the ruling that you made regardless. It is interesting to note that.
I will note that in the Speaker's ruling, the Speaker said, “The Chair cannot come to any other conclusion but to find that a prima facie question of privilege has been established.” He went on to say many other things, but he pointed out, even as he made some of the points the government has pointed to in its comments, questions and debate, that it is “ultimately for the House to decide how it wishes to proceed in the face of such objections”.
Here we are today as a House continuing to fight this situation.
We can take a look at some of the background, for folks who might be tuning in for the first time. Many people have heard of what we have referred to as the green slush fund, but we could refer to it with many different terms, all of which would probably properly focus on the scandalous nature of this situation. It goes back to the Auditor General of Canada finding that the turned SDTC into a slush fund for Liberal insiders, and this is the point we have made over and over again.
There is a recording of a senior civil servant talking about the “outright incompetence” of the Liberal government giving 390 million dollars' worth of contracts out inappropriately, at a time when the government is racking up unprecedented, and “unprecedented” is not a strong enough word for it, levels of spending, deficits and debt. We are spending more today on interest on the debt racked up by this government than we are spending on transfers to the provinces for health care. That is unheard of. I think that is uncomprehensible for most Canadians, and it is understandable that people would be infuriated by what they are hearing and that they would want answers.
What we are doing here, holding this place, temporarily, as His Majesty's official opposition, is getting prepared to clean up the mess the Liberal government has created. We are standing here on behalf of voters. I have the privilege to stand here on behalf of the voters of Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, who at every turn are asking me to level some form of accountability from the government, using the power I have, with the seat I have in the House, for the unbelievably and devastatingly wasteful spending we have seen.
In this case, we are talking about $390 million. The Auditor General found that SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that, on occasions, could not demonstrate any environmental benefit or development of green technology at all. We are talking about $334 million, from 186 cases, to projects where board members held a conflict of interest and $58 million to projects without ensuring contribution agreements were met. I believe the Auditor General also made it very clear that the responsibility falls on the Liberal government and the Liberal responsible.
We are here to get answers. We moved a motion so information could be made available to the appropriate authorities. I have to make it really clear that nowhere in the motion does the House order the RCMP to conduct an investigation. This is something the Liberals have said over and over again. The House is simply asking that documents be provided and have the opportunity to be scrutinized.
The whistle-blower who was at the public accounts committee had this to say: “Just as I was always confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement at SDTC, I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.” We trust the whistle-blower, and if the documents are provided, we have faith in the RCMP to decide what to do with them.
I will note, for history's sake, that the Auditor General gave a clean bill of health to SDTC back in 2017, so it is important to understand the timeline, with a government that chose Liberal insiders as board members since then. Liberal members have had lots of time to speak on this topic and make arguments. It was only after 2017 that we saw the board voting to give itself tax dollars from the fund the Auditor General is referring to.
It is interesting because the hon. member, the lead member in the House for the Liberal side who stands up so often in this place and who just heckled me, can go into caucus every Wednesday and, if he wants to, make the argument to have these documents produced so Canadians can make their assessment. Surely, if his argument is correct, the documents will bear that out and then he can stand up in the House and point to those documents. I am not sure whether he can get on the list to actually speak in the caucus meetings; I am not sure what the process is. It might be easier to get up on this topic. I am sure the Liberals are looking for anybody to get up and talk about anything other than whether their leader should step down right now, so maybe this is the time. I will give him some advice, if he is willing to take it, that maybe this is his opportunity to make the argument for the release of these documents so his arguments can be borne out.
I will tell members why Canadians are concerned. I host constituent round tables. We do something a little unique where we bring in 16 constituents on a rotating basis and do 40 or 50 two-hour round tables; people come in, we go around the table and everybody gets a chance to speak, which may be a bit foreign to Liberal members. Everybody gets a chance to speak and raise their issues, and then we have a really good discussion on the issues. I will tell members that at these round tables, people are talking about how they are trying to live their lives in the context of the unbelievable crises, on multiple fronts, that have been caused by the Liberal government. They bring up issues around housing. More and more people are showing up at my round tables. This is in Alberta, where the cost of housing is less expensive than in other parts of the world, but still constituents are talking about housing challenges.
The thing I have noticed more than at any other time, and I have been hosting these round tables for 19 years as a member of Parliament, is that I am seeing 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds coming to round tables talking about the fact that they are having trouble finding work. Then, when they find work and start working full time, they do not believe they are ever going to be able to afford a down payment for a house. In some cases, they are worried they cannot even afford rent for a house. Again, this is not something that I have seen before. However, I have actually seen the same kinds of concerns brought up as I have travelled the country speaking on other things to university students.
Another thing we are hearing a lot about is crime and safety. I am hearing more from young people who are going to university and do not feel safe on public transit anymore. It is an absolutely common concern brought up by constituents at my round tables. Also, I am certainly hearing a lot about budget balance and fiscal responsibility, and questions on who is going to pay for this massive bill incurred by the Liberal government; I do not even want to say it is with a lack of results.
Certainly, there has been a lack of results corresponding to the spending, but the worst thing about this situation is that the more the government spends, the worse the results are. Our outcomes are going down on almost every front that can be measured. The Liberals' response in the House of Commons day in and day out is to ask why we will not support their ever-increasing spending. They have introduced new programs. It is probably good that we are having this prolonged debate right now, in the sense that we want to get an outcome with some accountability; at the same time, while we are having this conversation, the Liberals cannot introduce a new $10-billion, $20-billion or $30-billion program they have cooked up with the NDP, in partnership, to drive us even further into debt. Day in and day out, that has been the Liberals' answer: “Why will you not spend more? Why will you not support us to spend even more money?” Taking a look at the numbers, over $300 million in this case, it is no wonder Canadians do not trust the government to spend their money.
I was elected in January 2006. When I got elected, I replaced someone who had sat on the Liberal side for four straight elections. The context at that time, the main issue, was the sponsorship scandal. The sponsorship scandal did not even come close to touching the numbers we are talking about now. We talked at that point about the long-gun registry that had been brought in by the Liberal government. That seems like ancient history, but we are seeing history repeating itself over and over again. Now we have a gun buyback, which is a complete misnomer because the government never owned the firearms in the first place. The government is talking about spending billions of dollars buying firearms from law-abiding Canadians while record levels of firearms are being smuggled into our country, illegal firearms being used by criminals on the street right now, and the government is doing nothing about it. Of course, back in those days, we also had the HRDC boondoggle and irresponsible spending.
At that time, those were huge issues that brought down a minority Liberal government, but the context is much different today. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars more in deficit spending over the years and our fiscal situation is on the brink of disaster. We have not seen it this tough since the Trudeau years of the 1970s and 1980s. The Trudeau legacy was very difficult for subsequent governments to dig out of. In fact, as I often remind my Liberal colleague across the way, it was the Martin-Chrétien Liberal government that had to cut record levels in spending for health care, social services and education. Because of the policies of the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties, there had to be 32% cut, absolutely cut, from spending on health care, social services and education, through government transfers, in 1995. That legacy has obviously continued and worsened today.
We are in a worse situation today because of subsequent governments within that same legacy. I believe that out of 25 budgets, there were 24 deficits. That is intolerable when we look at the context of what we are discussing today. We need to get to the bottom of this. As we work to get to the bottom of this, I think the one thing that would help right now would be, quite honestly, if the finally had a realization, if he listened to some of his caucus colleagues who are speaking out. If there is a lot of confidence over there, maybe we will hear that in their questions: declarations of confidence in the Liberal government's approach to things.
If the Liberals are so confident in their approach, maybe we could have an election. Maybe this would be the time. It is the longest-serving minority Parliament in history because of the support the NDP has given the Liberals, to prop it up. Maybe it is time we have an election and take it to the people. If the hon. member over there and his colleagues are so confident, surely their fortunes would turn around and they would be confident in having an election based on the policies of the government, a carbon tax election, which so many Canadians are calling for.
:
Mr. Speaker, members opposite may think that we are here to talk about the production of documents, something that has engaged the House for weeks now. I suspect that the Liberals have set themselves to tune out any words I say and perhaps instead are watching cat videos on their phones.
The documents in question are really not the issue here, and the government knows that. The government does not want its own Liberal members to understand what the issues are. It wants them to keep watching cat videos in the hopes that they will not realize just how much contempt their and their ministers have for them and for the House.
The has ruled that the Liberals have violated an order by the House to turn over evidence to the police for a criminal investigation into the latest Liberal scandal, which involves $400 million. In essence, the government is telling us that it knows best and that the will of the House can be ignored no matter what the Speaker and the members say.
However, as the said in his mandate letter to the previous government House leader, “Canadians expect us to work hard, speak truthfully and be committed to advancing their interests and aspirations. When we make mistakes—as we all will—Canadians expect us to acknowledge them, and most importantly, to learn from them.”
It is time for the government to speak truthfully. It does not want the documents released, not because it is concerned about the legal process but because it is embarrassed. The Auditor General has found that Liberal appointees gave $400 million of taxpayers' money to their own companies. This involved 186 conflicts of interest. The government is concerned that providing the documents would reveal even more corruption.
The issue is about $400 million of wasted or stolen taxpayers' money, while Canadians cannot afford to eat, heat their home and house themselves. The government's embarrassment is understandable. The implication of what has so far been revealed is that Liberals were illegally benefiting Liberals, advancing their own interests and aspirations instead of the country's best interests. What was supposed to be a way of fighting climate change was instead a way to line the pockets of people who had Liberal connections.
After nine years of the current government, Canadians are not surprised by the climate hypocrisy; however, there is no reason for them to accept it. The has apparently forgotten his own words about admitting mistakes and learning from them, or maybe he thinks he and his government are so perfect that mistakes are impossible so there is nothing to acknowledge and nothing to learn.
The government seems to think there is a problem with the opposition parties in this matter. The Liberals say that the work of the House is being tied up and that if the opposition would just allow a committee to deal with the matter, then we could get on with more important business. The government wants to know why the opposition cannot see that.
When Liberal cabinet ministers make statements like that, they seem to have checked their collective brain at the door. What is more important for the House than to establish that the government does not dictate to the elected members? When the House makes an order and the Speaker affirms the order, the government does not get to say no.
I realize it would be more convenient for the Liberals if the opposition did not exist. That may be why its first idea at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was to suggest that it be given free rein to act without parliamentary oversight. The government wanted the opposition parties to go home and allow it to work without oversight. That is not the way parliamentary democracy is supposed to work. I would hope that the government MPs who were here at the time look back on that period with a certain amount of embarrassment that they were persuaded to agree to such a thing.
This was, after all, supposed to be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. In 2013, the newly elected Liberal leader, today's , said, “Political leadership is about raising the bar on openness and transparency.” Eleven years later, the government has a reputation for secrecy. The Prime Minister will not release the documents. What is he trying to hide?
The seems to have forgotten his own words, or maybe he was just saying something he did not believe in order to get elected. Canadians believed him when he said, “For me, transparency isn’t a slogan or a tactic; it’s a way of doing business.” In 2024, Canadians doubt the truth of that statement. Obviously it was a slogan and a tactic designed to fool the public.
Canadians are no longer fooled. If the and his government believed in transparency, there would be no need for me to be speaking today. They would have released the documents already. Instead they look like a criminal with something to hide.
The supposedly open and transparent government is defying the will of the House. The Liberals' actions show just how hollow their idealistic words are. If the Liberals want to move the work of the House forward, something we all would like to see, then the path forward is simple: Obey the will of the House, accept the ruling of the and provide the documents.
What happens to the documents is not the Liberals' concern. They are not the Law Clerk. They are not the RCMP. The government should not be telling others what to do with the material. The Liberals have already shown that a cover-up is their preference. They must end the cover-up and hand over the evidence to the police so Parliament can get back to working for Canadians. Why do they continue to defy the will of the House and the ruling of their own ?
It is probably worth mentioning again why this is an issue. The Auditor General of Canada found that the government, led by a who boasted about transparency, turned Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. A recording of senior civil servants slammed the outright incompetence of the Liberal government, which gave 390 million dollars' worth of contracts inappropriately.
The Auditor General also found that, first, SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that on some occasions could not demonstrate an environmental benefit or development of green technology. Second, $334 million was given to over 186 projects in which board members had a conflict of interest. Third, $58 million was given to projects without ensuring that contribution agreement terms were met. The Auditor General made it clear that the blame for the scandal falls on the industry minister, who did not sufficiently monitor the contracts that were given to Liberal insiders.
By not complying with the 's ruling, the Liberals have paralyzed Parliament, making it impossible for anyone here to address issues like the doubling of housing costs, Liberal food inflation, and crime and chaos. Given the Liberal record, I wonder whether that is their plan. With the level of incompetence they have displayed over the past nine years, I would not want to talk about housing, crime or the economy either, but maybe we should.
After all, after nine years of the Liberal government, Canadians have never been less safe. Insane catch-and-release policies are putting dangerous repeat violent offenders back onto our streets. The reckless experiment of taxpayer-funded hard drugs has created crime, chaos and disorder across Canada. Statistics Canada has revealed that since 2015, violent crime is up by nearly 50%. Homicides are up 28%, while sexual assaults, auto theft and extortion are up 74%, 45% and 357% respectively.
Meanwhile, the Liberals' failed experiment funding hard drugs with taxpayer dollars has increased drug deaths by 184% since 2015. In London, Ontario, the chief of police has been clear about the unfolding disaster, saying, “Diverted safe supply is being resold into our community. It's being trafficked into other communities and it is being used as currency in exchange for fentanyl, fuelling the drug trade.”
In British Columbia, the Vancouver Police Department noted that around 50% of all hydromorphone seizures were diverted from the's taxpayer-funded hard drugs program. Since 2015, nearly 45,000 Canadians have died from drug overdose. It seems that everyone except the current government can see the problem.
When it comes to housing, the Liberals know they created a problem, but they do not know how to fix it. Housing has become unaffordable in Canada because we are failing to build enough homes for Canadians. This was confirmed by a recent report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, which showed that Canada is still building fewer homes than in the 1970s, when Canada had half the population it has today.
National housing starts declined by 13% between August 2023 and August 2024. There has been a 25% drop in housing starts in Ontario. In Toronto, housing starts in August 2024 had a massive 48% decline over 2023, while Vancouver saw a drop of 34% year over year.
The Liberals' housing hell is not limited to Toronto or Vancouver. Across British Columbia, housing starts dropped by 31%, and in Victoria housing starts decline by 33%. Manitoba and Saskatchewan housing starts have dropped by 14% and 12% respectively during the first eight months of this year compared to the same period in 2023. Winnipeg's housing starts are down by 16% over the same period, while Ottawa had 17% fewer new housing projects. Housing remains unaffordable in Canada, in spite of the Liberals' giving billions of dollars to the same gatekeepers who caused the housing crisis in the first place.
Since last year, food prices in Canada have risen overall by 3.9%, with meat up by 9.5% and margarine up by 9.9%. The price of baby food has increased by 5%. These price increases hit seniors and low-income Canadian families the hardest. According to a recent poll by Angus Reid Institute, more than one-third of Canadians have struggled to afford enough food to feed their family. This is unacceptable.
Our food prices are an afterthought for the Liberal government. While inflation may have slowed, food prices are not going down, and the Liberal's carbon tax further restricts producers' competitiveness through added transportation costs. It is fair to say that Canada's food security is at a tipping point.
These are definitely not topics that the Liberals want to address. Since they have no plans to fix anything, they instead tie up the work of the House, hoping that Canadians will not notice. The Liberals try to pretend that they are standing on principle, instead of being open and transparent. They are trying to convince Canadians that covering up wrongdoing is a virtue. Canadians do not believe them.
The Liberals say it is all the opposition's fault, while they continue to do the wrong thing as they ignore the will of the House of Commons and the authority of the . Instead they are trying to deflect the issue and are pretending the order is somehow improper. What could be more proper than the House of Commons' demanding accountability from the government? There is 800 years of constitutional tradition backing that up. The may not like it, but we are not here to do what he likes; we are here to do what is right.
The government's House leader has said this debate is, “something every single Canadian should be extremely alarmed about.” I agree. Canadians should be alarmed and concerned about a government that thinks it is above the law. Canadians should be alarmed by a government whose ministers do not seem to understand what constitutes a conflict of interest. Canadians should be alarmed by a government that illegally rewards its friends. Canadians should be alarmed by a government that tries to cover things up while claiming to be open and transparent.
Parliament needs to be respected by the government. The documents must be released. It is not the government's responsibility to consider what happens when the documents are released. It can let the law clerk and the RCMP worry about that. That is not the Liberals' job. The Liberals' duty is to release the documents and to stop their contempt of Parliament, which is the democratic system that they claim to uphold.
When a party that claims to be the most transparent government in Canadian history refuses to respect the will of the House of Commons, Canadians are right in wondering what the party is trying to hide. We know there is something questionable about the $400 million. How much more is there? Canadians deserve to know the truth, no matter how much the Liberals want to cover it up.
We all know why we are here. The Liberals' selective amnesia is not fooling Canadians. The Auditor General found evidence of serious mismanagement at SDTC, and maybe even criminal activity. The Liberals response to this, as with so many other things, is to cover it up and pretend there is no problem. Maybe, from their perspective, there is no problem. After all, apparently the funds in question went to those with Liberal connections. How can anyone see a conflict of interest in awarding contracts to a few friends?
The Liberals need to remember that this is not their money. The $400 million did not come from the Liberal Party. It came from ordinary Canadians who are struggling to put food on the table as they are being carbon taxed to death. They deserve better. The is fond of telling the media and the House that Canadians will forgive him for not taking direction from the Conservatives. His ministers frequently use the same line. It makes for a nice media clip.
However, the and his ministers really should take direction from Conservatives respecting Parliament, ethics and transparency, not to mention crime, housing, taxation and balancing the budget. No, I do not think Canadians are going to forgive him.
:
Mr. Speaker, is an honour to rise in the House once again. Before I speak to the motion of privilege, if the House will indulge me, I will say that tomorrow will be one year since the of passing of mom and missing of her cookies. However, we smile and we celebrate her life today. I know that she watched me speak many times in the House. As we have all lost loved ones, it kind of hits home today.
First and foremost, I am honoured to represent the wonderful people of Essex and to address the House today. As my colleague and friend, the member for , pointed out last week during his speech on this very topic, we are once again proud to stand today on behalf of the constituents of our ridings to hold the government accountable for its Liberal corruption. However, we do not take any pleasure in this. Returning to our ridings, trying to explain how the government has undermined our institutions and corrupted the way government operates is truly a disheartening example of governance.
I want to highlight the government's mishandling of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, often called the green slush fund. This program was created in 2001 to support innovation and sustainable technologies, and ran smoothly under both Liberal and Conservative governments until the current took office. I know a thing or two about clean technology.
It is unacceptable that the Liberals are refusing to hand over all the documents related to the green slush fund to the RCMP within the required days. My colleagues on the public accounts committee received a report from the Auditor General last June in which she found that the Liberal government had turned the once legitimate Sustainable Development Technology Canada into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. The Auditor General found that the Liberal-appointed SDTC board members who voted to give out that money had a conflict of interest.
I am tired of this lack of transparency, which only deepens distrust and frustrations among Canadians. After nearly a decade in power, we have yet more evidence that the NDP-Liberals are not worth the cost in terms of both financial resources and the increasing crime and corruption that has plagued the government. Their inability to be transparent about their actions is unacceptable.
The Speaker has ruled that the NDP-Liberals have violated a House order to turn over evidence to the police regarding a criminal investigation into their latest $400-million scandal. This blatant disregard for accountability shows their ongoing refusal to be open and honest with Canadians.
The Speaker's ruling, coupled with the NDP-Liberals' stubbornness, has effectively paralyzed Parliament. This inaction makes it impossible for us to address pressing issues like skyrocketing housing costs, rampant food inflation and the rise of crime and chaos in our communities. We cannot move forward while they hide behind their secrecy.
While it used to be normal for working-class young people to buy homes, now 80% of Canadians tell pollsters that home ownership is only for the very rich and definitely out of their reach. After nine years of NDP-Liberals the situation is so bad that there are now 1,400 homeless encampments in Ontario alone.
In Ontario and British Columbia, government charges account for more than 30% for the cost of a new home. The federal government takes the biggest share. In Ontario, about 39% of total taxes on a new home go to politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa. The GST alone adds $50,000 in cost to a $1 million home. In my great riding of Essex, people are struggling. According to the Windsor-Essex County Association of Realtors' September market update, the average sales price was up 8.2% to $579,290.
At a time when many Canadians are struggling to make ends meet, with rising housing and food costs, it is incredibly disappointing that we find ourselves still discussing the Liberal government's role in the $400-million green slush fund scandal. The Auditor General has clearly stated that the responsibility for this scandal lies directly with the former Liberal industry minister, as well as the current one, who failed to adequately oversee the contracts awarded to Liberal insiders. This lack of oversight has contributed to a serious breach of public trust at a moment when transparency and accountability are more important than ever.
At the heart of this issue is the Auditor General's finding that Liberal appointees were allocating $400 million of taxpayer money to their own companies, resulting in 186 documented conflicts of interest. This is not just a scandal; it is a betrayal of the trust that Canadians place in their government, and it underscores the urgent need for transparency.
This money could have gone back into the pockets of hard-working Canadians or toward beneficial programs that would help our communities. This money may have been used to support neighbourhood projects, support the growth of small enterprises or lessen the financial strain on families dealing with growing expenses. It is a lost chance that may have had a significant impact on the lives of regular people. We are talking about $400 million in taxpayer money that may have been wasted or stolen, while everyday Canadians struggle to afford food, heating and housing.
This situation is intolerable, especially when so many are suffering due to the government's lack of accountability. The NDP-Liberals must put an end to their cover-up and hand over the evidence to the police. Only then can Parliament get back to its critical work of serving the interests of Canadians. Their continued obstruction is unacceptable.
The division between those in government and regular Canadians who must deal with the fallout from such carelessness is widened by this incident. Why will the NDP-Liberals not stop hiding behind the green slush fund and release the required documentation so that Canadians can have the openness and accountability they deserve? Only our sensible Conservative colleagues will put an end to the turmoil and corruption and figure out what happened to the $400 million.
To know where we are going, we must know where we came from, and it is really important to speak about the scandal timeline.
Dating back all the way to late 2018, the then Liberal industry minister, Navdeep Bains, expressed concerns regarding the Harper-era chair of SDTC, Jim Balsillie, given his public criticism of the government's privacy legislation. Minister Bains then proposed two alternative chairs to the CEO of SDTC as replacements in a phone call. One of the candidates proposed was Annette Verschuren, an entrepreneur who was receiving SDTC funds through one of her companies. Then the minister, PMO and PCO were warned of the risks associated with appointing a conflict chair, and were told that, up until this point, the fund never had a chair who had interests in companies. It then went into June 2019, another full year later, and Minister Bains decided to proceed with the appointment of Annette Verschuren despite repeated warnings expressed to his office. The new chair then went on to create an environment where conflict of interests were tolerated and “managed”. Minister Bains then went on to appoint two other controversial board members who engage in unethical behaviour in a breach of conflict of interest.
Now we are all the way to June of 2024. By the way, I skipped over five or six other points I could have made. However, in June of 2024, the Auditor General's report was released, finding severe governance failures of SDTC. Our colleagues asked a whole bunch of very direct, pointed questions at the committee. One of the testimonies on SDTC in committee was that:
Just as I was always confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement at SDTC, I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.
We also heard that:
The true failure of the situation stands at the feet of our current government, whose decision to protect wrongdoers and cover up their findings over the last 12 months is a serious indictment of how our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference. It should never have taken two years for the issues to reach this point. What should have been a straightforward process turned into a bureaucratic nightmare that allowed SDTC to continue wasting millions of dollars and abusing countless employees over the last year.
We can look at those folks who are so busy trying to run their businesses, who are working overtime to try to make ends meet, those young adults who are trying desperately to figure out how they are going to afford a home, if they can afford a home, and those folks standing in lines at food banks who do not have time and/or the energy to watch the House of Commons. They are very busy trying to get their lives back in order after the failed Liberal-NDP coalition. Because of that, I want to give a quick overview of the privilege motion and why it is so important that we have this debate today.
To really bring us all back to kindergarten, the key mandate of SDTC, a federally funded non-profit, is to approve and disburse over $100 million in funds annually to clean technology companies. In a former life, back when I was in the world of business, we did exactly that: clean technology. Is it a good thing to have clean technology? Absolutely, it is. It protects our environment and creates great jobs. Exporting that technology is a lot of what our business did.
However, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, was established in 2001 by the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to fund the development and demonstration of new technologies. 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. It is responsible for the administration of the tech fund.
Here are the problems. The key problem is that SDTC executives awarded to projects, in which they held conflicts, over $330-million worth of taxpayer funds.
In 2019, the former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains began appointing conflicted executives to the board. The Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner initiated separate investigations after whistle-blowers came forward with allegations of financial mismanagement.
The , in 2015, spoke about sunny ways. What he really said was that we were going to have an election on transparency. Canadians not only deserve the documentation, Canadians want the documentation. They want it handed over so that the RCMP can do what it needs to do.
Why are we into, I believe, week four of this debate, if the government has absolutely nothing to hide and no conflict of interest and if there is nothing to see here, just like the many other conflicts of interest that we have seen the government, since 2015, be a part of?
Canadians do not forget. They do not forget about the Aga Khan. They do not forget about the WE scandal. It is getting awfully tiring to have to continue to hold the government to account, to hold its feet to the fire, when what we really should be debating in the House is how we are going to get Canadians' lives back on track. We cannot do it because we need to know the truth. We need to know where the slush fund dollars are going. We know who is ultimately responsible for this. We need to know for sure that these dollars were invested properly, that big corporations, big buddies of the Liberals, are not padding their pockets with this.
Why do we have people standing at food banks? Why do we have veterans lying in the streets? Why do we have an opioid crisis? Why do we have so much money that should be used to help everyday Canadians and their families, putting diapers on babies and pablum in their mouths, going to profit large corporations, only friends of the ?
I was elected in 2019 and they just said to bring common sense to the House of Commons. I said that I would do my best. Sometimes, it really blows my mind when we hear the hypocrisy from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who want to talk about everything but the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is nothing more than the , who spoke about nothing other than transparency in 2015. We now have zero transparency. In order for me to represent the great folks of Essex the best, they deserve answers. Therefore, we in the House of Commons, the official opposition, deserve answers.
That is why I am very proud to speak about this today. We will continue to hold the government to account. It is the service and the job of the official opposition to hold the government to account. That is why it is so important, to those folks at home who perhaps wonder why we are spending so many days on this. Quite frankly, it is because we are responsible to them, ultimately, and we will not stop. We will be very steadfast in continuing the hard work that we do here in the House of Commons.
In closing, I just really want to reiterate one more time why this is so important. It is a question of privilege for all of us. We know that we cannot effectively do the important work that we are asked to do without the answers. We are not asking for anything other than the documents. It is as though I had a buddy and my buddy said to just show them, if we have nothing to hide. All we are really asking is for them to just show us. If they have nothing to hide, show us, and we will move on with government business.
As always, it is an honour to represent the folks of Essex.
I look forward to questions from my colleagues, but more importantly, I look forward to getting this resolved so we can get Canadians back on track, we can put diapers on the little ones, we can feed the little ones, our young adults can have a good-paying job and, probably most importantly, we can see some light at the end of the tunnel. We know where that light is. I am excited to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
:
Mr. Speaker, on that day, the NDP were acting a little silly. They were lightheartedly trying to delay the vote by blocking Gord from coming down the aisle. The NDP were not being out of line or in any way aggressive. Anyone who knew Gord knew he could stickhandle his way past any opponent if he wanted to. However, that is not what the saw. He saw the NDP blocking his agenda, grew impatient, left his chair and crossed the floor, a floor that is two sword lengths for a reason. This is meant to symbolize that we value debate over physical conflict.
The crossed that symbolic floor, grabbed Gord and pulled him through the crowd of MPs. In the process, he elbowed an NDP MP in the breast. The Prime Minister of Canada had physically assaulted two opposition members because he was impatient with parliamentary democracy, just as he is now. That should have been the end of him as Prime Minister, but apparently that is not disqualifying for the Liberals.
Had the Liberal backbench had the courage, they could have removed him then. That would have spared them the optics of kicking out Canada's first aboriginal attorney general from her job for not following the 's order to obstruct justice. Had they acted then, Canada might have had a Prime Minister who read his briefing notes about the Communists he admires interfering in democracy, and that is what these documents relate to.
Instead, they sat on their hands and watched passively as scandal after scandal revealed their emperor had no clothes, except for his pretty socks. This should not surprise anyone. Too often, I have heard Liberal MPs refer to the as their boss. That comment alone tells us how upside down the Liberals see democracy. This is well understood in other Westminster-style parliaments, but these Liberals clearly need it explained to them in simple terms. The leader of a party is not the boss. Our constituents are the boss. We work for them. The leader works for us. That is how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work.
Instead, the Liberals have handed all their power to the and his powerful PMO. Now the Prime Minister is rubbing their faces in it. He keeps finding himself in contempt of Parliament because he has nothing but contempt for Parliament. However, it is not just Parliament. Something about the serving Prime Minister makes former cabinet ministers want to bare their soul in the form of a tell-all book. It is almost a form of seeking absolution for the sin of enabling him.
What is alarming is how much these books reveal about the aloof, incurious and arrogant . More alarming is that nothing has changed and every member of the Liberal Party knows it. They see first-hand how he manages caucus. Not once have I ever heard them speak about his democratic approach to party management. Canadians heard how the Prime Minister talked about being a party leader last week. He talked as if he had all the power and the caucus was merely there to be disposed of when convenient.
We are here debating a subamendment, but this is not really a debate. This is an order from the House of Commons. Just like with the cover-up of the infiltration of Communist agents in the Winnipeg lab, the government is refusing to follow an order given to it by the elected representatives of 41 million Canadians. The government has tried everything to prevent the release of the documents. It even tossed in the kitchen sink, doing so with a charter. Only a Liberal would claim that well-connected Liberals have a charter right to steal our money.
They can claim whatever they want. It does not change the fact that they are ignoring an order from the House. In doing so, the government showcases its contempt for Parliament, but it is not only its contempt for Parliament that is showing. By withholding documents demanded by Parliament, the government is showing contempt for its own members. Each of them ran on a platform. We will disagree with that platform strongly and would be happy to keep that platform off the House of Commons agenda until the next election.
What is in those documents that is so damaging to the Liberal Party that it would abandon any future Liberal legislation if it means it can keep the cover-up going a bit longer? Its position only becomes more untenable the minute we think of it for even a second. Eventually, the government shall fall. Eventually, the people truly behind this scandal will be exposed. When that day comes, all of this obstruction by the Liberals will be for nothing.
What will they have to show for it? The only conclusion a reasonable person could reach is that there is more to this and that what happened at SDTC was just the tip of the Liberals' corrupt iceberg. As I have pointed out previously, this scandal is nearly identical to that in the local journalism initiative. There, the government gave 60 million hard-earned taxpayer dollars to a group of media lobbyists. Those media lobbyists, in turn, formed a committee with the job of handing out money to the local media in order to hire a local journalist. Of the seven committee members, five handed cash out to their own companies. In order for a media outlet to receive funding for a local journalist, it must promise to hand over the content the local journalist produces, free of charge, to the Canadian Press news wire. Can we guess which committee the head of the Canadian Press sits on? Everybody in the legacy media knows about this corruption, but not a single one will report on it, even after being called out in the House twice.
Before the current government, the biggest knock against the legacy media was its Liberal bias. Thanks to the , Canadians can add corruption to their list of media complaints, and that is not surprising. Everything the Prime Minister touches becomes tainted by him. Sustainable Development Technology Canada started over 20 years ago, and it had been a rare government success story; however, this bunch then did what they have done to so many Canadian institutions. They ruined it, and what is so egregious is that this never should have happened.
The government was warned. The former president at SDTC warned the minister not to appoint a person who had received funds from SDTC. That minister did it anyway. Now the organization is in shambles, and money is not going to qualified companies. Employees are demoralized because everything they touch becomes worse. How could it not under a who admires a basic dictatorship? At the core of his authoritarian streak is a mentality in which the ends justify the means.
The sees jobs in his riding as an end, so he justifies obstructing justice and sacking an honest minister who got in his way. He saw a routine vote in the House of Commons as an end, so he justified physically assaulting another member of Parliament. He sees handing out cash to well-connected friends as an end, so he justifies ignoring Parliament to keep doing it. Before the Liberal Party's next caucus, all its members need to ask themselves when they will become the means to bring an end to the Prime Minister's misrule.
As I mentioned earlier, the twin scandals of the green slush fund and the Liberal journalism initiative are just the ones we can see from our side of the floor. We know the government hands out so much money so quickly and with so few controls that it can fund a virulent anti-Semite to provide diversity training remotely from his home in Lebanon. Did anyone check to see if Laith Marouf was on any of those evacuation flights?
We are only standing at the base camp of a mountain of Liberal corruption. The government's entire agenda since 2021 has been to create unaccountable pots of money for its friends.
Every Canadian is receiving notices about increased prices for streaming services. Spotify has gone up. Disney+ goes up in November, according to the .
Of course there are increasing prices to pay for the new streaming tax. Those tax dollars then go to a fund controlled by the Canada Media Fund. That fund is controlled by big telecoms, which pushed hard for this streaming tax. Now those dollars will flow to well-connected groups, hand-picked by Bell, Rogers and the Liberal Party. Some money will trickle down to a makeup artist on the set of CBC's next American-cloned reality show, but most of it will end up in the pockets of Liberal-connected lobbyists.
The surely knows what I am speaking about. She is still listed as a lobbyist on the lobbyist registry. We can talk about a well-connected Liberal. She went from lobbying for a streaming tax to implementing one.
The does not need to dress up as a character from Star Wars again to pull a Jedi mind trick. He just waves his hands at the media and says that these are not the conflicts of interest people are looking for.
Some believe this world sits on a turtle, which sits on a turtle, and it is just turtles all the way down. In Canada, it is just well-connected Liberals stacked atop well-connected Liberals all the way down to our wallet.
That is not the kind of Canada we want to build. Our party is looking toward the future. The Liberal Party is stuck in the past with the ghost of Mackenzie King. The Liberals cling to a dying broadcasting corporation that had its heyday in the 1960s. Their foreign policy would feel more comfortable wearing bell-bottoms. Their race-based policies invoke an even older past. It should not surprise anyone that the Liberals took this dark turn. The only came to rule them out of a mixture of desperation and nostalgia. He promised to make the Liberal Party great again, and they took the bait hook, line and sinker.
As I said at the outset, I have seen Liberal prime ministers battle with Parliament before. What I have never seen is a Liberal who openly admired dictatorships for being ruthlessly efficient at tyranny. We have someone as Prime Minister, for however long that may be, with a predilection for dictators. He has surfed to power on a wave of nostalgia and now ignores the will of Parliament. This should be setting off more alarm bells than it currently seems to be.
Fortunately, Canadians can count on common-sense Conservatives to stand up for Parliament. It is time to bring home democracy.
:
Mr. Speaker, we are now in the third week of debating this privilege motion. It is the third week since the House came to a standstill, and it does not have to be this way. The blame lies four-square on the shoulders of the Liberal government. It is essentially snubbing its nose at Parliament; at you, Mr. Speaker; and ultimately at the Canadian public.
Parliament has a right to request documents, to hold the government to account and to get accurate information so we may or may not see, we do not know for sure, if there has been corruption at the expense of Canadians. The House requested that the documents related to Sustainable Development Technology Canada be provided, based on damning reports from the Auditor General.
The Liberals did produce some documents, but far from the number they were supposed to and they blacked out page after page. We are getting, “Oh, that's very interesting information,” not. It is blacked out. “This is very interesting information,” not. It is blacked out.
It is a mockery of Parliament. Our party and the other opposition parties appealed to the Speaker's office to rule on this violation. I have to commend the Speaker, who made a careful examination, along with the table officers, and came back saying the and the Liberal government were in violation of members of Parliament's privilege. That is why we are having this debate.
I know there are questions and accusations from the Liberals, saying we are just trying to delay Parliament, but the fact is that the Speaker ruled that they need to produce these documents and they have not. We are reminded of another situation not that long ago where a Liberal Speaker, a Liberal member of Parliament in the Speaker's role, just as the current Speaker is, ruled that documents regarding the lab in Winnipeg be produced. What did the Liberals do? They would not produce the documents. The Speaker ruled that they should produce them, and the government said it would take court action against the Liberal Speaker at the time.
It did not go that far. He did not have his day in court. The Liberals thought maybe it was not the best idea, taking a Speaker to court, someone who was voted in as a Liberal, and that maybe it would be an opportune time to call an election, in the middle of the pandemic. It was something they said they would not do but then took advantage of, while hiding the information that never came out. It was probably damning information that would have impacted their electoral fortunes. That is what they did. They blocked, to prevent information from coming out. That is what what we are seeing happen again and again. I hope the Speaker does not find himself in court because of the decision he made.
As I mentioned, this debate would stop if the government would produce the unredacted documents. The question is, why has the government not produced them? I did not ask why it will not, because there is still the slimmest of hope that the government will do the right thing, the democratic thing, and produce the documents. I am not going to hold my breath, but I am hopeful that there is a slight possibility. We are still here and they can still act on it.
The public and all of us are wondering what the big deal is. Why will the Liberals not just do the the right thing, the appropriate thing, and produce the documents? Is it because the current government has grown long in the tooth, has run out of steam and is happy to let the parliamentary calendar waste away? It seems that way. We are on our third week and it does not seem very anxious to produce these documents. We want to get back to business.
An hon. member: No, you do not.
Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Speaker, actually, we do not. That is a good point from the Liberals. We want to be working on business, but we do not like their business.
This goes to my second point. Maybe the Liberals have had visions in the night and subconsciously recognize that Canada is going in the wrong direction under their mismanagement. Maybe they are feeling a bit of collective shame in their hearts and saying, “We should really let this parliamentary calendar continue to ebb away, because our actions are destroying this nation.” If that is the case, then I have to commend them, kind of.
For example, maybe in that vision at night they saw how the per capita income of Canadians is going down under them. When I was an MLA in British Columbia, I would talk to people who would come to visit, even Americans. This was during the Harper years. At that time, it was a Conservative Parliament. They were just amazed at how well things were going in Canada compared with the United States, where the economy, the housing situation and everything was going downward and was in real distress, as opposed to what was happening here. There was a contrast between Canada and the United States with respect to how things were going under Stephen Harper, a Conservative prime minister, and what was happening in the United States. The Liberals have decided they do not want Americans to feel bad when they come up here and see that Canadians are doing so well, they want them to feel good, so they are going to destroy our nation economically. Our per capita income has gone down significantly. People are struggling financially to buy a home, so it is tough. Young people do not feel they are ever going to be able to buy a home.
However, good news is on the way, and I hope we are going to see a Conservative government soon. Even today the announced an initiative that would remove the GST from all new housing built up to $1 million. That is about 5%. It is up to $50,000, not including the interest over the years, which could easily double or more than double the value. This is a common-sense approach to help young people and kick-start housing, which has been going down under the Liberals. We anticipate 30,000 new homes would be built every year under this initiative.
Our has also announced our intention to encourage the provinces to remove the sales tax on all new housing production. When the Liberals came into power in October 2015, it took 39% of the median pre-tax household income to cover home ownership. What is it now? It is 60% of pre-tax income. Basically, it is people's full income and more. People are drowning. This is a measure that would generate new construction jobs, which is good news and stands in stark contrast to the Liberals.
In the vision of the night among the Liberals collectively, all the same night, miraculously, maybe they recognize that what they are doing is just making this country much less safe, which would be true. After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, violent crime is up 50%, while violent gun crime has increased 116%. I am giving some numbers: 50% and 116%, but we are talking about tens of thousands of Canadians suffering under violent crimes and gun crimes, and people getting killed. It falls on the Liberals. A lot of it has to do with their policies, their legislation.
Therefore I am very happy to be debating the topic and not trying to either pass or oppose legislation that the Liberals bring forth in the House, because the majority of it, and I will not say “everything” because I am sure there must be one or two things that are decent but could be better, by far is not helpful to Canada. It is taking us down, dragging us down, so we are quite happy to take our time.
We would not have to be debating the privilege motion if the Liberals would just comply with the 's request and do the right thing, but their heels are dug in. Again, is it because of the collective pang of conscience that they recognize how bad their legislation is? The Liberals brag about banning firearms for law-abiding Canadians, while completely ignoring gun smuggling and the crime wave unleashed by the government.
Police associations from across this country, last week or the week before, were forced to correct the . The Toronto Police Association, for instance, wrote to the Prime Minister, telling him, “Criminals did not get your message.” It went on to say, “Our communities are experiencing a 45% increase in shootings and a 62% increase in gun-related homicides compared to this time last year.” Things are getting chaotic, deadly and crazy.
The Toronto Police Association also said to the Liberals, “What difference does your handgun ban make when 85% of guns seized by our members can be sourced to the United States?” It does not make sense, but then we have come to expect that from from the Liberals, unfortunately.
The Toronto Police Association statement was followed by similar condemnations from the Vancouver Police Union and the Surrey Police Union. Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, the riding I represent, is in British Columbia. The Vancouver Police Union wrote to the , saying that the Liberals, who are really upheld by the NDP, are “not aware of the ongoing gang war here in B.C. which is putting both our members and public at risk on a daily basis." Addressing the Prime Minister, it said, “ Where do you think their guns are still coming from?” It is suggesting he should really think about it.
The Surrey Police Union wrote that the Prime Minister's “handgun freeze fails to address the real issue: the surge of illegal firearms coming across our borders and ending up in the hands of violent criminals.” A Conservative government will deal not with duck hunters but with criminals.
Maybe the Liberals recognize their incompetence, as is demonstrated by overdose deaths. Under the Liberals, there were 47,000 deaths, and many more are dying every day. I am wearing a poppy as we are approaching Remembrance Day. Tens of thousands of Canadians lost their lives on the battlefield, but there are actually many more who have died from the opioid crisis alone.
There are a staggering number of deaths due to the opioid crisis, and the Liberals are just making things worse and worse. They do not know what is going on. Maybe they want the current debate to continue because they realize they are making things worse. The opioid crisis is evidence of that. I have met many people who have lost loved ones. I have personally known people who have died from the crisis. It is a terrible situation here in Canada.
On Friday I was in my constituency office. The majority of the time when I go out the back door of my office, I see shattered people taking drugs and on fentanyl highs. On Friday, three times, just behind my office, ambulances had to come. There were people lying right in the middle of the parking lot. This is what has happened under nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, and it is a shame. It is terrible. There needs to be a change.
Maybe the reason the Liberals are letting this drag on is that it is for their pensions. I sure hope not; maybe it is just a comment, but we have to wonder why they are doing this. When millions of Canadians are struggling, I sure hope the reason the Liberals are not calling a carbon tax election is not their own paycheque as a cabinet minister, or for their pension.
Maybe the reason the Liberals are not producing the documents and are just allowing the debate to go on and on is that they want to prorogue Parliament to try to reset things and deal with their internal chaos. This would be an opportune time to prorogue Parliament, to say they are not working well together and to have a leadership race.
As a matter of fact, 24 Liberal MPs signed a letter asking the to step down. Mark “carbon tax” Carney is waiting in the wings. Christy Clark has announced. The vultures are circling. No disrespect is meant to individuals; I am just saying that things are bleeding. I was reading today about Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former Liberal minister of justice and attorney general of Canada. She said that the Prime Minister simply is not capable of self-reflection.
The remains, not in the interest of Canadians and not even in the interest of my colleagues in the Liberal benches. He is not there for them. He is certainly not here for Canadians. It would appear that his interest is himself and the ability to jet-set around the world, hobnobbing with elites. That is what it would appear from here. From watching the news, I have a good idea that some of the members on the Liberal benches feel the same way.
I will introduce a teaser. Maybe I will get some questions on it. Maybe the Liberals really do have something to hide. I think that may be the reason. They do not want any more biopsies. They do not want the public to know how far the cancer has spread.
My wife had breast cancer. It has been nine years now. She had five operations. Doctors tested different lymph nodes to see whether it had metastasized. Thank God it had not. I am thankful she is here with me. She is a tremendous support. However, maybe the Liberals know that a cancer, which is what we are dealing with right now, has metastasized all throughout the government. It does not want the public to know.