Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Our colleague Mr. Garon from the Bloc Québécois put on a great show for us. He's running out of patience, and so am I.
We're tabling a motion to basically substantiate our point of view on certain matters. We've never said we don't agree on climate change. We've never said we don't agree technology is changing. We've never said we're against electric vehicles. We've never said that we're against the development of a new industry in Canada, or in Quebec. It's completely ridiculous to say all that about the Conservatives.
We learned that the boards of directors of certain organizations had made certain expenditures or that funding had been granted to companies that were in a direct conflict of interest.
We're talking about at least $50 billion the Canadian government will invest in this sector over the next few years. The Bloc Québécois's cousin in Quebec City, the Parti Québécois, is currently asking perfectly legitimate questions about the Northvolt project in Quebec. So I don't see why we shouldn't be free to ask perfectly legitimate questions of the government and experts here in Ottawa to find out whether that money started out being invested in a fair and just manner.
I hear that it takes 20 years to develop mines to a point where they can supply factories in Canada. We've just levied a 106% tax on Chinese vehicles, and we may eventually have to tax manufacturing inputs for batteries that will be assembled in Canada. These inputs will further drive up the price of batteries. The public still won't be able to afford them.
I think this motion is very simple. It seeks only to monitor what's happening right now with money we're investing in Canada.
The Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois clearly couldn't care less how the money is being spent here. In 10 years or so, we'll have to go back to see how it was spent, why those decisions were made and why no one was monitoring expenditures. Once again, we're seeing this kind of thing happen with spending. We're talking about billions of dollars, and then further hundreds of millions for the greening government fund.
Here we are once again questioning things we shouldn't have to question. We don't have a problem with that money being spent, but someone needs to verify how it gets spent. I think that's the simplest and most logical thing to do. Anyway, wouldn't any party in power want to make sure it checks what the industry or the economy is getting out of that money in terms of economic benefits?
Where in the motion does it say that the Conservatives don't believe in climate change, don't want to invest, don't support electric vehicles and don't believe in the transition? It's completely ridiculous to say that.
I will stop here because I could say a lot more. I sincerely believe that this motion is simple, concrete and direct. As parliamentarians, it's in our interest to ensure that such significant investments follow the rules, and that they are being certified and verified along the way. We can't wait 10 years only to realize that certain investments were a mistake.