Mr. Speaker, we are the company we keep.
The Prime Minister, who is desperately trying to rebrand himself and his Liberal government as being new, responsible, pro-energy and non-radical, picked the most radical and corrupt minister from the Trudeau government, who oversaw the most corruption and debt in Canadian history, to be in his Liberal cabinet. Solomon said, “A mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.”
The new Prime Minister chose the old environment minister who was in charge of the green slush fund and put him in his new Liberal cabinet. As I just said, now the former environment minister, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, wants approval tonight in the estimates to spend $253 million more of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Remember, this is the same radical environment minister who was in charge of the green slush fund, who saw 400 million of taxpayer dollars go to Liberal insiders and his friends. Do people trust this minister to spend their money properly this time?
Let us have a quick look at who the former minister of the environment, current Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, is. A recent article by Jim Warren states:
An intriguing detail to emerge in the House of Commons Committee proceedings is that Environment and Climate Change Canada minister...holds a beneficial interest in Cycle Capital, a Quebec-based venture capital firm that received tens of millions in SDTC grants....
[The minister] first came to the attention [of] environmentalists across Canada and internationally for performing a couple of infamous media stunts. In 2001 he scaled Toronto’s CN Tower, unfurling a banner that read “Canada and Bush Climate Killers.” The following year he led activists in an assault on the home of Alberta premier, Ralph Klein. They managed to erect a fake solar panel on the roof and scare Klein’s wife, Colleen, who was home at the time.
It sounds to me like he is a radical.
The article continues, saying that by 2016-17, the minister “was helping engineer the demise of Trans Canada’s Energy East Pipeline”. Again, this is a minister who does not sound like he is a supporter of Canada's being an energy superpower.
As well, I will be splitting my time with the member for Elmwood—Transcona.
Getting back to the minister, the article continues with a “partial list of his former employers and clients”, which includes Equiterre, a Montreal-based environmental organization; Greenpeace Canada; and Greenpeace International. He was also a consultant and shareholder in “Cycle Capital, a Quebec company that received as much as $250 million in Green Slush Fund money.”
Again, this does not sound to me like a minister who is all of a sudden going to be pro Canada's being an energy superpower, and I do not think it sounds like that to most Canadians watching tonight.
Here is a quick recap of the record of corruption of the former Trudeau environment minister, current Canadian culture minister: The minister was a lobbyist for a company that benefited from the green slash fund to the tune of $250 million. The minister also owned shares in a company that benefited from the green slash fund to the tune of $250 million. The minister refuses to say what the value of those shares is, and caused Parliament to be in gridlock just before the last election because of that. Most of us know this, but I will remind Canadians today that, while he was minister of the environment, he gave another three-quarters of a billion dollars to the same green slush fund to, again, be given to friends and Liberal supporters.
The puzzling thing to me, and I think to a lot of Canadians who watched the choice of the new Prime Minister and his cabinet, was why the PM would choose this obviously corrupt former minister to be in his new cabinet. Similarly, why would the radical former minister choose the new Liberal leader, who is so pro-energy development and no longer a radical?
Again, the current Prime Minister sold a bill of goods to most people. He took most of the Conservative platform and said, “this is what I am going to be now if I am the Prime Minister in the new Liberal government.” Then why would a radical minister support him in his leadership bid and in his bid to become the next Prime Minister?
I will share a quote from the current Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture: “[The current Prime Minister] is the leader we need to build Canada's future...Let's choose Canada. Let's choose [the new Prime Minister]!” I will share another quote about the Prime Minister by the corrupt minister: “He's all in...[The new Prime Minister] is the right person for Canada's future and this is why I am supporting him as the next leader of the Liberal Party”.
Again, what does it say when a known radical chooses the Prime Minister to be the leader of the party? I think it begs a lot of questions for Canadians out there. Here is a Prime Minister who says that, all of a sudden, he has seen the light. He is going to build pipelines and turn Canada into an energy superpower. Meanwhile, he is fully aligned with radicals such as the former environment minister, the current Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture.
We all know the phrase that it is impossible for a leopard to change their spots. It is just as impossible, I would argue, for two enviro-radicals to change their views on energy development in Canada. I think Conservative voters saw that. We saw the wolf in sheep's clothing that the current Prime Minister is, but I digress.
Some Canadians believe what the Prime Minister had to say, and I think it is our job to prove that what he said was not true. If the PM is changing the course of the last disastrous decade, why would he pick the most radical minister from the last Trudeau government to be in his inner circle in his new Liberal government? It is because the secret is getting out, and the new Liberal government really is not new at all.
It is the same old same old. The same radical, anti-development Liberals we saw ruin our economy under Trudeau are now putting their foot on the gas under the Prime Minister.