Damien Kurek

[Privilege, October 23rd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the experience my colleague from Brantford—Brant brings to this place regarding criminal matters.

One of the biggest concerns I see is the continual erosion of the constitutional principle of the supremacy of Parliament. It is essential that this place is able to fulfill its obligation as the supreme adjudicator and law-making body of this land.

I am wondering if my colleague from Ontario has further comments about the concerning trend we see from the Liberals, especially when it comes to the lengths they seem willing to go to erode constitutional principles to cover up their scandals and corruption.

[CBC/Radio-Canada, October 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, after nine years under the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up and crime is up. It turns out that CBC bonuses are also up. Yesterday, at the heritage committee, Catherine Tait, the Liberals' hand-picked CEO of CBC, refused to rule out accepting a fat taxpayer-funded bonus and severance as her term comes to an end.

With its viewership down, ad revenue falling and less trust all the time, CBC responds by giving $18 million in bonuses, including an average of $73,000 for each of the broadcaster's 43 executives, as well as millions more for its hundreds of managers. It then pays for a $1,000-a-night hotel room in Paris so that Ms. Tait can attend luxury balls at the Louvre. All the while, CBC is asking for more money, firing hundreds of employees, cutting services and getting woke.

Even the Liberals admit CBC is making its own case for it to be defunded, which is something that Ms. Tait says is gaining momentum. The solution is simple: We should reject the bonuses, fire the Prime Minister and defund the CBC. That is common sense.

[Privilege, September 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Manitoba understands very well and has rightfully pointed out how the member from Winnipeg North is covering up the corruption. What we have is not Conservative accusations, but the fact that the Auditor General, an independent officer of Parliament, has found egregious mismanagement to the tune of 390 million dollars' worth of contracts given inappropriately.

Conservatives did not do the audit. The Conservatives have demanded that the audit be done. We saw the inconsistencies and how the chair of the fund was getting these contracts and whatnot, so we called in the auditors. The good thing about the Auditor General is that they take politics out of it. The Liberals may not like what the Auditor General found, but the fact is that the Auditor General found that $390 million was mismanaged and went to Liberal insiders.

Whistle-blowers, in testimony, made it evidently clear that there were activities that would not pass the smell test. They went on to say that the Auditor General surely would find that the mismanagement was true. One whistle-blower suggested that it was a sponsorship scandal era type of scandal when it comes to mismanagement. I would like to quote one whistle-blower, who told the public accounts committee:

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.

Those are not my words; those are the words of a whistle-blower from within SDTC. That is what the Liberals are trying to cover up.

[Privilege, September 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the irony in the statement that the member just made is that he talked about Parliament being supreme but then went on to say how Parliament cannot do anything about this, how Parliament should not look for answers, how Parliament should not do anything to uncover the scandal, the corruption and the mismanagement of the Liberals. I find it troubling that the Liberals will, it seems, stop at nothing to cover up the corruption that is being led by the Prime Minister, the industry minister and members of the government.

We are not instructing the RCMP on what to do, but the Liberals are suggesting that somehow Conservatives' calling for documents is not part of our jobs as members of Parliament to get to the bottom of a scandal that has cost taxpayers to the tune of $380-some million. I would encourage the member to ask his constituents whether or not they suggest that Parliament has a role to play in finding answers to where the money went.

[Privilege, September 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, his background and the context he provided. I would suggest that all members of this place, especially the Liberals, could maybe take lessons from him. Even though he is a member of a separatist party, he certainly has a better grasp on the role of a member of Parliament than the backbenchers of the Liberal Party. It comes to the very foundation of what we are as parliamentarians. I tell students who I speak with, and I speak with them on a regular basis, that it is one of the coolest things about Canadian democracy.

I would ask this question. How many votes, and I cannot say their names, but I would name the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, other MPs and myself as well, do we get to cast on election day? It seems like a trick question, but the answer is one. We all get to cast one vote as Canadians. Likewise, when somebody is elected, we get to occupy the honour of one seat in this place.

I ask this question. How many seats does the Prime Minister occupy, does the Leader of the Opposition occupy? Again, it is one seat.

It is the duty of every member of Parliament, regardless of their political background, regardless of their history, to take seriously that obligation, as MPs, to stand up for the people who sent them here, to be the Parliament, in this case the 44th Parliament, to stand up, regardless of one's political interests because that is the point.

[Privilege, September 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the member from Winnipeg seems to be laughing when I say that the very foundation of our institutions is not a partisan issue, and therein lies the problem. The very foundation of our democratic system is taken so flippantly by members who pursue their personal politics. As we have seen outlined in the course of this SDTC scandal, back in 2018, when former minister Navdeep Bains did not like that the chair of the board of SDTC was criticizing things the government was doing, the chair was replaced, contrary to advice from those within his own department. We have seen a continuation of that political manipulation since, which has led to this scandal. A very clear timeline has been laid out. The Liberals do not take seriously Parliament's role.

I understand that they would rather an audience than an opposition. They would rather have carte blanche to do whatever they want and pursue their personal, political, financial and other interests. However, that is not how this place works. MPs are sent here to represent their constituents.

I will speak to those on the Liberal backbench. They have an obligation to not simply prop up their Prime Minister. They are sent here as members of Parliament. We are on the ballot as members of Parliament. They will stand to be judged in the next election by Canadians as members of Parliament, and they will have to answer, just like the NDP and the Bloc, for supporting this type of corruption.

I would encourage them to take seriously the role that this place is meant to play, because as we have seen, there is a distancing. With the way the Liberals operate, they want unfettered control to do whatever they want, and they treat Parliament only as an inconvenience. That is truly a national scandal that is eroding the trust that Canadians have in their institutions.

As a proud Canadian, as somebody who has grown up in this country and spent a lot of time being involved as a volunteer and staff member, and as a passionate politico, I have watched and studied a lot about government and other institutions, such as United Kingdom's Parliament, and about the history of our democratic system, how like systems around the world have developed over the course of the last number of centuries and some of the history that goes much further back than that. As it used to be, while we may not have liked or agreed with the person in charge of the country, just as we may not like the current Liberal Prime Minister or may not have liked a previous Conservative prime minister or previous Liberal prime minister, we could respect the offices and institutions. It is troubling that, increasingly, I hear from Canadians that they are losing trust in the institutions we have. This is from the actions of the Liberals, who are bent on trying to keep the truth from coming out and, in this case, refusing to provide documents. Now it is the authority of the House and a violation of privilege that have led to the motion and amendment we are debating today, which I am proud to support. It comes down to that very simple choice.

Part of the challenge is that the erosion of trust and the normalization of scandal have led many Canadians to question the legitimacy of much to do with government, and that is going to take hard work to restore. I am so proud to be a part of a party committed to doing the hard work required to restore trust in our institutions and ensure that this place, Parliament, is respected. I would suggest that the very root of where we are today on this motion related to SDTC is these documents. These documents matter. The heart of our parliamentary institutions, our democracy, is at stake, and we have seen continual attempts by the Liberals to try to erode it.

This adds to a litany of scandals that is quite astounding. I talked about the normalization of scandals. As soon as the ruling was delivered yesterday evening, I went through and reflected on some of the scandals. I have been a member of the ethics committee for a significant portion of this and the last Parliament. We are, of course, debating the document production related to SDTC.

Prior to this, there was the arrive scam, with $60-plus million on an app that was budgeted to cost less than $100,000, and sole-source contracts. We are seeing a massive mismanagement of those contracts today. We see that they seem to be going to friends and insiders. As well, there is the fact that during a time of crisis, the government would, instead of working in the best interests of Canadians, choose to enrich its friends. It is absolutely shameful.

There was the WE Charity scandal. Again, in the midst of what was a national crisis, the government chose its friends over well-established protocols that could have easily been expanded. There is the Canada summer jobs program. Instead of using a program like that and expanding it, the government was going to give $1 billion to its friends, who had given significant benefits and paid, to the tunes of hundreds of thousands of dollars, close members of the Prime Minister's family. I would remind the House that the Prime Minister went as far as to prorogue Parliament to keep the names and the amounts of those payments from coming out. I was on the ethics committee at the time.

Further, we have the SNC-Lavalin scandal, where the only reason that the RCMP did not lay charges against the sitting Prime Minister is because they determined it was not in the public interest of Canada. Imagine, there has been such a deterioration of our institutions that it has led to it being deemed in public interest that the Prime Minister should not be dragged in front of a judge.

There was the Aga Khan Island trip. There are the indigenous contracts, which I know are being studied at committee, as there seem to be Liberal insiders who are manipulating that process, taking money that should be going to first nations here in this country.

We have the massive growth of consultants. In fact, there have been some very interesting editorials of late that say that it has become a consulting capital and that the only way to get anything done is to hire the right consultants. That is not how a government should be run.

There have been billions of dollars in handouts. I cannot help but think of the ventilators that went to a former Liberal MP and ended up in a scrapyard, to the tune of, again, hundreds of millions of dollars.

Where does this leave us? Once again, MPs will be given a choice, to support accountability and, I would go further, support the very foundation of what our democratic system is supposed to be, the idea of parliamentary supremacy. To ensure that we can get the answers, not that Conservatives want, but that Canadians deserve, that's where the rubber hits the road.

I would urge all members, Liberal backbenchers, members of the NDP, members of the Bloc Québécois, and the few independents we have, every MP in this place, to think seriously about the role of Parliament, the principles of parliamentary supremacy, and ensure that we all do our part to combat the corruption and do the hard work required to restore trust in the institutions that Canadians need to be able to trust and look at with respect.

I would urge every member in this place to support this motion, to take seriously our democracy and ensure that that hard work can be done. Let me simply conclude with this, because I have my doubts after nine years of seeing exactly what the Liberal attitude is. When it comes to the hard work of restoring trust, I am proud to be a part of a party that has a plan and the energy.

When the leader of the official opposition, the member for Carleton, is the prime minister, we can do that hard work to restore the trust that is required in our institutions and work on behalf of Canadians, not on behalf of insiders.

[Privilege, September 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I stand here, proud to represent, stand with and stand for the people of Battle River—Crowfoot.

It is unfortunate that, after nine years of the Liberals leading this country, we are once again debating a scandal of unbelievable proportions. I want to talk a little about the circumstances that led us to the SDTC situation, and then I want to dive into why documents matter, what this violation of the privilege of members of this place is, and why that should be so concerning to Canadians.

On Sustainable Development Technology Canada, the Auditor General did a report that found that the Liberals, the Prime Minister and the ministers had turned it into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. A recording of a senior civil servant slammed the “outright incompetence” of the government, which gave more than 390 million dollars' worth of contracts inappropriately.

To put that into context, $390 million is an astounding amount of money, especially at a time when Canadians are hurting. This year, we will see more than two million Canadians forced to visit a food bank. In my own constituency, I speak to many not-for-profits, hosted out of churches or community centres, and local food banks.

The actions of the government, such as the implementation of the carbon tax and the mismanagement of the economy, have led to increased inflation, among so many other things. Canadians, in record numbers, are being forced to visit food banks. I see some of the numbers provided to me by local food banks, often run by volunteers, and they are absolutely heartbreaking.

I have heard from some of the folks who run one of the local food banks, and they were stunned that it is not just folks who have fallen on hard times who are being forced to visit the food bank, and it is not just those who have lost their jobs who are being forced to visit the food bank. In some cases, it is people from around the community who simply have no other options. Their credit cards are maxed out, and they do not have anything left at home to feed their children. They were, in those cases, forced to visit a food bank. That is the legacy of the Liberals.

We have 25% of Canadians, according to reports, facing poverty-like conditions. What is the government's response? It is 390 million dollars' worth of contracts inappropriately given out, many of which went to well-connected Liberal insiders. It was $390 million not going to help Canadians, and not going to grow the economy, but $390 million, more money than most people could ever imagine, going to well-connected insiders.

The Auditor General found that SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects. The government talks big about the environment, yet it gave $58 million to projects that were supposedly to help the environment. That was the reason this fund was created. However, it could not demonstrate that there would be an environmental benefit or the development of any green tech.

I know there are many Canadians watching because of the absolute corruption that has been normalized under the Liberal government and the Prime Minister, which has been supported by the NDP.

It is absolutely astounding that, in the midst of a time when the Liberals talk big about the environment, they are giving dollars to projects connected with Liberal insiders that did not even try to explain and did not even try to defend what they were doing as being good for the environment, even though that was why these programs were created. The Auditor General made it clear that the blame for this scandal falls on the government and the industry minister, who did not sufficiently monitor the contracts that were being given to Liberal insiders.

I hear often from members of that side of the House, and I hear from Canadians as well, asking what we would do differently. I am proud to stand as part of a party that takes governing seriously and that would fight corruption and incompetence, especially the sort of incompetence that leads to this type of gross mismanagement scandal to the tune of $390 million being misappropriated.

I want to talk about why the finding of a violation of privilege is such an important issue. I believe that many people outside this place and in fact, certainly from some of the questions I have heard from members of other parties in this place, some in this place also, do not take seriously Parliament's constitutional role. Let me unpack that a little bit for the benefit of those watching and explain why documents matter.

It is less about whether or not there are physical documents we can read from; that is not the whole point here. The point is that there is an institution that is Parliament, which in our Westminster system of governance is the supreme authority of our country. As parliamentarians, we are that which makes up a Parliament. I believe that there are two Liberal vacancies with by-elections forthcoming, and at the rate at which the Liberals are losing seats, it will certainly be interesting to watch what those election results are.

The MPs who make up Parliament have unfettered access to call for documents and for people to come as witnesses. We talk about that a lot in the context of committee, and it is a key element of the constitutional role that this place plays in our country. We cannot dismiss the importance, because that is the cornerstone of the democratic system we have. It is this place, the only place in the country, I would add, that is truly representative of our country. Every square inch of the nation of Canada is represented in this place and only in this place. That is why Parliament is given such significant latitude to be able to do things like call for documents.

The government refused to be transparent and provide the documents in question. Its members gave a whole litany of excuses. In fact I found it very interesting that when the House leader was speaking very negatively about the Speaker's ruling that has led to this debate, quite astonishingly, she pivoted away from saying that she was disputing the ruling but said that she was dismayed at the ruling.

I would suggest that any member of this place who is dismayed at the constitutional authority of what Parliament is meant to be needs to go back and look at the history, the construction, of the constitutional reality and the traditions that make up what this place is. It has to come down to the very idea of where the buck stops. It stops with Parliament.

I want to highlight something in the context of what I have just described, because there has been, under the Liberals, a concerning trend of wanting to distance the executive function of government from Parliament. I understand that it is inconvenient that the Liberals do not have unfettered power to do anything they want; it is an inconvenient thing they are forced up against. I have seen, over the last close to five years that I have had the honour of serving in this place and serving the people of Battle River—Crowfoot, how the Liberals have been able to sign deals, have backroom handshakes and have the whole deal with other opposition parties in order to have a functional majority.

However, Canadians sent a minority Parliament to Ottawa in the last election, and this place has the ability to do things like demand documents; it has the full constitutional right to do so. It is outlined very clearly that this is in fact the case. When members of the government are making excuses and figuring out ways around this place, it is deeply concerning and should cause concern to every Canadian, regardless of what political party they are a part of.

This is not a partisan issue; this is a Canadian issue.

[Business of Supply, September 26th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands has not given a speech since he was forced to retract and apologize for a statement he made on Twitter. Therefore, it is quite ironic that he would be criticizing which member of the opposition is legitimately giving a speech—

[Business of Supply, September 24th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I was listening intently to my colleague's speech, which is on a confidence motion about the Prime Minister and the government, and I have yet to hear whether she has confidence related to the motion at hand.

[Citizenship Act, September 17th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I find it fascinating that this is only the second day the bill has been debated. It was introduced just before Parliament rose for the summer. As my colleague mentioned, it was in response to a court decision a number of months prior to that.

The Liberals talk about not wanting a debate on this issue and accuse Conservatives of delaying it. What are her thoughts on that, when they have shown that they truly did not prioritize this in their overall legislative agenda?