House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 60% of the vote.
Questions on the Order Paper October 30th, 2024
With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and their involvement in the inaugural Five Eyes alliance Unidentified Aerial Phenomena caucus working group on May 24, 2023: (a) what was the agenda of the May 24, 2023 meeting; (b) what are the names and titles of all CAF personnel who attended the meeting; and (c) has the CAF participated in any other meetings of the working group and, if so, what are the dates, agenda items, and details of CAF participants at each such meeting?
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague, one of my best friends in the House, if not my best friend, for her dissertation today on why we should be here in the House of Commons.
I will share a story about when I was first elected. She put me down harder than most hammers I have ever been hit with on a situation I had in my constituency. She was the one who very much corrected the situation I was trying to deal with in a way that I was not aware could be done. It was more favourable to me in the long run because I learned a long lesson that has helped me for the last 11 years in this part of my political career. It was to do with what she was talking about: Sometimes we have to deal just as harshly with our allies in reply to comments, as she does and we all should do, as we do with those who do not agree with us.
I wonder if she could expand on how important that is for ensuring that we are consistent and constant in our ability to move forward.
Innovation, Science and Industry October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. The Speaker ruled that the Liberals violated a House order to turn over evidence for a criminal investigation into their latest $400-million scandal. When Canadians cannot afford to eat, heat or house themselves, Parliament should not have to focus on ending a Liberal scandal.
Will the NDP-Liberals end this cover-up and give proof to the police so we can get accountability for corruption and Parliament can get working again?
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, I think Quebec has done very well being a member of Confederation. Under former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, the Conservatives did an excellent job of bringing Canadians together instead of separating us. It was a great time in Canadian history, when free trade benefited Quebec as much as it did anywhere else in Canada. I spent a couple of hours last evening with an old friend of mine, Lance Yohe, who was the executive director of the Red River Basin Commission for years and is now a member of the International Joint Commission. These are the kinds of relationships that we need to build. We do not need separation.
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague also has a great plethora of history in politics and recording the events that have taken place in this nation, so I thank him very much. Coming from him, those compliments mean a lot to me. It has been an honour to serve this country.
I have never seen anything like this in my life. I referred to that earlier in debates when I was asking questions. One of our colleagues last night talked about the $16 glass of orange juice from many years ago, when that individual was basically forced out of Parliament. Then we went through the ad scam situation for 40 million dollars' worth of scandal, and this is $400 million. To put everything into perspective, at a time when Canadians are struggling with gas and groceries and heating their homes, we have a $400-million scandal going on. This is something the government tried to cover up in the SDTC operations.
I have never seen anything this bad in Canadian history.
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, RCMP members are already looking at this situation, and all we want is for them to have the full information to work with. They have already asked for it. There has been a House ruling that it should go there. I do not understand why the Liberals keep filibustering, making up things that are irrelevant and providing cover for their cover-up.
We are also in a situation right now where the Prime Minister has been asked to provide the names of the people who are involved in this whole area. The Leader of the Opposition is quite willing to take a briefing. He would take the same kind of briefing the Washington Post got on classified information, given by the national security and intelligence adviser and the deputy minister of foreign affairs. He would take the same briefing given to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills under section 12.1 of the CSIS Act, “Measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada”. He would take the same classified briefing the Prime Minister has been all too willing to give to the House when it suits him, such as when he revealed classified information on the floor of the House of Commons a year ago.
Instead of wasting time and playing politics for foreign interference, the Prime Minister should just release the names.
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, absolutely. It certainly is a concern. That is why I mentioned in my presentation that all of the information should be turned over to the RCMP. We know that if the Liberals get it into committee, they will try to squelch, or maybe squander, the information that would be there for the public to see. Some of the information has already been heavily redacted. They could quite easily put it in the committee and then adjourn it, which would end the whole charade. They would want that.
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, I certainly do see a link. The situation my colleague from Joliette pointed out is that, at the time, the government was completely against my bill. Once it was implemented on the night it passed in the Senate, it became immediate law. However, it has been used across Canada for the last three years and nothing has happened to the tax system in Canada, other than putting people who were jeopardized on the same level as those selling their small businesses to their family, as opposed to a complete stranger, and getting a benefit for selling it to a complete stranger.
The member pointed out that the government was against it, and all of a sudden it was for it when we called an emergency meeting. He pointed out that the government had not been in favour of it for, I think, over 550 days, and I remember his speech well in the committee we had that day. There is a link and it is ongoing.
In my speech, I pointed out the plethora of scandals the government has had. It took most of the time of my presentation, for sure, and that should take care of the concerns of the member for Winnipeg North, who I think is a little jittery about his own seat.
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, there is an easy answer to his question, and that is to show the documents. I do not know what the member for Winnipeg North is afraid of. The Liberals can just put the documents on the table and give them to the RCMP. It is out of our hands anyway. The RCMP is already reviewing this situation, but all the government wants to do is limit the amount of information the RCMP has to work with.
Privilege October 25th, 2024
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise in the House this morning to continue to talk about the ethical failures of the Liberal government. I will start where I left off.
The trade minister also violated ethics rules by awarding untendered contracts directly from her office to her close friend and campaign manager. She too was found in violation of ethics rules, yet we hear very little from the Liberals about these repeated breaches.
Many Canadians are rightly concerned about the recurring pattern of law-breaking within the Liberal government. It is well known that there have been multiple violations of ethics and other laws. The Prime Minister's own parliamentary secretary at the time was found guilty of breaking ethics laws, along with several current and former Liberal MPs, who used their offices to benefit themselves, their family members and their friends.
We are currently witnessing yet another scandal, this time involving the employment minister, a Liberal cabinet member from Edmonton, and his pandemic profiteering business partner. This scandal is so serious that it has prompted a ruling from the Speaker on the right of democratically elected members to receive full, honest answers and information from individuals summoned by the House. In this particular case, the business partner of the Liberal minister from Edmonton Centre refused to provide crucial information about an individual referred to as “the other Randy”.
Why is this significant? It is because it strikes at the core of a scandal involving a sitting cabinet minister who, while serving in government, held a 50% stake in a company that was awarded government contracts by his own government. This is not just unethical; it is deeply concerning.
What exacerbates the situation is that the minister claimed he had no contact with his business partner throughout 2022, a key year in the timeline. He even testified to this in the House. His business partner echoed the same claim. However, what did we discover when the documents were produced? They had been texting and communicating throughout that entire year.
This is the clear problem: The minister's testimony was not truthful and his business partner's testimony was not truthful. They misled the House, the public and the media. Now we know that instead of working for Canadians, this sitting Liberal cabinet minister was actively managing the day-to-day operations of a company profiting from pandemic contracts awarded by his own government. This is the kind of corruption that has brought the House to a standstill. It is about conflicts of interest and a blatant refusal to follow the law. Canadians are expected to follow the law. Why not the Liberals?
Canadians have had enough, and they are demanding that the RCMP fully investigate these scandals. A letter from the RCMP dated October 9 states, “the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation into SDTC is ongoing.” We know that SDTC operated under various governments, including that of Stephen Harper. However, according to Canada's Auditor General, it faced no issues until 2017. It was after 2017, when the Liberal Prime Minister appointed his own choice as chair of SDTC, that the problems began.
What happened next? The most ethically challenged Prime Minister, who has allowed corruption to fester within the government, appointed his hand-picked chair to oversee SDTC. It is no surprise that we have now seen 186 conflicts of interest and $400 million in mismanaged funds. The Auditor General's report only examined a portion of the deals made under the billion-dollar slush fund, and she found conflicts of interest in 80% of the cases that were reviewed.
The Liberals continue to claim that they are hiding the truth to protect charter rights, but as the leader of the Conservative Party rightly pointed out, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is designed to protect citizens from the government, not to provide cover for the government to withhold documents from the people. We must uphold the supremacy of Parliament. Parliament, with its elected representatives of Canadians, writes the rules, creates laws and directs our justice system, not the other way around, yet the Liberals are constantly attempting to distort this fundamental truth.
All of this has come to light thanks to a courageous whistle-blower who said:
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.
This is absolutely correct. The Liberals have not attempted to comply with the Auditor General's report. They have ignored the recommendations of the industry committee and continue to refuse to comply with the House's order to produce the documents essential to uncovering the truth about how their friends and Liberal insiders are getting rich while ordinary Canadians continue to struggle.
The RCMP will continue its investigation, but it is crucial that it receives all the necessary materials to complete its work. What can we expect from the Liberal government? It will claim it wants this matter referred to a committee, but instead of tabling the documents, it wants the committee to study whether the documents should even be tabled in the first place.
The House has already ordered the production of these documents. That decision was made by a majority of MPs, yet the Liberals, with their shrinking support, refuse to comply. They are hiding behind redactions and claims of cabinet confidence, but Canadians see through this charade. The Liberals are playing a dangerous game with our democracy, and if they are willing to violate this law, what other laws might they be willing to break?
In a piece in the National Post, Christopher Nardi wrote:
The fact that government organizations are still withholding information that was ordered by the House of Commons in June is significant because it appears to fly in the face of a ruling by [the Speaker] last month that they likely had no right to do so.
The Prime Minister not only has failed to lead by example when it comes to ethical behaviour, but has also shown himself unable to ensure that a high ethical bar is met within the government he runs.
The complete disregard he has shown for the will of the House is not surprising. Time and time again, he has doubled down in the midst of scandals instead of fessing up and delivering good, honest government to Canadians. It has certainly been interesting to hear that some of the Prime Minister's own Liberal MPs are finally getting fed up with a Prime Minister who dismissed their concerns and whose leadership has been continuously scandal-plagued. Their concerns echo the sentiments of many Canadians who, after nine years of the Prime Minister, are tired of higher costs, increased crime and government corruption.
We have already witnessed the government repeatedly breach the Conflict of Interest Act. The Prime Minister, ministers, Liberal MPs and insiders have violated the very rules designed to protect Canadians from this type of corruption. Enough is enough. Canadians deserve transparency, they deserve accountability and they deserve a government that upholds the law. It is time for the Liberals to stop playing games with our democracy, hand over the documents and allow the RCMP to complete its investigation. Only common-sense Conservatives will end the corruption and get answers for Canadians.