Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Sarnia—Lambton for ensuring that there are many people in the House to listen to me. I also know the Conservatives were probably trying to cut down on my list of all the Conservative scandals. However, I am going to keep going.
The Conservative international aid minister was held in contempt when he lied about defunding Kairos and charities. The government was held in contempt for lying about the F-35 fighter jet program. The Conservative defence minister took a military Cormorant search and rescue helicopter for a joyride. Those helicopters are used for necessary rescue missions of Canadians.
Finally, the Conservative government refused to produce documents underpinning its so-called tough-on-crime legislation after a motion passed by a majority vote in Parliament, which is ironic. That is the same situation we are in today, in which the government did not respect the authority of Parliament, and that was because it knew what those documents would show, which was that Conservatives wanted to throw the book at youth or our fellow Canadians trapped in the cycle of poverty and petty crime while covering up for their white-collar crimes and corruption during their time in Parliament.
Canadians finally got sick of watching Conservatives cut our community services to fill their pockets. They threw them to the curb and elected Liberals, but the Liberal government has been no better. When SNC-Lavalin was caught bribing the Libyan government, the Prime Minister tried interfering to save his powerful buddies. When Canadians were making sacrifices to make it through the COVID-19 pandemic, the Liberals tried ramming through their convoluted program to refuse students relief while lining the pockets of the PM's friends, the Kielburgers.
The Prime Minister set up cash for access fundraisers in which the wealthiest and most powerful in Canada could pay the maximum amount legally allowed to have off-the-record face time with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister promised to be Canada's first environmentalist government and then bought a pipeline.
The Liberal government is once again accused of corruption, scandal and misspending. In this case, this time, it concerns the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund, which was established in 2001. It was afforded over $1 billion in 2021 to be delivered over a five-year period. Through an Auditor General report and a spot audit of this fund, 90 cases of conflicts of interest were identified, totalling about $80 million of taxpayers' money. The question was raised of whether the people who were making decisions to allocate those funds, who were all appointed by the Liberal government, were actually giving it to companies that they themselves controlled or that were connected to them in some way. This would seem to be a significant conflict of interest.
According to the Auditor General, the projects that were approved and did receive millions of dollars of taxpayers' funds overstated the environmental benefits that actually came to pass. In fact, over the past six years, SDTC approved over 225 projects, worth about $836 million. Although the Auditor General did only a spot audit on a sampling of this, she found consistent, pervasive and repeated conflicts of interest, misspending and wasteful spending. The Auditor General put the blame squarely on the Liberal minister responsible for this fund and said there was a lack of oversight. I am shocked that a fund worth almost a billion dollars was running with such a significant lack of oversight by the Liberal minister, who was supposed to make sure that those funds were spent in accordance with the authorization of Parliament.
The Ethics Commissioner is now investigating the former chair of SDTC, who approved two grants greater than $200,000 to a private firm that she herself directed. She did not recuse herself. She participated in the decision of SDTC to approve the grant. That case is being investigated as we speak. This is important. I agree with all my NDP colleagues and all parliamentarians that this is horrible and that we have to condemn this kind of wasteful spending and scandalous corruption.
The official opposition has put forward a motion demanding documents from the government so we can get to the bottom of it, as is Parliament's right. The New Democrats joined with the official opposition, supported that request and demanded production of documents to the House so that Parliament can exercise its constitutional duty to scrutinize spending of government and hold it accountable. The Liberals, at first, did not want to deliver those documents, but the will of Parliament is supreme. Certainly, New Democrats demand that transparency and accountability occur. The government was prepared to produce the documents to the House, but it wanted to redact them to some degree.
Sometimes, the redaction of documents is legitimate, such as for national security reasons or to protect sensitive information. However, in this case, it is hard to know the reasoning for the redactions without further context. I worry that the government sometimes wants to redact information that it should not, but Parliament has yet to receive the documents, redacted or not. The official opposition members then decided they wanted all the unredacted documents to go to the RCMP.
This is where it gets a little confusing. The government has refused to do that, saying that although Parliament has the right to these documents, it is unprecedented to demand the production of documents to a third party. There is also an issue of whether the police forces, in this case the RCMP, might have its investigation compromised by having documents produced to it in that way.
I believe I am a reasonable person, although others might disagree. A reasonable person who has their constituents' best interests at heart and who respects Parliament and our democratic institutions would say it is fair enough that there is some doubt about referring these documents to a third party. In that case, let us have the documents come before Parliament, as is its right, to ensure that the Speaker's ruling is followed.
After six weeks, here we are still in a filibuster. Instead of responsibly doing what the Speaker directed and sending these documents to the procedure and House affairs committee, of which I am a member, so we can do our job and investigate this motion, we are instead sitting through a Conservative filibuster and a Liberal cover-up again. On top of everything else that most Canadians would shake their heads about, this filibuster is costing taxpayers millions of dollars. We are not doing the work we were sent here to do.
In London—Fanshawe last week, people were forcibly evicted from their homes because a greedy corporate landlord renovicted them. People were torn from their homes and from their community. We are not talking about that.
Two weeks ago, I sat with families who cried as they told me that they could not get their families out of Sudan. The government refuses to fulfill the promises it made to create special measures within the immigration system. We are not debating that.
Over a month ago, I spoke to constituents working in key community and public organizations that deal with mental health, addictions, housing, women's safety, the youth justice system and many more areas. They told me how difficult it is because they are not making a livable wage. Even though they love the work they do and the people they serve, they cannot make ends meet. They are worried that the federal and provincial governments do not value them or their clients. We are not debating that.
These are the issues of the people in my riding; they need to be debated in this place and need to be solved. They sent me here to deal with them. They want to know how we can make sure everyone has a secure, affordable and decent place to live. They want to be able to feed their families and build vibrant communities. People are struggling, and what are we doing? We are being filibustered about scandals and greed.
I will say it again: Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are terrible. Both have terrible records and terrible histories. Both have worked to ensure only that the rich and powerful are made more rich and powerful. Both are mired in histories of scandal, greed, lack of accountability and lack of transparency. They stand in the House and proclaim they are here to defend Canadians; the reality is that they are here because they are desperate either to hold on to power or regain the power they have lost. What they do not understand is that it is not their power.
The Conservatives stand in this place every day and call for an election, and they do it because they simply want that power back. They have a shiny new leader; this time, unlike in 2019 and 2021, they think they can actually win. They have spent a lot of money on advertising. They have rebranded their leader and given him a makeover. They have spent millions of dollars marketing their slogans and catchphrases, selling a leader and a party that will do the same thing Conservatives did last time they were in government.
If Conservatives were truly acting in the best interests of Canadians, they would work in collaboration to make real changes. They would put forward real alternatives. They would not throw out personal insults and contribute to the long list of scandals, the corruption and the waste of millions of taxpayers' dollars in filibusters. If Liberals were truly here for Canadians, they would release the unredacted documents to Parliament and not waste millions of taxpayers' dollars in scandals and corruption.
I will say to Canadians that they can demand more of their politicians. Canadians can make real change. We could have a government that disseminates power and wealth. We could have a government that puts people first and does everything it can to get results for people. New Democrats could be that government.
