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Nov/1/23 7:50:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there have been many scandals under this government. That includes Canadian travellers. I am talking about ArriveCAN. It is truly the big scandal here today. In addition to the ArriveCAN scandal, we heard from witnesses at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates that many more scandals exist. Of course there is the one in connection with Canadian travellers, but also with finances and government spending.

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Mr. Larry Maguire (Brandon—Souris, CPC)

Nov/1/23 7:51:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for their thorough analysis of the events that took place in the scam and the unveiling of where this $54 million went. I just wonder if my colleague has anything else that she would like to add to the detail that was there. I do not know if she could; what she just gave us was pretty detailed. However, this was an exceptional scandal, and I agree with her that it is probably the biggest one that we have seen in a while. Could the member just elaborate on that?

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Mrs. Stephanie Kusie

Nov/1/23 7:52:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is right, and I said this the first day of witnesses. This is potentially the largest scandal that we have had in the history of recent Canadian government, for certain. I was very encouraged to hear the NDP member who spoke to this moments ago, about when he questioned his colleague as to the extent of this scandal. We believe, within the Conservative caucus, that it is certainly very important to have the discussion around what happened until the Auditor General report, but I am very encouraged to hear my NDP colleague say that his colleague believes that the matter will seize us until the next election. It tells me that members of the House, and the government as well, should recognize the depth and breadth of this scandal and the extent to which Canadians are affected.

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Mr. Tony Baldinelli (Niagara Falls, CPC)

Nov/1/23 7:53:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, despite the faults with the ArriveCAN app in its application and the $54 million and the scandals that we now find, why is it that the government, in your mind—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/1/23 7:53:31 p.m.
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I want to remind the members to address questions and comments through the Chair.

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Mr. Tony Baldinelli

Nov/1/23 7:53:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, why is it that the members of the government believe that there is still some value in retaining the ArriveCAN app?

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Mrs. Stephanie Kusie

Nov/1/23 7:53:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. I am actually shocked when I walk through airports and see the arrive scam signage still there. Given the information we have received, which is a result of good investigation by the Conservative caucus, as well as Bill Curry at The Globe and Mail, one would think that the government would be in a pretty big hurry to conceal this, to wrap this up and to not put it in the faces of Canadian voyagers, to the point of my colleague from the Bloc. That is a very good question. ArriveCAN now serves as the flagship of monetary and fiscal scandal within the current government. It will go down in history as more than just a failed application, but as the tip of the iceberg and as the canary in the coal mine of scandal and corruption within the current government.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/1/23 7:54:53 p.m.
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Since there are no other members who wish to speak, pursuant to order made Tuesday, October 31, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion to concur in the sixth report of the Standing Committee on International Trade are deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Wednesday, November 8, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

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Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Nov/1/23 7:56:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to pose a follow-up question to a question I had asked in question period: What does the Prime Minister have to hide? What does the Prime Minister have to hide now that it has been revealed that the Prime Minister obstructed an RCMP criminal investigation into his wrongdoing during the SNC-Lavalin scandal? The Prime Minister's obstruction of a criminal investigation into himself is another chapter in the Prime Minister's sordid and corrupt conduct surrounding SNC-Lavalin. This is a Prime Minister who obstructed justice by politically interfering in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which was facing a raft of bribery and corruption charges, by putting pressure on his then attorney general to resolve the charges by way of a deferred prosecution agreement. In other words, the Prime Minister attacked the independence of his attorney general, and when his then attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, stood up to him, spoke truth to power and refused to acquiesce to the Prime Minister's corrupt demands, what did the Prime Minister do? He fired her and then threw her out of the Liberal caucus. That is what happens to people with integrity who stand up to the corrupt Prime Minister. They get thrown out, thrown under the bus. The Ethics Commissioner launched an investigation into the Prime Minister's scandalous conduct and found that the Prime Minister had breached ethics laws in relation to his political interference. This marked the second time that the Prime Minister had been found guilty of breaching ethics laws. He is the first Prime Minister in Canadian history to have been found guilty of breaking ethics laws. That is the record of the Prime Minister. The RCMP launched its own criminal investigation into the Prime Minister, which did not make progress. We now know why it did not make progress, and that is because the Prime Minister obstructed the investigation by refusing to turn over documents requested by the RCMP, hiding behind cabinet confidence. Last Monday, the RCMP commissioner was set to appear before the ethics committee to testify about the Prime Minister's obstruction, but before the RCMP commissioner could utter a word, the Prime Minister ordered Liberal and NDP MPs to shut down the committee to silence the RCMP commissioner. The Prime Minister's brazen effort to silence the RCMP commissioner demonstrates that the Prime Minister has something to hide, and it must be bad. It must be really bad. What incriminating evidence is contained in those cabinet documents that the Prime Minister refused to turn over to the RCMP? What is the Prime Minister afraid the RCMP commissioner would say about his obstruction, which he wants to keep the lid on? Again, it is a simple question: What does the Prime Minister have to hide?

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs (Cybersecurity), Lib.)

Nov/1/23 8:00:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise to answer this question once again. It is interesting to me that the Conservatives are so desperate to cover up and filibuster their spending scandal that they are trying to reinvent the past. With respect to calls for a criminal investigation by the RCMP, I note the RCMP has made very clear in this matter that there is no criminal investigation, there are no criminal charges and there are no reports of obstruction because the matter is closed. The RCMP made that independent decision. The commissioner has even recently been equally clear that due process has been followed, and he is satisfied with the result. It begs the question: Why would the Conservatives bring up an issue that has been resolved, with the RCMP commissioner saying himself that the matter is closed and there is no investigation? I think it is because at committee, the members opposite are refusing to tell Canadians that the Conservative members could have moved a motion 26 times to bring the RCMP commissioner to committee. Instead, they waited to filibuster when the committee was interested in looking at the spending scandal of five Conservative members who went on a trip to the U.K., where they dined on porterhouse steaks, chateaubriand, Scottish smoked salmon and 1,800 dollars' worth of champagne in one sitting. At the Savoy restaurant, they spent $1,000 on a three-course lunch and $1,200 at an oyster bar for dinner. They had 10 bottles of wine in one of these sittings, with three of the bottles at $600 a piece. What I find really interesting for Canadians to see is that the Conservatives are desperate to cover up the fact that they had lobbyists spending thousands of dollars to fly them to the U.K. to dine on chateaubriand and sip champagne. They do not want Canadians to look at this. They do not want the committee to ask questions about why lobbyists took them to the U.K. to spend tens of thousands of dollars on them and their champagne tastes. What we have here is Conservatives who do not accept the independent advice of the RCMP, which has determined with regard to the SNC matter that the matter is closed and there are no criminal charges, no investigations and no obstruction. What we see is the true root cause of the Conservatives' filibuster. It is because they want to cover up their champagne-sipping tastes.

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Mr. Michael Cooper

Nov/1/23 8:03:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is quite rich given that this is a Prime Minister who racked up a hotel bill of $6,000 a night in London at taxpayers' expense. Talk about an insulting answer to a serious question. The reason there is no RCMP investigation and that no criminal charges have been laid is very simple: The Prime Minister obstructed the investigation by hiding behind cabinet confidence, blocking the RCMP from obtaining documents that they requested about his potential criminal wrongdoing. Again, if the Prime Minister has nothing to hide, why did he refuse to turn over pertinent documents to the RCMP that in turn resulted in their not being able to make progress on their investigation?

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell

Nov/1/23 8:04:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I trust the words of the RCMP commissioner. He has determined independently and said that due process has been followed, and he is satisfied with the result. There is no investigation. There are no criminal charges. There is no obstruction. However, the obstruction we should talk about here today relates to the fact that the member for Cumberland—Colchester received over $7,000 for a trip to the U.K. For the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South it was $8,300. For the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster it was $7,900. For the member for Lakeland it was $7,700. For the member for New Brunswick Southwest it was $13,548. It was paid for by lobbyists. Why will the Conservatives not let us talk about this at committee?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/1/23 8:05:24 p.m.
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The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 8:05 p.m.)

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