SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24

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

May/23/24 6:46:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to follow up on a straightforward question that the Minister of Employment refuses to answer. How much has the minister been paid by Navis Group since the minister was appointed to cabinet? The minister's dealings with Navis Group raise serious ethical questions, including whether the minister broke the law by contravening the Conflict of Interest Act. Navis Group is owned by the minister's business partner. The minister was receiving, and continues to receive, payments from Navis Group. As the minister was receiving these payments, Navis Group was lobbying the minister's own department and managed to secure $110 million in federal contracts for its client. This has all the markings of self-dealing, conflict of interest and corruption. When the Minister of Employment appeared at committee on the estimates, I asked him about his shady arrangement with Navis Group. The minister effectively said that there was nothing to see here, and that it was all above board. The minister claimed it had been approved by the Ethics Commissioner. However, the minister's statement at committee was patently false. It was patently false because, in fact, the minister actively concealed from the Ethics Commissioner his connection to Navis Group. More specifically, the minister's disclosure to the Ethics Commissioner conveniently hid behind a numbered company without disclosing that the numbered company was Navis Group. A statement from the Office of the Ethics Commissioner confirms that the Ethics Commissioner was unaware of the minister's connection with Navis Group. Therefore, the Ethics Commissioner was unaware that the company that was paying the minister was simultaneously lobbying the minister's department and successfully securing $110 million in grants for its client. What we have is a shady deal, a shady arrangement, that the minister actively concealed from the Ethics Commissioner. When the minister got caught, he attempted to misdirect by peddling the falsehood that it had been approved by the Ethics Commissioner, raising additional questions about the minister's fitness for office. Since this scandal broke, the minister has not had the guts to stand in the House once and answer questions. Instead, the minister has been shielded by other ministers in the government who have dodged and deflected on the minister's behalf. On behalf of Canadian taxpayers, who have footed the $110 million bill to Navis Group, how much did the minister pocket from Navis Group? I just need a number.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/23/24 6:50:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear and precise on this at the start. The minister has always followed the strict ethics rules that apply to him as an elected official. Canada has one of the strictest ethics regimes in the world for elected officials, and that is exactly what Canadians expect. The minister has always conducted himself in an ethical manner that follows the spirit and letter of those rules. The minister has already addressed this matter. On that particular point, I am going to reflect on what I have witnessed from the official opposition, virtually from day one. When I say day one, I am talking about the election that was in late 2015. Since our Prime Minister became Prime Minister, the Conservative Party of Canada's focus has been purely on character assassination, whether of the Prime Minister or other ministers, and it has been consistent on that. It did not matter what the circumstances were. The Conservatives will look under every rock and then throw out the word “scandal”, and all sorts of negative words, to try to create something. Often they will create something out of absolutely nothing. The Conservatives like to get the headline that will say “scandal”. If they get a scandal headline, I think they possibly get a gold star in the Conservative back room. There are some members, and I would classify my friend as one of them, who are like a pit bull with a bone. They just do not want to let go until they get five gold stars. That is the type of attitude that I often see. The Conservatives are more focused on that character assassination than on what is actually affecting Canadians. What have we seen over the last eight or nine years as a government? We have seen a government that has been focused on things such as enhancing Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it. We have seen a government that has recognized the importance of the generational gap and the need to have that higher sense of fairness. We have seen budget legislation. We have seen other forms of legislation there to support Canadians and have their backs during the pandemic or during difficult times. When there are issues such as inflation and affordability, we have seen a series of measures. We see that because, no matter what the Conservatives try to throw at the government with character assassinations, we continue to be focused on what is important to Canadians. I can assure members that, going forward, over the next 18 months or, hopefully, beyond, we will see a government that will continue to focus on the interests of Canadians. We will be there to support Canadians in very real and tangible ways. I suspect that we will still continue to see the members of the Conservative Party look under every rock to see what they can find, so they can throw around the word “scandal” as much as they can in the hope that they will be able to get that headline. If there is anything that tries to make this chamber look dysfunctional, anything that calls characters into question, whether it is justified or not, we can count on the Conservatives to stand and raise issues. That is fine. They are the official opposition, and they can do that. However, I will advise them that, as the Conservatives continue to do that, we will continue to work and be there for Canadians in a very real way.

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Mr. Michael Cooper

May/23/24 6:54:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary claimed that the minister addressed the matter. The minister has done no such thing. Indeed, the minister has refused to stand in the House to answer a single question, and when I asked him a question at committee, he misdirected by falsely claiming that it had been cleared by the Ethics Commissioner when the arrangement clearly had not been. Here are the facts: The minister was being paid by a firm owned by his business partner that was lobbying his own department, and it secured $110 million in federal grants for its client. That smacks of a conflict of interest. Is the parliamentary secretary comfortable to stand in the House to tell Canadians that this is the low ethical bar set by the government?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/23/24 6:55:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to say whenever we hear a Conservative say, “Here are the facts,” we should beware. When we think of the pandemic and the billions of dollars that were spent on the pandemic, we will hear the Conservatives say there was a Liberal who owned a particular company and received some sort of grant. They will say it is a huge scandal. However, we will find that for some Liberal entrepreneurs, but also for some Conservative entrepreneurs. I suspect there might even have been some separatist entrepreneurs and New Democrat entrepreneurs. When we have contracts and procurements and other things that are in place, and when we have an ethics commissioner, I take their efforts a whole lot more sincerely than those of the Conservative opposition, because with everything they see, they try to say things are broken and things are scandalous. That has been non-stop since 2015.

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The Speaker

May/23/24 6:57:27 p.m.
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The House is now in committee of the whole to consider all votes under Department of Justice in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. Today's debate is a general one on all votes under Department of Justice. The first round will begin with the official opposition, followed by the government, the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party. After that, we will follow the usual proportional rotation. Each member will be allocated 15 minutes at a time. This time may be used for both debate and for posing questions. Members wishing to use this time to make a speech have a maximum of 10 minutes, which leaves at least five minutes for questions to the minister. When a member is recognized, he or she should indicate to the Chair how the 15-minute period will be used, in other words, how much time will be used for speeches and how much time will be used for questions and answers. Also, pursuant to order made earlier today, members who wish to share their time with one or more members shall indicate this to the Chair, and the Chair will receive no quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent. When the time is to be used for questions and comments, the minister's response should approximately reflect the time taken by the question, since this time will count toward the time allocated to the member. Pursuant to order made earlier today, the time provided for the debate tonight may be extended beyond four hours, as needed, to include a minimum of 16 periods of 15 minutes each. I also wish to indicate that in committee of the whole, comments should be addressed to the Chair. I ask for everyone's co-operation in upholding all of the established standards of decorum, parliamentary language and behaviour. We will now begin tonight's session. The hon. member for Fundy Royal.

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The Speaker

May/23/24 6:57:27 p.m.
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Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), the motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been withdrawn, and the House will now resolve itself into a committee of the whole for the consideration of all votes under Department of Justice in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.

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Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC)

May/23/24 7:00:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be able to participate this evening in this important debate. I want to state at the outset that I will be splitting my time for the last five minutes with the member for Thornhill. I am going to start off with an easy question for the minister, just to get things started. What year did the Liberal Party form its majority government?

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Hon. Arif Virani (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.)

May/23/24 7:00:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party formed majority government in 2015.

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Hon. Rob Moore

May/23/24 7:00:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 2015 is important, because you are going to hear the number 2015 quite a bit. I will note, minister, that when you were first appointed, one of the things you said in your new role was that for Canadians it was empirically unlikely that Canada was becoming less safe. I would say Canadians would say that is not true. I would say Statistics Canada would say that is not true. There has been a shift in the crime rate since 2015 that we are going to talk about this evening. On the serious Criminal Code offence of homicide, have those rates gone up or down since the Liberals formed government in 2015?

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The Speaker

May/23/24 7:01:24 p.m.
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Members should address their questions through the Chair. The hon. Minister of Justice.

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Justice

Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 7:01:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with respect to the comments from the member for Fundy Royal, what I would say and have said previously in this chamber is that upon my initial appointment, I had not yet received briefings with respect to crime statistics. Since that time, in late August and early September, I received statistical briefings on violent crime statistics, and they have, indeed, gone up in Canada.

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Hon. Rob Moore

May/23/24 7:01:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is tremendously unfortunate that before even being briefed, the minister was telling Canadians that it was all in their heads that we were experiencing a crisis in our justice system, but it is not all in Canadians' heads. The statistics tell us that violent crime has gone up tremendously. In fact, the rate of homicide has gone up 43% since 2015, the highest it has been in 30 years. What about gang-related homicides? Have those gone up or down since 2015?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 7:02:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again I appreciate the first question and the tone, but not the tone of the last two questions. I never used the term about things being fictitious, etc. I asked for empirical evidence. I have been given the empirical evidence, and that empirical evidence demonstrates that violent crime has gone up.

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Hon. Rob Moore

May/23/24 7:02:53 p.m.
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Actually, Mr. Speaker, what the minister said was that his role was to tell Canadians that it was empirically unlikely that Canada is becoming less safe. In fact, violent crime is up 39%. Now that he has been briefed, could the minister tell us how much, according to Statistics Canada, gang-related homicides have gone up since 2015, only nine years ago?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 7:03:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I can indicate to Canadians is that my job as Minister of Justice is to work to keep Canadians safe in their communities and in their homes. I understand that violent crime has gone up. That is why I am taking measures to, indeed, do exactly that. Some of the measures that I have taken include changes to the bail system and proposing different penalties and tougher penalties for things like automobile theft.

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Hon. Rob Moore

May/23/24 7:03:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, just the opposite is true. Every step the government has taken in the last nine years has made the situation worse. Can the minister tell Canadians tonight how much violent gun crime, according to Statistics Canada, has gone up since 2015?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 7:04:12 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-21

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the member for Fundy Royal has decided to raise issues that relate to gun crimes, because I can indicate to Canadians watching this evening that we take gun violence very seriously. That is why we have taken steps with initiatives such as an assault rifle ban and a national ban and freeze on the sale of handguns. That was done in legislation in Bill C-21, which the member voted against.

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Hon. Rob Moore

May/23/24 7:04:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if it was not so serious, it would be laughable. The minister is talking about steps his government has taken, but I will answer the question. Violent gun crime is up 101% since 2015 alone, when the Liberals took office. We are hearing from the minister about what he is doing, but, unfortunately, the statistics tell us that everything they are doing, every step of the way, has been to make Canadians less safe. Speaking of which, does the minister have the rate of police-reported sexual assault since 2015?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 7:05:17 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-21

Mr. Speaker, I would indicate to the member opposite that when he and his party vote against initiatives that keep Canadians safe, I think Canadians question the sincerity of questions like the one he just put to me. Bill C-21, which I mentioned, talks about a national freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns. He voted against that. It also increased penalties for firearms trafficking. He voted against that. It also created new offences to help stop ghost guns. He voted against that. If there was sincerity on the part of the member opposite with respect to tackling the pressing issue of gun violence, I would presume the voting pattern would have been the opposite.

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Hon. Rob Moore

May/23/24 7:05:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will answer the question. Sexual assaults are up 71% since 2015, when the Liberals took government, nine years ago. It is beyond ironic that the minister questions why Conservatives on this side would not support their agenda. Of course we do not support their agenda. We want to make Canada a safe place, where kids can play in playgrounds and parents can send their kids to school and not be worried about them. Canada is a less safe place under the government, and the minister, in his answers tonight, has shown no indication whatsoever that he is prepared to reverse course. On April 21, an individual in Victoria stole a vehicle. He was arrested by the Victoria police, taken before court and let out on bail. On April 22, the same individual stole another vehicle. The police did their job, so let us not blame the police. They arrested him, he was brought before a judge and he was let out on bail. On April 23, three days in a row, this individual was arrested for a third time for breaking into a house to steal a motor vehicle. Does the minister know where the Victoria police laid the blame for this outrageous development, that someone in Canada could be arrested three times on successive days and be let out on bail each time?

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