44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2024 10:00AM
- Jun/6/24 2:25:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he knows. Cabinet knows. They know the names, just like they knew about Communist China's interference in the Liberal nomination in Don Valley North.
The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security has revealed that members of Parliament helped hostile foreign states. The Prime Minister knows it. He knows these members.
He protected the member for Don Valley North in the past for partisan reasons. Is that also why he is now refusing to divulge the names of the members who are collaborating with foreign states?
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- Jun/6/24 2:26:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a pregnant woman picking up her child from day care was chased by a woman screaming at her.
“I was so scared. I ran into the street to get away,” she told Benoit Dutrizac. This is what Montreal looks like after nine years of soft-on-crime policies, supported by the Bloc Québécois, that send repeat offenders home instead of to prison.
Will the Prime Minister listen to the Leader of the Opposition's request and refuse exemptions for supervised injection sites near schools and day cares, yes or no?
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- Jun/6/24 3:21:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this week, there has been a lot of secrecy in the House during our debates.
First, there were the disclosures regarding foreign interference and secret names of MPs. Some names have remained secret, and according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, there is a secret report that cannot be released. There is also a certain Randy whose surname remains secret.
These days, another thing that seems to shrouded in secrecy is the government's agenda as we approach the end of this sitting. In the Thursday question, we ask what topics will be discussed the next day and the following week. Unfortunately, it seems as though a lot of changes have been made.
Could the leader of the House give us the actual agenda for the business to be done tomorrow and next week?
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- Jun/6/24 4:00:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.
Before I begin, I want to share some very bad news with the House. After nine years of this Prime Minister, the cost of housing has never been higher. Rentals.ca reports that rents have increased 9.3% year over year. That means the average rent reached $2,202 in May. This is an all-time high for rents paid in Canada. In Vancouver, rent costs $2,671; in Toronto, $2,479; in Halifax, $1,925; in Montreal, $1,763; in Winnipeg, $1,416. No one has been spared.
The cost of housing keeps soaring because this government is not building enough of it. Only the Conservatives have a plan for building homes, not bureaucracy. I wanted to take this opportunity to pass that message on. Why? We witnessed something quite incredible this week. We received not one, not two, not three, but four damning reports about this government's management.
A damning report has been released on this government's management of foreign affairs. We learned about it this week. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians also released a scathing report, which revealed that the Prime Minister repeatedly tried to cover up, deny and then downplay the impact of foreign interference on Parliament and on our elections.
It was probably a terrible day for the Liberals, but I would say that it was an even worse day for Canadians when they saw the Auditor General's reports on McKinsey, the Liberal green fund, which we are talking about today, and cybersecurity.
There have been three reports showing that this government is simply incapable of managing the affairs of the state and the money that Canadians entrust to it. It is not the government's money. It is Canadian taxpayers' money. Unfortunately, the government no longer deserves the trust of Canadians when it comes to managing the money people earn by working hard day after day, and night after night for some folks, seven days a week. Reading these reports, one cannot help but wonder how the Liberals manage to do so much so poorly.
Why am I mentioning that? The reason is that the government continues to spend freely with $61 billion in new inflationary spending that was supported by the Bloc Québécois in the last budget. What did that do? It drove up the cost of housing in a way that has never before been seen in Canada.
Food also costs more. All a person has to do is go to the grocery store on a daily or weekly basis. One has to be there to see people passing up the nicer cuts of meat for something cheaper. People have to make tough choices like that, and sometimes they cannot even buy food that is essential for staying healthy. Why? They cannot afford it. They are worried that, when they get to the register, they will find out they do not have enough money in their bank account to cover their groceries. That is what things are like now in Canada after nine years of this Prime Minister.
Last week, we moved a motion that neither the Bloc Québécois, nor the Liberal Party, nor the NDP supported. We asked the government to suspend the gas tax this summer to give a little breathing room to Quebeckers and Canadians who have been struggling with the cost of living and inflation over the past year. We wanted to give them a break and a chance to dream of taking a little vacation. Unfortunately, the other three parties rejected the idea out of hand. For purely ideological reasons, those people no longer want us to use cars. They want us to travel by bike, through bike paths or whatever, even though they know perfectly well that we do not have the infrastructure.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Luc Berthold: It is true, Madam Speaker, that we do not travel through bike paths; we travel on bike paths. The NDP member himself is very much in favour of increasing carbon taxes. He himself voted against our motion to suspend the taxes. He is against Canadians and Quebeckers taking vacations this summer.
Today we are talking about the sixth report of the Auditor General, the subject of which is Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC. As I said, this report is damning for a number of reasons. This report covers the period from March 1, 2017, to December 31, 2023. During that time, the board of directors approved 226 projects worth $836 million. That is a lot of money.
It all started after a whistle-blower exposed what was going on by recording a senior public servant who criticized the Liberal government's total incompetence because it inappropriately awarded contracts worth $123 million.
I am going to take the liberty of repeating the statements made by this whistle-blower, given that they are the reason we are here today. Thank goodness at least one person dared to stand up and make it clear that the minister responsible, and his office, knew about the corruption within the Liberal green fund and were helping spread it. According to the whistle-blower, they then lied repeatedly. “The minister said...multiple times, that he was briefed on the outcome only on August 27, but that's definitively not true.”
These are comments from the whistle-blower who broke this scandal. Thanks to him, Canadians were able to learn about what was going on within this organization, this Liberal green fund.
The Auditor General noted that the SDTC did not comply with conflict of interest policies in 90 cases. That means that people voted on funding when they were directly involved in the companies receiving it. That is unbelievable. Unfortunately, a departmental representative attended most of those meetings but turned a blind eye. He seems to have done absolutely nothing to help prevent these conflicts of interest.
Some $76 million was allocated to projects with ties to Liberal cronies, appointed to the leadership of this organization. Some $59 million was allocated to projects that should not have received money. We are talking about money that should have gone to innovative environmental projects but instead went to projects that had nothing to do with environmental innovation. How was anyone okay with this?
The thing that stands out from the Auditor General's report is that this all started when former minister Navdeep Bains decided to dismiss the former chair and appoint one of his friends to head the fund. All the problems started there. Before that, there was no problem at the SDTC.
The other thing to keep in mind is on page 23 of the Auditor General's report and reads as follows:
We found that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada had not received records of conflicts of interest at Sustainable Development Technology Canada....
That is understood. Further on, the report states as follows:
We found that the department had not asked for or received such information and did not determine what actions it should take when informed of conflicts of interest by the foundation.
The Auditor General concluded the following:
Sustainable Development Technology Canada did not always manage public funds in accordance with the terms and conditions....
Most importantly, she stated the following:
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada's oversight did not ensure that the administration of public funds was in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contribution agreements and with relevant government policies.
That is squarely the minister's responsibility. He did not do his job. He could have and should have put a stop to this spending spree a lot sooner. Unfortunately, he did not.
Today, we are asking that all of the material examined by the Auditor General be turned over to the RCMP so that it can get to the bottom of this matter and, most importantly, tell us whether any fraud was committed.
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- Jun/6/24 4:11:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, which is so relevant. After the new chair was appointed, resignations followed as people got caught. Afterwards, it was funny to see these folks denying all the conflicts of interest, as though it were normal to vote to give themselves money and then profit from it.
The chair voted to give $217,000 to companies in which she was a shareholder. If her lawyers advised her that she could do that, the rules must have been wrong. The rules did not apply to her, but they applied to everyone else at SDTC.
My colleague is absolutely right. Changing the rules to benefit oneself is illegal. I think it is perfectly legitimate for Canadians to ask the RCMP to get to the bottom of this, because the Auditor General does not have the mandate to lay criminal charges.
Unfortunately, this whole affair smacks of criminal behaviour.
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- Jun/6/24 4:13:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would gladly go to Montreal.
However, I do not need to go to Montreal, because I know from reading the newspapers that tragic events are unfolding every day in Montreal. The most recent story involved a pregnant woman who was picking up her child from day care and was followed by someone. She was frightened. That is the reality we read about every day in the papers. This just goes to show how nine years of inaction on the part of this government have brought crime to a point where people are afraid to go out on the streets.
That being said, I understand why my NDP colleague did not want to ask a question about the report, because it is a very important report and, unfortunately, he will probably have to support whatever recommendations come from the top.
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- Jun/6/24 4:15:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague completely. We absolutely must protect whistle-blowers.
This week, I saw the Minister of Industry boasting that an investigation had been done and that SDTC had been shut down. Unfortunately, while he was boasting, he forgot to mention that the whistle-blower, the one who really brought the facts to light, is in trouble right now. The government failed to protect him.
In my opinion, it is important that we take care of whistle-blowers and that we get to know what is really going on inside the machinery of government.
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- Jun/6/24 4:26:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do consent with pleasure.
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