Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House today to speak to this issue.

It was in the spring that I walked here with our shadow minister of innovation, and he said, “Kevin, I'm on the cusp of a big story.” This was in March. We were walking from the Confederation Building over to West Block and he said it was going to shake the country. He did not say much else.

The member for South Shore—St. Margarets told me back in March about this green slush fund, which I did not really know anything about. In fact, I do not think Canadians had heard about the green slush fund until probably June. It is called green for a reason, I can see, as the Liberals have filled their pockets. It is appropriate that we call it the green slush fund.

I was walking over in March when the innovation shadow minister told me to think about this: He said it would rock Canada because it was way bigger than the sponsorship scandal of the Chrétien government, when $42 million was handed off to many advertising agencies and Liberal friends. We all remember the golf balls being presented at the time. The total bill was $42 million.

Today, we are talking about 10 times that amount, $400 million. When the member for South Shore—St. Margarets told me that in March, little did I realize that, wow, it was 10 times the $42 million of the sponsorship scandal, which, by the way, took the Liberals down in defeat. Now this is way bigger.

When I walked over to the House with the member, I said that Saturday was my ninth anniversary as a member of Parliament. I was elected in 2015. It was bittersweet then because the Harper government had lost in 2015, but we retained the seat in Saskatoon—Grasswood.

Kevin Waugh

$540,517.00