Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the subamendment arising from the Speaker's ruling in finding a prima facie question of privilege following the failure of the Liberal government to abide by a clear and unambiguous order of the House that was passed on June 10 by a majority of members. In fact, all members representing all of the opposition parties collectively voted in support of the motion that led to the order.

The order is very straightforward. It simply calls upon the Liberals to turn over all documents under their control with respect to Sustainable Development Technology Canada, better known as the Prime Minister's billion-dollar green slush fund, to the Parliamentary law clerk so that the Parliamentary law clerk can then hand over those documents to the RCMP. The order provided that the documents were to be handed over unredacted, and it should be noted that the RCMP has confirmed that it is investigating conflicts, corruption and potential criminality at this billion-dollar green slush fund during the time that the former minister of industry Navdeep Bains and the current minister of industry oversaw that slush fund.

I want to emphasize that the order of the House is not merely a request. It is not optional. It is not for the government to pick and choose which parts of the order it abides by and which parts it does not abide by. It is an order of the House that goes to the heart of parliamentary supremacy and the privileges of all members in the House. It is an order that has constitutional weight.

In that regard, I would draw attention to section 18 of the Constitution Act 1867, which states, “The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada”. Among those privileges is the power of the House to call for persons, papers and records. Those powers are not in any way limited pursuant to the Standing Orders or any act or resolution passed by the House.

According to Bosc and Gagnon, at page 984, “The result is a broad, absolute power that on the surface appears to be without restriction. There is no limit on the types of papers likely to be requested; the only prerequisite is that the papers exist in hard copy or electronic format, and that they are located in Canada.” That was reaffirmed by the parliamentary law clerk when he testified at the public accounts committee last Tuesday. He said, as quoted in the blues, with respect to the production order, “the power of the House to compel the production of documents is a constitutional power that is a parliamentary privilege. It supersedes ordinary law”. The parliamentary law clerk further observed that the privileges of the House, including the power to order the production of papers, records and persons, fall within the ability of this House of Parliament to exercise its core functions. Among those core functions is the ability to investigate and to hold the government to account.

That is precisely the basis of the production order, to see that Parliament can get to the bottom of the conflict, mismanagement and corruption with respect to the green slush fund and that those documents are turned over to the RCMP so it can pursue a criminal investigation and lay charges where appropriate.

As I noted, the order was passed on June 10. The government had 30 days to turn over the documents. It has not come close to complying with the order. It has turned over some documents, but they are redacted. When the representative from the Prime Minister's department, the PCO, came before the public accounts committee, the bases upon which she asserted the redactions had been made were the Privacy Act, the Access to Information Act, solicitor-client privilege and cabinet confidence. Of course, that is completely unacceptable because, as the law clerk noted, the production order supersedes all of those things. The parliamentary law clerk was clear. The order supersedes ordinary law, so it will prevail over the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act and, for example, solicitor-client privilege.

Notwithstanding that, representing, again, the Prime Minister's department, the witness made it very clear that the government has no intention of abiding by the order of the House. The position of the government is to thumb its nose at Parliament. While thousands of documents have been redacted, tens of thousands of other pages of documents have been completely withheld. For example, the Department of Justice at present is withholding 11,000 pages of documents relating to SDTC. The justice department is hiding documents from the House that were ordered to be produced to the House and turned over to the RCMP.

The government is in complete contempt. It begs this question: Why have the Liberals gone to such lengths to obstruct and literally paralyze this place to hide documents relating to the billion-dollar green slush fund? Having taken a fairly close look at what happened under the green slush fund, I think the answer is that it is really bad. That was confirmed by the explosive report of the Auditor General that led to this House adopting the motion that led to the production order the government has obstructed, three and a half months after the date it was due to turn over the documents. In that regard, the current Minister of Industry, as well as former Liberal minister of industry Navdeep Bains, have a lot to answer for.

The Auditor General wrote that as much as 400 million taxpayer dollars may have gone out the door improperly at the green slush fund. The current minister would have Canadians believe that SDTC, or the green slush fund, was an arm's-length foundation; that he and his officials really had nothing to do with it; and that when the whistle-blower came forward, he took action. However, that is not close to accurate with respect to what happened.

The minister and his department had a responsibility to provide appropriate oversight of what was happening at SDTC, and the Auditor General concluded that such oversight was completely lacking. Indeed, the Auditor General found that $59 million went out the door of the green slush fund to ineligible projects. Putting aside the conflicts and the corruption that took place at SDTC, $59 million went out the door to ineligible projects. That is gross mismanagement.

With respect to the responsibility of the minister and his department for oversight, the Auditor General was scathing in her conclusions. There are entire sections on the failure of this minister and the previous Liberal minister. For instance, one heading on page 21 of the Auditor General's report says, “The department did not sufficiently assess whether the foundation complied with the contribution agreements”. The department did not sufficiently assess that. We are talking about a billion taxpayer dollars. The minister and his predecessor were not providing sufficient oversight. Another heading in the Auditor General's report says, “The department did not sufficiently assess and monitor the foundation and its use of public funds”.

That happened under this minister, and the previous minister, and he has a lot to answer for, about why there was that total and complete lack of oversight. He cannot run away from it. He cannot say it was just some arm's-length foundation. Yes, board members at SDTC bear responsibility, but ultimate responsibility rests with the current minister and his predecessor, Navdeep Bains.

In addition to mismanagement, there were many conflicts of interest. There were instances of board members sitting in and deliberating on board meetings, and then voting to approve funding for projects that was then funnelled into companies they had interests in.

One such board member was the Liberal hand-picked chair Annette Verschuren, who moved two motions to funnel money out the door under the guise of providing so-called COVID relief payments: $38.5 million went out the door that the Auditor General said should not have. Again, it was staggering mismanagement. However, $220,000 of that went into her company NRStor, a company in which she was the majority shareholder, founder and CEO. This was a total and blatant conflict of interest.

Then there was the Minister of Environment's pal Andrée-Lise Méthot. The Minister of the Environment was a lobbyist for Méthot's venture capital firm, Cycle Capital, lobbying the government almost 50 times prior to his election to this place. Méthot sat and voted to funnel $650,000 to companies she had interests in, as part of those COVID relief payments. Not only that, but she has admitted at committee that several of her companies received millions and millions of dollars from the green slush fund while she sat on the board.

She was defiant in her testimony that she had recused herself and therefore, somehow, that was okay. However, when I asked her to explain if she had read the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act, and more specifically section 12, which states that “no director shall profit or gain any income or acquire any property from the Foundation or its activities”, she threatened to walk out of committee today, thumbing her nose at a parliamentary committee because that is precisely what she did. She violated the act when millions of dollars went into companies she had interests in. Whether she recused herself or not, the letter of the law in the SDTC act is clear. That was another matter flagged by the Auditor General in her report.

We have mismanagement to the tune of $59 million, we have millions of dollars that members funnelled into their companies that they had interests in and there are incidents worth millions more where members technically recused themselves but money went into companies they had interests in, in contravention of the SDTC act.

It begs the question: Through it all, where was the current minister and where was his predecessor Navdeep Bains? At each and every one of the meetings during which those votes took place and money went out the door improperly or in conflicts of interest or in contravention of the SDTC act, the minister had a representative, the assistant deputy minister.

One of two things is possible in the case of Navdeep Bains and the current minister: they were completely asleep at the switch, or they turned a blind eye and were complicit in the mismanagement, conflict and corruption at SDTC. I have to say that I think the second scenario is the more likely scenario.

I and other members of the public accounts committee have questioned how it is that Navdeep Bains tapped Annette Verschuren on the shoulder to serve as chair of the green slush fund. Navdeep Bains claimed he appointed her pursuant to an independent merit-based process, but as it turns out, Navdeep Bains rigged the process by bypassing a short list provided by a selection committee and hand-picking Verschuren. Notwithstanding that he knew she had a conflict of interest, insofar as her company NRStor was receiving $12 million from the green slush fund at the time, Navdeep Bains appointed her anyway. When he came to committee, instead of answering basic questions, he obstructed the committee so much that the committee came very close to holding him in contempt. If he does not show up by this Wednesday, it is almost certain he will be held in contempt. It speaks to a government, a current minister and a former minister who seem to be doing everything they can to not answer questions, to obstruct and to not be transparent. They have a lot to answer for.

In the meantime, we are going to continue to insist, in the face of what is a massive scandal, that the government for once show some respect for this institution, show some respect for the taxpayers and show some commitment to seeing that there is accountability, including if there was criminal wrongdoing. The way the government can start in that regard, for the first time in nine years, is to turn over the documents now.

Michael Cooper

$525,143.00