Madam Speaker, let me rephrase.

We agree with the Speaker when he said, “The House has the undoubted right to order the production of any and all documents from any entity or individual it deems necessary to carry out its duties.” As such, I ask this again: Why are we here? We are here to hold this government accountable for its mess, corruption and wrongdoings. What would this motion do? The House is simply asking for these documents so that they can be turned over and scrutinized, not only by the RCMP, but by members of Parliament, because it is our privilege and our right to do so.

Nothing in our motion calls for the RCMP to conduct any type of investigation, and this is not an abnormal request, as the House enjoys the absolute and unfettered power to order the production of documents, which is not limited by any statute whatsoever. These powers are rooted in the very fabric of this House, having been enshrined in the Constitution Act of 1867 and the Parliament of Canada Act.

Here is a quick refresher on the role of Sustainable Development Technology Canada and why it is being investigated for corruption. SDTC is a federally funded non-profit founded in 2001. It was set up to approve and disburse funds to clean-tech companies. The latest mandate for the agency was to disburse $1 billion over five years ending in 2025-26. Let us call this disbursement the “green slush fund”. The wording of “slush fund” is deliberate. A slush fund is a reserve of money used for illicit purposes, usually pertaining to political bribery, and this is no exaggeration.

Doug McConnachie, the assistant deputy minister at Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and the whistle-blower who would expose the grift said that what happened at SDTC was “almost a sponsorship-scandal level kind of giveaway.” The sponsorship scandal, if members remember, is what eventually brought down the previous Liberal government of prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien. It should be noted that both scandals share certain similarities. Both involved Liberal Party insiders and firms profiting from hard-earned dollars of taxpayers through the diversion of funds from existing government programs created by Liberal governments.

Let us dig into the anatomy of a scandal. Coincidentally, 2015 was when we had our new government, this Liberal government. In 2015, the mastermind of the operation, Leah Lawrence, was hired to be the CEO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada. Under her direction, SDTC essentially turned into this green slush fund for her and her friends. Rather than funding green tech firms in a fair and transparent manner, she decided to use the fund to top up the companies of her and her friends. A key player in covering up her behaviour was her partner in crime, Annette Verschuren, who was appointed chair of the board.

Annette used her position to protect Leah. Not wanting to miss out on the fund, the entire board then also partook in the scam. To compound these issues, subcontractors on projects were often affiliated with the CEO. Clearly in the wrong, the board members tried to cover their tracks by contracting an outside legal opinion saying it was okay to fund their own companies with the bonus money. This outside opinion was from Ed Vandenberg. He is a paid SDTC member.

There is no lack of salacious details to add in. I just cannot make this stuff up. It is truly stranger than fiction. If anyone is wondering what the government did when it found out about these issues, the answer is nothing. Just like the arrive scam app, this government's SDTC board fleeced taxpayers, and instead of reprimanding and firing these individuals, the Liberals ignored the issue and tried to cover up this abuse of taxpayer dollars.

It is not like the government was not warned. In fact, the whistle-blower referred to the initial investigation as a “whitewash”. The whistle-blowers reached out to both the government and the Privy Council Office, and despite warnings, the SDTC management team and board of directors remained in place months later. This must have been disheartening, yet, despite their claims falling on deaf ears, the eventual result was an inquiry into the matter conducted by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton. The report confirmed that the whistle-blower complaints were actually valid and factual. Not only did the report confirm the multiple instances of corruption, but it also stated the government ignored these findings and continued to fund the organization despite being warned of the board's behaviour.

Sadly, this is not new behaviour, and it is part of a larger pattern. Over the past nine years, the government has exhibited a flagrant disregard for transparency and the rule of law.

Since the Prime Minister was elected, Canada has slid down the Transparency International Canada corruption perceptions index. Back in 2015, Canada placed as the ninth-least corrupt country in the world, with a score of 83 points, and we were improving. We can then fast-forward to 2022, when Canada was stuck in a tie for 14th place, with a score of 74 points. This is a loss of almost 10 percentage points.

In 2022, Transparency International Canada executive director James Cohen stated, “The problem of money-laundering in Canada and other corruption scandals have been headline news in recent years dragging down the perception of Canada as a clean country. This year’s disappointing results show the need to take concrete action to restore Canada’s reputation.” Those are not exactly glowing words, and they certainly confirm what Conservatives have been saying all along. Suffice it to say that the government did nothing to rectify this perception of corruption in Canada. This is corruption that it has created and condoned; it is damaging our international reputation.

Is it even a surprise that we have fallen so low? Since 2015, the volume of scandals has grown from a steady stream into a powerful torrent, starting with the cash for access scandal. That worked its way up to the infamous SNC-Lavalin corruption cover-up, blackface, the WE Charity, the Mark Norman affair, arrive scam, the Winnipeg lab documents and foreign interference from state actors, such as China, India, Iran and Russia. The list of major scandals under the direction of the Prime Minister is too long for a 20-minute speech.

Of the sickening levels of graft at SDTC, one of the whistle-blowers had this to say:

The true failure of the situation stands at the feet of our current government, whose decision to protect wrongdoers and cover up their findings over the last 12 months is a serious indictment of how our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference. It should never have taken two years for the issues to reach this point. What should have been a straightforward process turned into a bureaucratic nightmare that allowed SDTC to continue wasting millions of dollars and abusing countless employees over the last year.

Let us remember that, earlier on in my speech, I said that it was a $1-billion fund. Of that $1 billion, almost half of it, $400 million, is what is in question in terms of being handed out inappropriately. The whistle-blowers also claimed, “[T]he current government is more interested in protecting themselves and protecting the situation from being a public nightmare. They would rather protect wrongdoers and financial mismanagement than have to deal with a situation like SDTC in the public sphere.” It is a cover-up. That is why we are here. The Liberal government does not want to be honest or transparent even now, when it is in direct contravention of an order to produce documents that was passed by a majority of MPs in this place.

Clearly, the government knew of the scandal and tried to hide it. It is really a testament to the moral integrity of whistle-blowers that we have this information in front of us today, and I thank them for it. For years, they had to toil in what they referred to as a “toxic” work environment, a place of work with high turnover and a culture in which loyalties were constantly tested by petty executives.

What is the scale of the scandal? On June 13, my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets requested a breakdown of the approved funding by the SDTC board. The Auditor General found that government officials sent nearly $400 million in taxpayer funds to their own companies through inappropriately awarded contracts. In doing so, to quote myself, Blaine Calkins, they were responsible for “not one, not two, not 10, not 50, not 100 but 186 conflicts of interest.” That is truly an extraordinary number.

The government may try to deflect and say that SDTC is an arm's-length organization, but this is not true either, really. Another major finding of the Auditor General's investigation was that there were several severe lapses in the governance standards. It was only after the Prime Minister's hand-picked Liberal board members were appointed that this fund began voting for absurd amounts of taxpayer dollars for itself and hid its corrupt funnelling to board members' very own companies. In fact, the organization received a clean bill of health in 2017, before these corrupt board members were actually appointed.

Another interesting tidbit about the green slush fund is that the Minister of Environment served as a strategic adviser for a venture capital firm called Cycle Capital from 2009 to 2018, prior to his appointment to cabinet. The founder and owner of Cycle Capital sat on the same SDTC board that voted for Cycle Capital investments to receive a significant amount of funding. Will the Minister of Environment state if he still holds shares in Cycle Capital, and if so, how much has he stood to gain from these illicit investments?

If people are still not convinced of the need for these documents, please consider the words of our whistle-blower, who told the public accounts committee, “Just as I was always confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement at SDTC, I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.” Those are not our words. Clearly, the whistle-blower believes this work is important, and we, as Conservatives, stand in solidarity with them.

In summary, we on the Conservative bench just want the government to turn over the SDTC green slush fund documents so that those responsible can be held accountable and taxpayers can know where their money went. Hopefully, we can recover some of those tax dollars for them.

SDTC's board was appointed by the government, and it was informed of the conflicts of interest held by the executives it chose, yet the government did not act for years. Because of this, we are saddled with another corruption scandal. The Auditor General's investigation has uncovered that $400 million in SDTC funding was awarded to projects in which board members were conflicted during the five-year audit period.

That sum of money is nothing to laugh at, especially at a time when so many Canadians are struggling with everyday bills and affordability. These are funds that could have gone into building infrastructure, feeding the needy, tackling crime and dealing with the housing crisis that plagues our nation. Instead, the NDP-Liberal coalition government has paralyzed Parliament and made it impossible to address the serious issues facing Canadians.

It is time for the Prime Minister to take accountability and provide the documents outlining the conflicts of interest in the green slush fund. It is equally true that the MP for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, the minister of industry, should have done a better job of monitoring SDTC. The blame lies squarely at the feet of the Prime Minister and that minister.

I would like to leave members with a thought before I complete my speech. The Prime Minister once said, “One of the most important things in any leader or in any successful approach is to focus on connecting with people and really listening to them.” It sounds like something he would say. I will just say to the Prime Minister that, if he will not release the documents, will he at least take stock of his own words and listen to the voice of Canadians, the great multitudes who are fed up with the corruption? They are telling him that it is time.

Taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and his time is up. It is time to heed the call of Canadians and put Canada on a path for a carbon tax election. Let us get to it .

Blaine Calkins

$585,739.00