44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2022 10:00AM
- Dec/13/22 10:05:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, presented on Tuesday, May 10, be concurred in.
It is always an honour to rise and speak in the Canadian House of Commons on behalf of my constituents, and also as a free Canadian speaking of my own convictions. Debate in the House expresses the freedom we have and the blessing we enjoy by being in a self-governing democratic nation.
Today, I think of the words of Prime Minister Diefenbaker, who said:
I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.
Many Canadians have fought and died for these freedoms, but many of us have received these freedoms having never had to actually risk life and limb to defend them. For that, we are deeply grateful.
I believe that as the inheritors of Canadian traditions of freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law and the self-determination of peoples, we have a responsibility to promote the expansion of these traditions throughout the world, recognizing and reflecting the universal aspirations of all people to live freely, to chose their own leaders and to have their inherent dignity recognized. Canada's traditions protect and preserve freedom, but those traditions reflect universal human aspirations. How can we, who have been so blessed, fail to use our power now to spread these same blessings to our suffering brothers and sisters around the world?
It is in that spirit that I put forward this motion, first in committee and now in the House of Commons, in hopes of advancing freedom and justice for the people of Tibet. I presented this same motion in the last Parliament. In both cases, it was adopted and referred to this House. With this concurrence debate, whereby the House considers formally expressing its agreement with this motion, we now finally have an opportunity for the Canadian House of Commons to decisively pronounce itself on Tibet's status and to make a clear call regarding Tibet's future. The motion states:
That this committee call for dialogue between representatives of the Tibetan people (his Holiness the Dalai Lama or his representatives and/or the Central Tibetan Administration) and the government of the People's Republic of China with a view to enabling Tibet to exercise genuine autonomy within the framework of the Chinese constitution;
This simple motion recognizes simple realities. The Tibetan people are a people. They have a shared culture, history and language. They have shared traditions and institutions. Though not presently in a free, self-governing country, Tibetans are a people who constitute a nation. As such, as a people, they have a God-given and internationally codified right of self-determination. The people of all Tibet, not just the more limited so-called TAR, have a right to chose their own leaders and to autonomously shape their own future.
Tibetan leaders, however, are not using this right of self-determination to seek full independence from China. Rather, they are seeking a middle way: genuine autonomy for Tibet within the framework of the Chinese constitution, which is perhaps similar to forms of federalism that exist throughout the world.
Tibetans do not seek independence. They seek peace, accommodation and compromise through the middle way approach. It should be a clear-cut matter of moral principle and of international law that the aspiration of Tibetans for genuine autonomy, as an expression of national self-determination, should be recognized and supported. How can we justly recognize such aspirations in other cases but fail to do so for the people of Tibet?
This motion calls on the Canadian House of Commons to clearly add its voice to calls for dialogue, with a view to allowing the exercise of genuine autonomy by Tibet and its people. This motion calls on the Canadian House of Commons to do the right thing and to add its voice to the global push for recognition and adoption of the middle way approach.
To westerners, the word “Tibet” has many meanings and associations, from activism to literature to spirituality. However, the first thing to say, setting aside these common associations, is that Tibet was once a country like any other. It had politics, religion, commerce, diplomacy, arts, culture and many everyday people going about their everyday lives. It had challenges and it had immense opportunity.
Like Ukraine, Tibet had the particular problem of a neighbour that did not recognize its right to exist, although prior to 1950, the country of Tibet was actively pursuing negotiations for formal recognition with its neighbours. Sadly, after the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party violently invaded Tibet and imposed the so-called 17-point agreement, an agreement that has, incidently, never been honoured. Violent conquest and occupation should never be recognized as a legitimate way to establish a territorial claim, not in Ukraine, not in Taiwan and not in Tibet.
Following this invasion, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of Tibet, was forced into exile in India, from where he has since led an international resistance campaign that has spanned more than 60 years. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is of course the most recognized person in the Tibetan resistance struggle. He is clearly a remarkable figure. When I was first elected, I was honoured to have an audience with him in Dharamshala in India, which is his headquarters and also the headquarters of the Central Tibetan Administration. That simple conversation has deeply shaped my own thinking about human rights and Canada's role in advocating for it.
One of the most incredible things is to meet a person who we know has experienced deep suffering and injustice, yet when we observe them, we find they are nonetheless possessed with an electric joie de vivre and clearly derive joy and happiness not from the particulars of their circumstances but from an external reality. Such was my impression of the Dalai Lama, someone who has been forced to spend most of his life in exile and someone with significant status. He is perhaps the most recognizable person on the planet and is joyful, informal, friendly and extremely funny. Far from expressing bitterness or anger toward the nation that forced him into exile, he expressed goodwill toward China and a desire for it to pursue an ambition for greatness while peacefully engaging in dialogue and partnership with other nations. The Dalai Lama demonstrates a living out of the simple exhortation to love one's enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
It was powerful for me as a Christian to see this teaching of Jesus being lived so well by someone who clearly comes from a different spiritual tradition but nonetheless practises the wisdom that is common to both. Loving one's enemies is not just good spiritual wisdom. It has an important practical function in geopolitics. An enemy who is bent on causing suffering must clearly be stopped and defeated, and the call to love one's enemies has never been interpreted as an injunction to simply accept and permit violence. However, total defeat of an enemy is rarely possible. Tibet will continue to have China as its neighbour, regardless of the political forms by which either are governed. In the long run, therefore, they have to find a way to live together.
To quote Desmond Tutu, “There is no future without forgiveness.” As such, some eventual reconciliation, facilitated by mutual love, goodwill and forgiveness, is the only path to stable and permanent peace. Love and goodwill toward an enemy can be the starting point for trying to persuade that enemy to change their ways, and it provides the basis for forgiveness and reconciliation after a conflict has ended.
I believe what the Dalai Lama means by dialogue is a rich and deep dialogue toward mutual understanding, not simple formal negotiation, and this desire for meaningful dialogue comes out of real love and goodwill. All nations facing conflict would do well to recognize the simple truth that they will remain neighbours until the end of time and that mutual recognition and self-determination, as well as some measure of love and goodwill, are the only viable alternatives to tension and conflict.
Jewish and Christian scripture says the following about how to treat one's enemy:
If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head....
This particular passage has always confused me. Is the purpose of loving one's enemy a kind of jiu-jitsu move aimed at causing one's enemy to suffer, or is it based on genuine good intentions? Of course, it has to be based on good intentions and a genuine desire for reconciliation, but it is also true that these displays of goodwill from figures like the Dalai Lama are profoundly confusing and discombobulating for an aggressive power. They render the aggressive power's propaganda absurd and leave that power with a general loss on what to credibly say or do.
In spite of his obvious desire for peace, dialogue and reconciliation, the Dalai Lama is portrayed in the most absurd and outlandish ways by the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP is at present so hard-wired to think in terms of advantage and violence that these simple calls for dialogue lead to theatrical and obviously absurd claims about the Dalai Lama's alleged real intentions. This is perhaps the effect of having the metaphorical burning coals heaped on one's head.
The CCP's response to the Dalai Lama and his message would be comically absurd if it was not so deadly serious. Despite being an officially atheist power, the CCP presumes to be able to make binding decisions about the reincarnation of Buddhist lamas so as to control their succession. This is an obvious political power move aimed at laying the groundwork to install a pliant, fake Dalai Lama in the future, but how can the CCP logically both reject the idea of reincarnation and claim to be the authority on reincarnation? These attempts to claim control over the Dalai Lama's prospective succession are part of a broader attack on religious freedom, as well as other fundamental freedoms, in Tibet and within the Tibetan diaspora.
In this vein, I quote from the 2021 United States Department of State report on human rights in Tibet, which is a catalogue of some of the worst imaginable violations of human rights. It says:
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by the government; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment by the government; arbitrary arrest or detention; political prisoners; politically motivated reprisals against individuals located outside the country; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including censorship; serious restrictions on internet freedom including site blocking; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; severe restrictions on religious freedom, despite nominal constitutional protections voided by regulations restricting religious freedom and effectively placing Tibetan Buddhism under central government control; severe restrictions on freedom of movement; the inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; restrictions on political participation; serious acts of government corruption; coerced abortion or forced sterilization; and violence or threats of violence targeting indigenous [peoples].
Disciplinary procedures for officials were opaque, and aside from vague allegations of corruption or violations of “party discipline,” there was no publicly available information to indicate senior officials punished security personnel or other authorities for behaviour defined under [the] laws and regulations of the People’s Republic of China as abuses of power and authority.
On these abuses, I highlight the ongoing disappearance of the 11th Panchen Lama, the second-most significant figure in Tibetan Buddhism. Neither he nor his parents have been heard from, have been seen or have been contacted by anyone. This disappearance began in 1995 when he was six years old.
I also highlight the case of Tenzin Nyima who died after being beaten to death after months of detention. Another Tibetan, Kunchok Jinpa died in hospital after being released from prison. I could highlight many of these cases of repression of fundamental human rights, of people being beaten to death or being arbitrarily detained.
In a way, it would be simpler and shorter to outline the human rights violations that were not being committed in Tibet, because it seems that virtually every imaginable case of human rights violations is catalogued by those who track these human rights abuses. Nonetheless, in spite of them, the message of hope from the Dalai Lama and others is compelling as the movement for change and dialogue, the Tibetan resistance, continues.
Tibetan resistance builds on the message and the wisdom of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and it goes further. At the Dalai Lama's own prompting, the Tibetan diaspora built effective democratic institutions that form the Central Tibetan Administration. Effectively, the Central Tibetan Administration is a government in exile and a government for exile.
The Central Tibetan Administration has an elected parliament with representatives from the diaspora community all over the world. When parliament is not directly in session, it is represented by a residual standing committee. The Tibetan community worldwide also directly elects a sikyong or president who leads the Central Tibetan Administration and who has ministers with various responsibilities. In all of these respects, it functions much like our own government and like many other democratic governments around the world.
The CTA provides services to diaspora communities, supporting the strengthening of the diaspora and also the maintenance and expansion of Tibetan language and culture. It also engages in advocacy for Tibet and would likely lead dialogue with China on behalf of the Tibetan people. The very existence of the CTA demonstrates again that Tibetans are a people with autonomous democratic institutions as well as a distinct language and culture.
The existence of the CTA and other related institutions also demonstrates Tibetans' readiness for self-government. There can be no argument that Tibetans are not ready to govern themselves, because Tibetans are already doing it.
Not only do Tibetans govern their own country in living memory, but they have also developed new, integrated, fully functional and fully democratic institutions in the Tibetan diaspora. Tibetan people all over the world are deeply committed to these democratic institutions. Tibetan elections are serious and substantive affairs, and they feature high levels of participation.
Notably, while in Canada, a person can be both a proud Canadian and a proud Tibetan. However, many Tibetans living in a diaspora are not citizens of any other country. Officially, they are stateless, but substantively they have one identity and that identity is Tibetan. They participate in the democratic life of Tibetan exile, because Tibet is their home, Tibet is their identity, and by participating they are building up the democratic life of Tibet.
I salute all Tibetans, young and old, who participate in Tibetan democracy. Their participation gives them control of key aspects of their own lives, but it also helps to build up the infrastructure that will one day be able to return home.
Many people think of resistance as a kind of destructive act. Too many of those involved in modern resistance movements think in terms of destruction. They think of destroying art, destroying houses of worship and destroying historical memory. Clearly, in the most extreme case of war, there is going to be collateral damage. However, if the resistance movement aims at the destruction of anything good, true or beautiful then the movement has clearly taken a dangerous wrong turn.
A resistance movement that seeks a better world should seek to create the good, true and beautiful. It should not seek to destroy things to make a point. Tibetan resistance provides that alternative model. Tibetans model constructive resistance, which involves building and creating beautiful things for their own sake but also recognizing that creation reinforces Tibetans' identity as a people and their readiness to return home.
The Dalai Lama expounds a spiritual doctrine seeking love, understanding and reconciliation. The Tibetan people have built effective democratic institutions to demonstrate their readiness to assume the leadership of their own territory. The cultural work of creation and celebration continues strongly as Tibetan culture has been shared with an appreciative world.
The Dalai Lama, the CTA and the Tibetan people together have put forward a clear and reasonable path toward justice: dialogue between China and Tibet with a view to recognizing the inherent right of Tibetan people to self-determination while keeping Tibet within the overall framework of the Chinese constitution.
This model of creative and constructive resistance provides an example to others around the world facing injustice or seeking to advance an important cause. Although I do not personally believe that non-violent resistance is obligatory in every case, I believe that even violent resistance should maintain a basic desire to minimize damage, to define understanding and to build up alternative frameworks and institutions that make peace and justice practically viable.
People facing authoritarian oppression anywhere should seek to build unified democratic institutions in exile and propose constructive and realistic ways forward. This model of effective resistance is why, more than 60 years after the invasion and occupation of Tibet began and despite all the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to wipe out Tibetan identity, the cause of Tibet is still widely known, defended and championed in every part of the world.
Therefore, as friends and allies of Tibet, we will not rest until the middle way approach is achieved. We will not rest until dialogue between China and Tibet has resumed and has concluded with the establishment of genuine autonomy for Tibet that gives Tibetans freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law and self-determination. We will not rest because we love Tibet, but also because we recognize the universal right of all people to live in freedom, choose their own leaders and to practise their faith and their traditions without the interference of the state.
To paraphrase Diefenbaker, we work for the day when Tibetans inside Tibet will be free: free to speak without fear, free to worship God in their own way, free to stand for what they think right, free to oppose what they believe wrong and free to choose those who govern them. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.
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- Dec/13/22 10:25:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member could have done a bit more research regarding the record of the previous government when it came supporting Tibet. Many important steps were taken in regard to engagement with and support for Tibet. One of them was the former prime minister hosting and meeting with the Dalai Lama. In a constructive spirit, if the current Prime Minister of Canada would be prepared to take that step, I think that would certainly send a positive message.
The Government of Canada should be clear and vocal in its support for the middle way. I am hopeful that this motion we put forward on a number of occasions will pass now and that the House will clearly pronounce that these are important steps forward. There are many other steps the government needs to take. I suggest applying Magnitsky sanctions to officials involved in the violation of human rights in Tibet and supporting Bill C-281, which is the international human rights act.
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- Dec/13/22 10:27:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have observed over the last few years that the last two Canadian minority Parliaments have been able to play a significant leadership role in the world, when it comes to confronting human rights abuses being perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party. While Canada's Parliament has led in the world, though, the Government of Canada has been a laggard.
Canada's Parliament was the first to recognize the Uighur genocide. The Government of Canada has still not recognized the Uighur genocide. Canada's Parliament has passed various motions calling for action on foreign state-backed interference. We continue to hear news about government entities signing contracts that raise significant concerns from a national security perspective, because they involve Chinese state owned or affiliated companies.
We have this interesting contradiction that I think people around the world are observing, which is leadership by a minority Parliament. It is often driven by the opposition, but often includes certain backbench members of the governing party, which is out of step with the unwillingness of the executive to be realistic about the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Hopefully action by parliamentarians will continue to prod the government to do better.
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- Dec/13/22 10:29:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the member wants to take it in a partisan direction, as he clearly does, I will just say that for this Prime Minister, who clearly loves photo ops, this would be a case where a meeting and a photo would actually be quite meaningful. I would encourage the Prime Minister to take that opportunity, which is one that, as far as I know, he has not taken at any point during his premiership.
However, there are other steps the Prime Minister should take. He should endorse the middle-way approach. He should vote in favour of this motion. The government should bring forward legislation on reciprocal access to Tibet, modelled after bipartisan initiatives along these lines in the United States. The government should take action to protect victims of forced labour that we are seeing targeted at Uighurs, but I believe there is also forced labour that happens in Tibet. The government should make clear statements with respect to religious freedom in Tibet.
The government should adopt a similar framework to that contemplated by a new bill in the United States that would affirm Tibet's history and Tibetans' identity as a distinct people. The government should take real action on forced labour, again modelled after the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States. The government should adopt Bill C-281, the international human rights act. It should use the Magnitsky act to target officials who are involved in gross human rights violations in Tibet.
There are many concrete actions the Government of Canada can and should take. I have no doubt that, regardless of them, we will hear members like this one stand up and say “Oh, the government is great.” I guess that is his job. However, constructively, there are specific actions the government could be taking around Magnitsky sanctions, around reciprocal access and around religious freedom that the government has not taken and should take as soon as possible.
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- Dec/13/22 10:32:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member's point that sometimes we maybe focus on certain human rights issues and not others for a variety of reasons that may not have pure motives is important to reflect on. Sometimes we have been particularly reluctant to criticize violations of human rights by the Chinese Communist Party because clearly the Chinese Communist Party is very powerful relative to other smaller entities that may abuse human rights. That does not necessarily take away the human rights obligations we have.
At the same time, it is important to note that the war in Ukraine is rightly something we have really seized on and focused on. It is about protecting the security of the people of Ukraine. It is also about recognizing that the war is exacerbating a global hunger crisis and that many people in Asia and Africa are vulnerable to starvation as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. If we permit this kind of violation of international law, we will likely see other states take similar steps.
We should not be paying attention to these conflicts as exclusive things, but rather recognizing the integration among the human rights responses that covers and looks at problems in different parts of the world.
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- Dec/13/22 10:44:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is important to identify one distinction, and that is the distinction between speaking of human rights issues in Tibet and speaking of the political status of Tibet. These are both important questions, and they are distinct questions.
We should speak about religious freedom and human rights for Tibetans, but we should also discuss the reality that Tibet was taken over through a violent invasion. The purpose of dialogue, as outlined in the report, is to establish genuine autonomy within the framework of the Chinese constitution as a way of resolving the question of political status.
I wonder if the member could share what the government's position is, specifically on the middle way approach, on the proposal for genuine autonomy and the political status of Tibet.
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- Dec/13/22 10:48:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member could also talk about the specific concern we are hearing from the Tibetan-Canadian community about how the Chinese Communist Party seeks to threaten and intimidate the Tibetan diaspora outside of Tibet.
It has been well documented in various reports that this is a strategy of the Chinese Communist Party. We have had the case of Chemi Lhamo here in Canada and other cases of Tibetan-Canadian activists working on Tibet issues who have faced threats and intimidation. Frankly, I think that the government has been slow to take some critical steps on this.
What is the government prepared to do, concretely, to support the Tibetan diaspora here in Canada and address the issue of foreign state-backed interference in our country?
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- Dec/13/22 10:59:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke about many important issues, including reciprocal access, human rights, the middle way approach, the whereabouts of the Panchen Lama and other human rights abuses and language and cultural rights. I am pleased that in the Parliamentary Friends of Tibet group we have been able to work collaboratively and talk about many of these important issues.
One important piece of advancing human rights has to include talking about accountability for perpetrators of human rights abuses. That is why I see the framework of the Magnitsky act as being critically important. The government has, in a very limited way, put sanctions on a number of individuals involved in abuses against Uighurs, but we are calling for more action there, as well as use of the Magnitsky act against officials involved in human rights violations in Hong Kong, Tibet and other parts of the People's Republic of China.
I wonder if the member could speak to the fact that Magnitsky sanctions have not been used significantly, certainly in recent years, and what steps we could consider for getting the government to apply Magnitsky sanctions to more people.
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- Dec/13/22 11:18:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, with the greatest respect for my colleague, her implication that this concurrence debate is interfering with the business of the House seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the fact that there was extensive dialogue among party House leaders about negotiating the ending period of this week and how we would wrap up before Christmas, in particular how this concurrence debate would take place. Sometimes concurrence motions are put forward with more limited notice, but this was discussed and will proceed according to an agreed upon framework.
I would respectfully encourage the member to maybe seek some feedback on that from other members about the conversations that took place. I will leave that for the member's consideration.
She did not really speak about Tibet in her speech. Of course there are many human rights issues, I agree, but I wonder if she wants to take this opportunity to share her thoughts specifically on the issue of Tibet and on the political status of Tibet, as the motion seeks to invite the House to comment on that.
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- Dec/13/22 11:53:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always appreciate my colleague's sincerity. I do not always agree with the particulars he notes, but I think highly of his motivations and intentions.
I want to ask a question about this particular concurrence debate. This concurrence debate came up at this time as a result of conversation and negotiation among House leaders. It seems that some members were not fully briefed on those discussions, but there were discussions among House leaders. This was not brought forward as a surprise.
This report could have been adopted by unanimous consent. In fact, it was a member of the Bloc who sought unanimous consent to adopt this same motion in the previous Parliament. At the time, it was a member of the Liberal Party who refused unanimous consent, so clearly we have seen some progress given the consensus here. However, this could have been adopted by unanimous consent. An attempt by his colleague was made to do that and it was not done. That is part of the context for the debate we are having today.
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- Dec/13/22 11:55:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we request a recorded vote and seek the unanimous consent of the House to defer the vote to tomorrow following question period.
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Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.
The first petition is in support of Bill S-223, which is a bill to prohibit forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without consent. It would also create a mechanism by which a person could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they are involved in forced organ harvesting and trafficking.
This bill has been before the House in various forms for the last 15 years, and it will be proceeding to a final vote tomorrow. The petitioners no doubt hope that it will finally pass into law.
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- Dec/13/22 12:00:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the second petition I am tabling raises concerns about calls by Louis Roy of the Collège des médecins du Québec to legalize infanticide in certain cases. People who signed this petition were horrified that someone from that college would openly, before a parliamentary committee, call for legal changes that would allow the killing of children, the killing of innocents.
The petitioners say that infanticide is always wrong. They call on the Government of Canada to block any attempt to legalize the killing of children in Canada.
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- Dec/13/22 6:33:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on Tuesday last week, the Auditor General released an absolutely damning report on the government's COVID-19 programs. This is report 10 from the Auditor General. This report chronicled mismanagement, waste and a lack of focus leading to tens of billions of dollars in government waste.
Let us be very clear: We are not talking about the policy of the COVID support programs. This was a policy that, in principle, all parties supported and it is not the Auditor General's mandate to critique the government's policy, but rather to analyze the effectiveness of implementation. That is whether the actions of government lined up with the stated policy goals.
The Auditor General pointed out that the government made a policy decision not to have an effective pre-disbursement review. It basically relied on an attestation model, an honour system, where people would say they met the criteria and they would get the benefits. Many Canadians were honest and accurate in how they filled those out.
Generally, we say there should be some kind of verification mechanism, either before or afterward. The government said that it needed to get these dollars out the door quickly in terms of these benefits, so it did not do the advance verification, but it said it would do verification after the fact. It would follow up and see if the money went to the right people, and if it did not go to the right people, it would follow up in the appropriate fashion.
The government is now saying it is not going to do those after-the-fact reviews and verifications in every case. For much of the money that the government spent in various COVID-19 support programs, there was no checking before the money went out and no checking after the money was received. This means people could simply attest that they were eligible for benefits. They got cheques as a result and there was no verification.
The Auditor General was able, based on data the government already had available, to assess what indicators there were of whether people who did not meet the requirements of various programs ended up getting money anyway. Here is what she found.
Incredibly, she found that $4.6 billion went to ineligible recipients. That means people who were not eligible for these programs still got money to the tune of $4.6 billion.
Another $27.4 billion went to individuals who, on the face of it, did not meet the program criteria where the Auditor General conservatively says further investigation is required. There were cases, for instance, where individuals did not meet the income requirements, yet still received CERB.
The total of certainly ineligible or almost certainly ineligible, based on the Auditor General's analysis of data in the government's own possession, came to $32 billion. Some $32 billion of COVID-19 benefits went out to individuals who were not eligible for those benefits.
Again, we are not talking about whether offering this support was a good idea. We are talking about whether the government should be held accountable for over $30 billion going to those who did not meet the stated criteria for those programs.
The Auditor General is recommending in this report that the government follow up, get to the bottom of this and track down that money. The government does not agree, does not support it and will not implement this recommendation of the Auditor General. It says, on the final page of the report, that it will not follow up with every one of these cases, as the Auditor General recommends.
The response of the Minister of National Revenue when this issue was raised in the House was to impugn the Auditor General's independence. The Minister of National Revenue got up in this House and said that the Auditor General made the decisions and the recommendations because of pressure from the opposition, which is a totally outrageous attack on a strong, independent public servant by the government simply to cover up its own incompetence.
The government wasted $30 billion. It should be held accountable for that waste and it should not be attacking the Auditor General.
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- Dec/13/22 6:41:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is trying to constantly shift this into a debate about whether or not the emergency benefits were a good policy. As he pointed out, all parties supported providing emergency supports during COVID. However, the question is not whether these emergency benefits were required and were valuable. The question is whether the government was right to pay tens of billions of dollars to people who were not eligible for the programs. That is, the House agreed to specific criteria for these programs, and tens of billions of dollars, according to the Auditor General, very likely went to individuals who were not eligible for those programs.
The government said that it had to get the money out quickly at the beginning, fair enough, but the bargain was that there would have to be clear, effective, after-the-fact verification in every case. Either we have to do the verification up front, which is normally what happens, or we have to do some kind of verification after the fact. However, the government has said clearly, in response to the Auditor General's recommendation, that it will not, in fact, do this verification in every case, and the minister attacked the Auditor General on this.
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