SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 266 - Dec/12/23

Dec/12/23 2:17:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last night, the industry committee heard from a former employee of the Prime Minister's green slush fund about $150 million of taxpayer money being misappropriated. Canadian tax dollars were funnelled to companies with Liberal insiders. The witness said, “[an] embarrassing lack of oversight...allowed these problems to persist”, and there was an “egregious cover-up of the truth.” There were “breaches of...conflict of interest.” Millions were approved for companies owned or operated by board members. A staggering level of incompetence, willful ignorance and corruption was shown. The minister and the Privy Council Office actively engaged with altering memos before they were sent. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, it is obvious that they are not worth the cost. The Liberals will take care of their friends; Conservatives will continue to push for accountability and answers. When will Canadians get back the missing millions from Liberal insiders?

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Context: House Hansard - 266 - Dec/12/23

Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

Dec/12/23 2:35:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister will not tell us which Liberals got rich. Government officials, last night, admitted that they were in every single board meeting where this happened in the Liberal green slush fund. According to the whistle-blower, the former chair and directors took over $150 million of taxpayer money to their own companies. Government officials were present during these meetings and allowed it to happen. Why did the minister not fire these corrupt Liberal directors?

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Context: House Hansard - 266 - Dec/12/23

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Dec/12/23 6:36:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government is spending an enormous amount of money on subsidies to various manufacturers involved in batteries here in Canada. Over $40 billion is being spent on this particular business subsidy program. This subsidy plan will cost every single Canadian family about $3,000. Conservatives are committed to always standing up for workers, which is why we have asked for clarity from the government about whether there are protections for Canadian workers in the subsidy contracts that it signed with companies. Will Canadian workers actually benefit from this enormous outlay of taxpayer money? It is $3,000 per Canadian family; Canadians would like to know, and they would like to know how much workers are going to benefit. The parliamentary secretary is clearly eager to respond. He is saying that they are going to benefit “lots”. What we have asked for, quite simply, is that the government show its work and release these contracts to the public, so we can know the impacts. The particular genesis for this demand is that we have found out that the companies involved are actually going to be hiring a large number of foreign replacement workers. Therefore, over $40 billion in Canadian taxpayer money— An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Garnett Genuis: Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary seems to think this is funny. It is not. Over $40 billion in taxpayer money is being used not to employ Canadian workers but to hire foreign replacement workers, who are going to come to Canada to do the job. That is concerning, obviously. Did these contracts include protections for Canadian workers or guarantees for jobs for Canadians? We would like to know. If the government left that out and just said it was going to give tens of billions of dollars to these companies, and it does not know whether or how much Canadians are going to benefit, then that would be seriously troubling. This is why, again, we have insisted that we want to actually see these contracts. Consistently, Liberals have been filibustering in the government operations committee in order to block the release of the contracts. For a while, we had all opposition parties, including Conservative, Bloc and NDP, standing together and prepared to vote in favour of ordering the production of the contracts. The Liberals were against it. They were filibustering to block their release. Then, tragically, we had a flip-flop from the NDP. Rather than standing with workers, as they like to say they do, the New Democrats betrayed workers. They said that they do not actually need to see the contracts anymore. It is a shameful betrayal of workers from the NDP, under pressure from its colleagues in the costly and corrupt cover-up coalition. The Liberals put a bit of pressure on their friends in the NDP with a little filibustering. It was not even a very long filibuster, and I would know. Simply because of a little bit of pressure, the New Democrats buckled and betrayed workers. The only party that will stand consistently with workers in the House of Commons is the Conservative Party. I hope we get a direct answer to my question for the parliamentary secretary, rather than more of the unrelated bluster that we often get from the government. What did the government offer the NDP members, its colleagues in the costly cover-up coalition, to get them to change their position, flip-flop and betray workers? Moreover, why will the government not release the contracts?

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Context: House Hansard - 266 - Dec/12/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Dec/12/23 6:40:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I suspect that it has a lot to do with common sense. The Conservatives like to talk about common sense, and I suspect that the NDP, upon reflection and applying common sense, came to the conclusion that what the Conservative and Bloc coalition was proposing was maybe not in the best interests of workers. I think that is a possible scenario. When the member talks about releasing contracts or the details, I think of the Volkswagen contract. As a government, we recognize the green transition. We recognize things like climate change. We recognize that in order to provide good-quality middle-class jobs, we have to be prepared to invest in certain industries in a very real and tangible way. Ironically, we are not the only government that has made this decision, because we also see Progressive Conservative Doug Ford entering into agreements and using taxpayer dollars, as we have, to support and enhance an industry that is going to provide good middle-class careers and jobs well into the future for future generations of Canadians, something the Conservative Party opposes. I wonder if the member opposite has asked his good friend Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, the Progressive Conservative, for a copy of the agreement. If not, why not? I wonder if Doug Ford has provided that information to the member opposite. I know the Conservatives are trying to find some way to be critical of everything and anything the Government of Canada does at no expense, even if it means doing the opposite of what the member just finished talking about. When he talks about workers and the best interests of workers, seriously, at the end of the day, whether it is Stellantis or Volkswagen, we are talking about thousands of jobs. How can he possibly imagine that this is not in the best interests not only of those direct jobs but of the tens of thousands of other indirect jobs? He is concerned that the Progressive Conservative Province of Ontario and the Liberals at the national level have worked together with private industry in order to secure good, solid middle-class jobs for future generations of Canadians. The federal Conservative Party says “whoa”. That is true to form in the sense that the national Conservative Party today, as I said, is the MAGA right. We see an extreme right that believes government does not have a role to play in things of this nature. The party does not believe that government should be assisting or subsidizing, or whatever MAGA terms it wants to come up with. We on this side of the House recognize that the climate changes, that climate change is real today and that there is a responsibility of government to think ahead. That is why we have good, sound policies to support a transition that is going to see more green types of jobs, which will attract, I would suggest, even more jobs in the future. This makes Canada well placed in the future on this issue.

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