Senator Plett: This is ironic. This is two days in a row, leader, that we have agreed on an issue: Yesterday it was about the propaganda arm of the government called the CBC; today, it is about “actions speak louder than words.” We certainly agree with that, leader. Actions do speak louder than words.

The Trudeau government has piled on action, piled on so much spending that last month’s budget shows that the public debt charges will continue to rise despite the promise to somehow find billions in savings.

When Senator Marshall asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer about these savings yesterday at the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, Mr. Giroux said he had a hard time keeping a straight face.

The Trudeau government’s out-of-control spending creates more debt and more inflation. Canadians are at the breaking point.

Yesterday, The Globe and Mail had an article about people Dumpster diving for food in Vancouver because they can’t afford groceries. This is what their inflationary spending and deficits are doing to Canadians. Action, again, leader.

Leader, does anyone in your government understand this economic mismanagement, including not caring about the debt, has real-life consequences for Canadian families?

Senator Plett: Your Honour, I will attempt to do that. However, if I could at least suggest this: I made comments that were said to be unparliamentary and that I should not have made. I didn’t make them out of anger or malice; I made them out of an observation that we have a Prime Minister who has a hard time telling the truth. To me, when somebody does not tell the truth, that person is lying.

In order for me to make my case, Your Honour, I need to at least lay out some of the untruths — lies, in my opinion — that the Prime Minister has said.

I will try to go through this very rapidly, Your Honour, and try to draw this to a conclusion in the next minute or two.

Let me go back to what I said on March 30, when I said:

How can that explanation be trusted when the Prime Minister has lied on numerous occasions? How can that explanation be trusted when the Prime Minister could have said from the start but chose not to do so? Isn’t that misinformation?

Lastly, leader, as I said yesterday, when will Justin Trudeau realize he has lost the confidence of Canadians . . . ?

Your Honour, it is important that I share the context of that with everyone in this chamber.

Let me briefly point out what former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould said — and I am skipping through a lot here; I will wrap up. In her book entitled “Indian” in the Cabinet, she said she was mad at herself for once having thought that Prime Minister Trudeau:

. . . was an honest and good person . . . when, in truth, he would so casually lie to the public and then think he could get away with it.

Last week, Prime Minister Trudeau was again caught in a lie regarding the Trudeau Foundation when he said:

It’s a foundation in my father’s name that I have no direct or indirect connection with.

We heard yesterday how the family appoints two people to the foundation, how his siblings are part of the foundation and how, for a year and a half, they used marketing materials under Justin Trudeau’s name.

Your Honour, there are so many examples of falsehoods. I could go on. I will not.

I will just simply close, Your Honour, with this: Even the NDP has called out Prime Minister Trudeau’s lies, and yet they continue to put their support behind him and his government. Here is what the NDP promoted on their website:

Sign if you’re tired of Trudeau’s lies about pharmacare

Add your name to tell Justin Trudeau you’re sick of his lies.

Your Honour, I have made my case, but allow me to conclude with this comment: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. Senator Housakos and I are only guilty of speaking the truth by making comments, as I mentioned in my remarks, that are factual and not unparliamentary in my humble opinion.

Thank you, Your Honour.

Senator Plett: Thank you, Your Honour. I like the words “brief as you possibly can,” and I will try to do that. However, in speaking to this particular issue and in reference to comments we made that were pertaining to the Prime Minister, in order for me to do justice, I at least need to list a number of illustrations to defend my position. But I will try to move along, Your Honour.

The comments that we did, in fact, make and that you have been asked to review questioned the language used when referring to Justin Trudeau and him having lied to Canadians. I must point out that when the Prime Minister is engaging in unparliamentary behaviour, it is impossible to address this behaviour accurately without using what is perceived as unparliamentary language in other contexts. I would argue that, in this context, the language is not unparliamentary. It was neither inflammatory, nor did it attribute motives. It simply stated facts. It was not an accusation, it was an observation, and this is the crux of the matter.

When the emperor parades around the country and clearly has no clothes on, it is not unparliamentary to say so. I would argue that it is unparliamentary not to say so or to try to prevent a parliamentarian from speaking the plain truth. If other senators and I are compelled to describe the unparliamentary behaviour of our Prime Minister in a manner that does not accurately reflect his behaviour, then, in fact, we are being asked to lie. We are being prevented from holding this government to account as the official opposition. I don’t think that is the intention of this chamber, but this is the practical outcome.

The question before us today is whether the language used accurately depicts the actions of the Prime Minister. I believe it does. The Prime Minister has demonstrated a repeated, habitual pattern of saying things that are proven to not be true, and I would like to take a few moments to provide clear evidence that supports this position.

Allow me to begin with the definition of the word “lie” by Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive” or “to create a false or misleading impression.” For further clarity, let me use the definition of Dictionary.com: “to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive” or “to express what is false; convey a false impression.”

When Senator Housakos said that the Prime Minister lied, he was clearly making reference to the commitment that the Prime Minister himself made to Canadians. Allow me to refresh all of our memories of exactly what Senator Housakos said:

In 2015, this Prime Minister made a commitment to the Canadian people that he would not have a debt run longer than two fiscal years, and he promised that he would balance the deficit by 2019. That’s what he promised.

The question is a simple one: Why did he lie to the Canadian people?

Later, my colleague said:

And yes, the Prime Minister lied; he misled Canadians when he made a commitment to balance the budget by 2019. In this town, we have to start coming up to speed with the fact that when we mislead taxpayers, we have to account for it somehow and not double down.

My colleague Senator Housakos’ comments speak directly to a promise by the Prime Minister and, regrettably, a promise not kept.

When a Prime Minister, a cabinet minister and a member of the government make a promise to Canadians, I believe that Canadians have the right to expect that the commitment is fulfilled. If it hasn’t been fulfilled, I further believe that Canadians have the right to expect that a serious opposition in the House of Commons and in the Senate has a responsibility to challenge the governing party on its inaction and failures.

The unfilled promise that Senator Housakos mentioned is just one example of many. I don’t think we need to list them all, but I certainly encourage in anyone interested in tracking the Prime Minister’s commitments to look up the numbers on Polimeter. In his tenure of more than 2,500 days in office, Prime Minister Trudeau’s government has a mediocre rate of 37% of promises kept and fulfilled.

Back to my comments on March 30. Although my comments were made in a similar fashion to my colleague, my intent was to address another angle altogether. What I referenced in my questions and comments was the ongoing and never-ending pattern of the Trudeau government deliberately not expressing or representing something accurately.

Last fall, many other members of the Conservative opposition and I repeatedly asked questions on who stayed at the outrageous $6,000-a-night hotel suite in London paid for by taxpayers. At the time, the Prime Minister refused to tell the truth to Canadians about this expense. No straight answers were given. He avoided the question. His carefully scripted response was vague in an attempt to avoid all scrutiny.

Prime Minister Trudeau originally campaigned on the promise of sunny ways and more openness and accountability. Unfortunately, we soon learned that the Prime Minister’s promises were only words left out in the open for him to lead Canadians on. Once in office, Prime Minister Trudeau’s priority quickly switched to working really hard at preventing Canadians from learning the truth, especially on decisions that could be damaging to his own public image.

Back to the question I posed on March 30, that you, Your Honour, have been asked to review: Who stayed at the luxurious $6,000-a-night hotel suite for a five-night stay at a cost of $30,000 to Canadian taxpayers? The Prime Minister’s Office was eventually obliged to fess up, and to no one’s surprise, it was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who disregarded the high cost of the luxury suite in London. This $6,000-a-night suite scandal is a slap in the face of hard-working Canadians who face the worst affordability crisis in a generation.

How did we learn that it was the Prime Minister who enjoyed this luxury? There were no apologies to taxpayers for this outrageous expense. There was no come-clean moment and realization of the mistake. The Prime Minister’s Office sheepishly provided information to a House of Commons committee in the shadow of U.S. President Biden’s visit to Parliament Hill. This was clearly a planned attempt to get away from any public scrutiny on this outrageous expense by the Prime Minister.

In hindsight, there was more truth to what Prime Minister Trudeau said all along during his stay in London, when he sang:

Caught in a landslide

No escape from reality

Open your eyes

Look up to the skies and see

I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy

Because I’m easy come, easy go

A little high, little low

Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me

Nothing really matters

Anyone can see

Nothing really matters nothing really matters to me

It seems that Prime Minister Trudeau needs to be reminded and needs to remember that it does matter. It matters because he is the current leader of our country, and that his words and actions impact Canadians. It matters because the price tag of this luxurious suite in London is on the back of hard-working Canadians. It matters because, in the face of economic uncertainty, Canadians want to see a Prime Minister lead by example, and this is a far cry from what Canadians expect and deserve.

The reporter who broke the $6,000 hotel suite story is Brian Lilley from the Toronto Sun. Allow me to quote from his March 30 article:

The Trudeau government really didn’t want this information out there and they worked hard to stop it from being released. It was only released last week and U.S. President Joe Biden was landing in Canada because a Commons committee had demanded the information and the PMO had run out of legal ways to keep the information secret.

Now, they want to blame the RCMP, claim that they needed the expensive room for Mounties providing security to Trudeau.

Brian Lilley concluded the article by saying:

Either the Liberals are really slipping and have been off their game for months on this high profile story, or they are lying to us now to cover this up.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): As usual, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate, who accused me yesterday of having an obsession with the debt. Someone needs to be concerned and have an obsession about the debt because the Trudeau government could care less.

This fiscal year, the cost to service Canada’s debt, or the interest charged on the Trudeau government’s national credit card, is projected to be $43.9 billion. Leader, this is more than the entire annual budget of the Department of National Defence.

The Prime Minister thinks it is perfectly okay, so he told Canadians — who are already struggling to get by — to take on more credit card debt, just as his government has done. Clearly, government leader, you don’t seem to have a problem with that either.

Leader, why should anyone listen to the Trudeau government’s irresponsible financial advice?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Your Honour, I’m asking your indulgence today for me to make a few remarks to a point of order that Senator Downe raised on March 30. He raised a point of order about some inflammatory language being used in the Senate. The reason I’m doing this today is that it referenced — or he at least suggested later that it referenced — comments that Senator Housakos and I had made during Question Period. We were, of course, the first two up in Question Period, and by the time Question Period was done and Senator Downe made the motion, we did not get up to debate this.

So I am asking today for your indulgence for me and possibly other senators who would like to make a few comments in relation to this charge.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): We heard about this amendment for the first time yesterday when Senator Tannas raised it. The government didn’t give us an indication that they were going to bring forward their own amendment today. We did learn about it this morning a few hours before we sat.

I am not at all suggesting at this point that we are opposed or in favour of this amendment, but clearly, in light of the amount of time that we have had to look at it, I think we want to review this a little more.

In light of that, Your Honour, I would like to adjourn the debate for the balance of my time.

(On motion of Senator Plett, debate adjourned.)