- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
- Feb/1/23 3:10:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was another bad answer from a random Liberal.
After eight years of the Prime Minister, Canadians are struggling like they never have before, but if one is a Liberal lobbyist or a high-priced consultant, it has never been better.
For the fifth time, these Liberals have been found guilty of breaking our ethics laws, which was done twice by the Prime Minister. This time, the trade minister was caught shovelling money to her good friend and CBC pundit Amanda Alvaro, who was also on the trade minister's campaign team.
Will the Prime Minister fire the trade minister and make her pay back the $17,000 she gave to her BFF?
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- Dec/13/22 3:02:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the trade minister were truly sorry, she would pay the money back. In fact, she is the fourth Liberal cabinet minister to be found guilty of breaking the law by the Ethics Commissioner.
The trade minister got caught giving two sweetheart deals to her friend, who also worked on her campaign. The minister said there is simply no excuse for contracting with a friend's company. After Bill Morneau got caught, he did the honourable thing and resigned.
Will the trade minister follow suit and resign immediately, or does the Prime Minister have to fire this corrupt minister?
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- Jun/23/22 2:45:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise to hear that the minister and the Prime Minister pressured the RCMP commissioner into doing their bidding. Let us remember that the Ethics Commissioner found the Prime Minister guilty of political interference when he pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to do his bidding, but she got fired because she said no.
Now the minister is accusing Superintendent Darren Campbell, who has a stellar reputation, of just making up a story. How can the minister expect Canadians to believe his unethical, scandal-plagued government over a stellar RCMP officer?
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- Jun/23/22 2:43:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness politically interfered in a mass murder investigation to advance his own party's political agenda. RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell witnessed this interference first-hand, but the minister is claiming he made this all up. Former RCMP commissioner Paulson said Superintendent Darren Campbell “is one of the best investigators in the force and a highly reliable officer with tremendous integrity.”
Why should Canadians believe the minister over a well-respected RCMP officer?
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- Jun/7/22 3:09:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister is being investigated by the Ethics Commissioner because she advanced the personal interests of her friend. Now we understand the Liberals need to pay a premium for spin doctors, given all their scandals. The Minister of International Trade is being investigated because she gave a $17,000 sole-sourced contract to a CBC pundit who is her dear personal friend and former campaign organizer. This is ridiculous.
Will the minister apologize for her unethical behaviour and hand over all records on this contract to the Ethics Commissioner immediately?
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- Jun/7/22 3:08:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when it comes to ethics violations, the Liberal government has already reached the super elite status. Whether it is a $1-billion sweetheart deal with WE Charity or SNC-Lavalin bullying, clam scam nepotism or the $200,000 illegal vacation by the Prime Minister, it is as though the Liberals are competing for who can be the most unethical.
Now the Minister of International Trade knew Amanda Alvaro was a close friend who ran her election campaign, and yet she awarded her a $17,000 contract anyway. When will the minister quit blaming her own department officials and take ownership of and responsibility for her own scandal?
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- Jun/6/22 3:05:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the trade minister really needs to brush up on her ethics rules. I would like to remind her that ministers are forbidden from advancing the interests of their close personal friends. This contract is not in dispute. The problem is that the minister awarded $17,000 to Amanda Alvaro, who describes the minister as a “dear friend” and who also ran the minister's election campaign in 2017.
Will the minister admit she broke ethics rules, and will she co-operate fully with the Ethics Commissioner’s investigation?
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- Jun/6/22 3:02:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of International Trade needs to explain how a close personal friend wound up $17,000 dollars richer after giving the minister a couple of days of media training. Documents tabled in the House show that in April 2020, the minister hired a PR firm run by Liberal insider and CBC pundit Amanda Alvaro just a month after the COVID-19 pandemic began, at a time when many Canadian small businesses were struggling just to survive.
The minister needs to come clean. Why did she award a lucrative contract to someone who describes her as a “dear friend”?
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- May/30/22 4:19:57 p.m.
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moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022 be concurred in.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to join everyone in the House virtually today, as I am still back in Manitoba. I am going to splitting my time on our third attempt to move concurrence on this report with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.
It is interesting to note that every time we have brought this motion forward, the Liberals have adjourned debate, similar to the filibusters we saw in the 43rd Parliament when they tried to stop this report on the WE Charity scandal from coming forward to the House.
I will go into some detail on the litany of ethical breaches done by the Liberal government, but I can tell the House that in addition to the Prime Minister taking illegal vacations and being found in contravention of sections of the ethics act, sections 5, 11, 12 and 21, we know that he also was found guilty with regard to SNC-Lavalin for putting undue pressure on the then-minister of justice and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, as well as his continued breaches of ethical behaviour that we have seen from time to time, and how that has impacted other members of cabinet.
I do not need to remind the House of former minister Morneau and all the challenges he had when he was the finance minister, such as his having been found in contravention of the ethics act for having accepted an illegal gift, a vacation offered by the WE Charity.
He also forgot to recuse himself when talking about the WE Charity's delivery of the youth program that was proposed at that time. We know that he was also in conflict because his daughter worked for the WE foundation.
We need to also remind everyone of the former minister of fisheries' contravention of the ethics act through a conflict of interest, actually practising nepotism to make sure that family members received multi-million-dollar contracts in what we have called the surf clam scam.
We have a number of ethical breaches, and here we find today that the Ethics Commissioner, Mr. Dion, has opened another investigation on another Liberal cabinet minister, this time the Minister of International Trade and Small Business, for awarding a contract to a very close personal friend. That has resulted in looking at whether the minister contravened sections of the Conflict of Interest Act in her decision-making, whether she used her influence and whether she practised the duty to recuse.
I can tell the House that the minister of trade was working closely with a long-time fellow staffer back in the Wynne government days and also in the McGuinty era in Ontario, and that they are very close personal friends with the founder of Pomp and Circumstance, Amanda Alvaro.
We know that the $17,000 contract, which was gifted for two days of media training for two people, was quite costly. It does not sound like much in the big scheme of things, the way we spend money in Parliament and the way the Government of Canada spends, but when someone can get away with sole-sourcing contracts, small amounts of money like $17,000 can come to be a big amount of money. When we think about it, it was for only two days of media training for two people. There is no wonder that the Ethics Commissioner is doing the investigation on our international trade minister.
I want to again thank the ethics committee for the work that it did, both in this Parliament and in the first session the 44th Parliament, in getting this report tabled on March 31, as well as the work that was originally done on this report in the 43rd Parliament, second session, when this report was tabled originally.
There is a pile of great recommendations on how to strengthen the Lobbying Act by giving more powers to the Commissioner of Lobbying and to the Ethics Commissioner to prevent these things from happening in the future. Unfortunately, we have a situation of the current government, under the Prime Minister, continuing to violate ethics rules.
One of the key things on which I have not gone into detail in my previous interventions with respect to this motion and the third report of the ethics committee in this 44th Parliament is that three individuals who were political staffers were supposed to appear: Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh. All of them were political staffers either in Minister Morneau's office or the Prime Minister's Office, and it was important for the ethics committee to hear from them specifically. They refused to appear before the ethics committee in the 43rd session. The committee was actually required to come before the House to ask for an order from the House of Commons to ensure that they would appear before the committee. Unfortunately, the House leader for the Liberal government of the day refused to allow those political staffers to appear to talk about their role in awarding a half-billion-dollar contract to the WE Charity and how those decisions were made so that we could look at how pandemic spending was being used to help out friends of the current Liberal government and specifically friends of the Prime Minister and Minister Morneau. We know they failed to appear because of the direction from the House leader of the day, who is now the Minister of Canadian Heritage. I can tell the House that this again is in contravention of our parliamentary rules.
I want to quote our former parliamentary law clerk, Mr. Robert Walsh, who said this at a previous committee hearing in the past:
...the Prime Minister, and any minister, has no authority to prevent someone from appearing in front of a committee.
Their ministerial function may present a limitation on what you can ask that political aide when they're in front of you, but everyone has a duty, apart from members of Parliament, senators, and the Governor General, to show up when summoned before a committee.
While the government prevented these individuals from appearing before the ethics committee, it is inherent upon us today to compel them to appear. We know for a fact that contempts of Parliament in the past are not, as any criminal activity, purged from the record just because of an election and a new parliamentary session beginning.
We now have the ethics committee's report on the WE Charity scandal before the chamber and we need to talk in detail and investigate further the outstanding questions of how this came into being.
We also know that aside from these political staffers, the member for Waterloo, the former minister of youth and social development, who was in charge of implementing this program through the WE Charity, essentially perjured herself at committee when she first said that she had never met with the Kielburger brothers, and ultimately we—
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- May/2/22 3:59:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Battle River—Crowfoot for splitting his time with me and for his great intervention.
We brought forward this concurrence motion last week, but because the government does not want to discuss the WE scandal in any more detail, it moved a motion to go to orders of the day, which essentially shut down the debate on the concurrence motion.
I want to thank the ethics committee from the 43rd Parliament, second session, which tabled the report “Questions of Conflict of Interest and Lobbying in Relation to Pandemic Spending” in June 2021. I also want to thank the current ethics committee, in this Parliament, which has now tabled it on March 31.
It is important that we have a chance to revisit what happened in the WE Charity scandal, why this is important and why we need to continue to look at how we can improve upon our officers of Parliament, like the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Ethics Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner, and ensure we have better oversight of government officials who are being lobbied and entering into certain contracts that oftentimes put ministers of the current Liberal government into a conflict of interest. We have now seen multiple reports done by the Ethics Commissioner, both the previous Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, and the current Ethics Commissioner, Mr. Dion.
I do not think we need to spend a lot of time reminding everybody of the unethical behaviour of the current Prime Minister. Again, during question period I asked him about the criminal investigation the RCMP had started with respect to the luxury vacation gift he got on a tropical island. Not only was he found in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act by the former Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, contravening sections 5, 11, 12 and 21 of the Conflict of Interest Act, but we also know that the RCMP investigated him under paragraph 121(1)(c) of the Criminal Code for fraud in relation to the government.
We also know the Prime Minister was found guilty of contravening section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act over the issue of SNC-Lavalin and the prosecution going on there with respect to influence. He essentially had a concerted campaign against Jody Wilson-Raybould, our former Attorney General, who refused to offer a plea deal to SNC-Lavalin, what we call a deferred prosecution agreement, and stood on her principles as the Attorney General of Canada to ensure that it faced the music. However, she lost her job because she stood up to the Prime Minister and stood up for the principles of justice. We know that the Treasury Board president of the day, Jane Philpott, who sided with Jody Wilson-Raybould, was also fired from cabinet, and ultimately the two of them were kicked out of the Liberal caucus. That scandal in itself had huge overarching impacts on the Liberal Party of Canada. The principal secretary to the Prime Minister at the time, Gerald Butts, had to resign. The Clerk of the Privy Council at the time, Michael Wernick, also resigned. They both resigned in disgrace.
The Prime Minister is not the only person who has acted unethically. I want to get to former finance minister Bill Morneau right away, but when the current Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, who is the MP for Beauséjour, was Minister of Fisheries in the last Parliament, he was caught up in a lucrative clam scam because he practised nepotism and made sure that family members received lucrative $24-million contracts for clams.
Then we come to Mr. Bill Morneau, our former finance minister, who was found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act when he failed to disclose to the Ethics Commissioner that he had a luxurious villa in the French Riviera. It took him two years to disclose his property, when all members of Parliament, and especially public office holders, whether members of cabinet or parliamentary secretaries, are required to submit all of their financial information to the Ethics Commissioner for review and public disclosure so that people will know if there is any way members of this House, and public office holders in particular, can be influenced.
As I mentioned already, the Prime Minister was found guilty on four different charges for the luxurious vacation that he took on the private island and he has been investigated for fraud, but it is important to point out that both the Prime Minister and Bill Morneau failed to recuse themselves from discussions around WE Charity. We know that We Charity was offered a chance to develop a program for summer students and to support students during the pandemic. That was over half a billion dollars.
Both Bill Morneau and the Prime Minister had relations with the Kielburger family, as well as with WE Charity. Bill Morneau's daughter worked for it. Bill Morneau and the Prime Minister had received benefits directly from WE Charity. They were both close personal friends of the Kielburgers. Because they failed to recuse themselves from the discussions at the cabinet table, awarding a sole-sourced contract to WE Charity, that is what was found to be in contravention under the Conflict of Interest Act. We know that because of it, Mr. Morneau was removed from cabinet and resigned as a member of Parliament.
We also know that WE Charity produced 10 videos of the Prime Minister, which were essentially campaign-style videos. They were valued at over $217,000. To make the point, in one of the videos, the Prime Minister said he pledged to work hard for all Canadians, something that we hear from him in question period. Then he went on to say that he is going to invest in our youngest leaders: the students. This is a campaign-style promise by the Prime Minister to these future voters. It clearly was a political message.
We also know that the Prime Minister's wife had received a $20,000 getaway vacation to speak at a WE Charity event in London, England, and that was just a week or two after the Liberal government awarded the Kielburgers and WE Charity the half-billion-dollar sole-sourced contract.
As we dive into this report, we find out that there were multiple people in Morneau's office and the Prime Minister's Office, as well as the member for Waterloo, who were working directly with the Kielburgers on how to design the program. Why did they have to work with WE Charity to design the program? It was because WE Charity had never done a program like this, ever. It did not have the capabilities to offer this program and it was designed specifically for it to orchestrate this program. Because of the hand-holding that took place, we know, as the member for Battle River—Crowfoot just said, that public trust in our democratic institutions was eroded.
On Thursday, March 25, 2021, some of those staffers who worked in the Prime Minister's Office and Minister Morneau's office were asked to appear at committee by a House order. Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh were all ordered to appear. Ben Chin was senior adviser to the Prime Minister and directly messaged with Craig Kielburger of WE. We know that Rick Theis, who worked in the Prime Minister's Office as director of policy and cabinet affairs, met with the Kielburger brothers from WE as well, and then Amitpal Singh, who worked for Bill Morneau, also worked directly to make the tailor-made program for WE Charity. All these people failed to comply with the order from the House and are in contempt of Parliament. Because we had an election and we are in a new Parliament, that does not purge them of their contempt of Parliament. We also need to dive more into the role of the MP for Waterloo.
I wish to move an amendment to the motion. I move:
That, the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: the Third Report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Committee for further consideration, provided that (a) the committee be instructed (i) to make every effort possible to receive evidence from Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh, the witnesses who did not comply with this House's Order of Thursday, March 25, 2021, to appear before the Committee, (ii) to consider further the concerns expressed in the Report about the Member for Waterloo's failure “in her obligation to be accurate with a committee”, and (iii) to report back by Monday, October 17, 2022; and (b) the committee be empowered to order the attendance of the Member for Waterloo, from time to time, as it sees fit.
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- May/2/22 2:25:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister should really answer his questions. He can run, but he cannot hide from the law. The RCMP's deference to the retired commissioner Dawson was asserted as one of the justifications for why it was not in the public interest to pursue a criminal investigation, but all the public interest arguments by the RCMP for not pursuing charges have been undone in the past week. It is in the public interest for Canadians to know that the Prime Minister is not above the law.
Will the Prime Minister and his staff co-operate with the RCMP in this investigation of fraud on the government by the Prime Minister?
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- May/2/22 2:23:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary can sit here and be part of a government cover-up. That is why, this morning, I again wrote to the RCMP commissioner regarding the RCMP's criminal brief on the investigation into the Prime Minister's $215,000 private island vacation. The criminal brief says that the RCMP deferred to the Ethics Commissioner's interpretation that the Prime Minister's actions were not criminal in nature. However, we now know, from the news, that former commissioner Mary Dawson was unfamiliar with the Criminal Code offence of fraud against the government. She had no interpretation to give.
Has the Prime Minister spoken to the RCMP in the past week about his criminal behaviour?
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- Apr/28/22 2:27:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister cannot dodge these questions much longer. We have to remember, there is no statute of limitations under the Criminal Code here in Canada. In fact, the Prime Minister's silence sounds a lot like an admission of guilt.
The RCMP criminal brief said that, if the Prime Minister were any other Canadian, he would have been charged. Canadians are demanding that the Prime Minister be held to a higher standard. Will the Prime Minister lift the veil of secrecy, clear the air and proactively speak to the RCMP?
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- Apr/28/22 2:25:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals need to understand that we are talking about the RCMP investigation of fraud against the government by the Prime Minister, not the Ethic Commissioner's study. The Prime Minister thinks he is above the law and the rest of us are under another piece of law. He accepted a $215,000 luxury private island vacation from someone who is actively lobbying the government for millions of taxpayers' money.
The environment minister provided the missing piece of the puzzle the RCMP needed to charge him. He admitted he did not have permission to take the trip. The RCMP has all of the puzzle pieces they need now to charge the Prime Minister with committing fraud against the government. Will the Prime Minister co-operate with that investigation?
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- Apr/27/22 3:20:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, today during question period, the Prime Minister danced around answering any questions about criminal charges that he could be being investigated for. I believe it is only fair that I share with all members of the House the criminal briefing documents from the RCMP on the Prime Minister's fraud against the government.
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- Apr/27/22 2:50:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know the Prime Minister cannot keep his litany of scandals straight and that he is always confused between his multiple charges under the Conflict of Interest Act. What we are talking about here is the Criminal Code and a Prime Minister who thinks he is above the law.
The RCMP needs to reopen the investigation into the Prime Minister accepting a gift from a lobbyist worth over $215,000. The Prime Minister cannot act with impunity. He should be held to a higher standard.
Will the Prime Minister commit today to co-operating with the RCMP regarding his fraud against the government?
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- Apr/27/22 2:43:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will tell the Prime Minister that the one thing Canadians are sick and tired of is a Prime Minister who acts with impunity and thinks he is above the law.
In the House yesterday, the Prime Minister gave the RCMP the missing clue it needed to begin a formal investigation into defrauding the government of over $200,000: He did not grant himself the permission to take this trip.
Will the Prime Minister face the consequences and make himself and his staff available to be interviewed by the RCMP, or is he just going to refuse to face the music?
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- Apr/27/22 2:42:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know that the Prime Minister is very uncomfortable with this line of questioning, and he will try to spin, spin, spin, but Canadians deserve to know that the Prime Minister is not above the law and in fact should be held to a higher standard. Yesterday, he admitted that he did not have consent to accept the vacation, and took it anyway. The unknown is now known.
Will the Prime Minister come clean and remove the cloud of suspicion and proactively speak to the RCMP about his unethical and criminal behaviour?
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- Apr/27/22 2:38:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know the Prime Minister thinks he is off the hook, but there is no statute of limitations here in Canada. He shockingly revealed yesterday that he did not give himself the authorization to accept the extravagant gift. There is now a cloud of suspicion hanging over the Prime Minister, and he is under a shadow of doubt when it comes to his own integrity and honesty.
When will the Prime Minister begin speaking to the RCMP about violating Criminal Code section 121(1)(c)?
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- Apr/27/22 2:36:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister admitted he never gave himself permission to accept an extravagant vacation gift valued at $215,000 from a lobbyist. What was unknown to the RCMP during its original investigation is now known. This morning, I wrote to the RCMP commissioner asking her to reopen the investigation into the Prime Minister committing fraud on the government.
Will the Prime Minister co-operate in this RCMP investigation?
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