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Context: House Hansard - 234 - Oct/18/23

Oct/19/23 2:17:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this NDP-Liberal government favours insiders and friends rather than transparency. The current international trade minister helped her friend receive government contracts with no oversight. The current public safety minister granted a licence worth $24 million to a company linked to his wife's cousin. The former finance minister and this Prime Minister pushed through an untendered contract worth more than $540 million with their good friends at the WE Charity. The list goes on and on, and now there is the $54-million ArriveCAN App, which is under police investigation for criminal activity in the highest offices of this government. After eight years of this Prime Minister, corruption has reached outrageous levels. What is his response? Covering up the mess by hiding documents and making it impossible for the RCMP to properly investigate. He is not worth the cost, he is not above the law and he must co-operate with the RCMP.

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Context: House Hansard - 234 - Oct/18/23

Oct/18/23 5:59:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as a politician, I am profoundly disappointed. As a Canadian and a taxpayer, I am profoundly disappointed. As a former prosecutor, I think it stinks. As said in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” There is something rotten in the government.

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Context: House Hansard - 234 - Oct/18/23

Oct/18/23 5:44:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the good citizens and residents of my riding of Brantford—Brant. My colleague from Dufferin—Caledon expressed his disappointment and said that it is a sad day for Canadians. It is a profoundly sad day. In terms of my involvement in this particular study, I was brought on fairly late to the game to participate in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts meeting, because its members wanted more questions asked in probing the RCMP investigation into this matter. Before I get into the substantive part of my speech, it is important to start by reflecting on what the government telegraphed to Canadians in 2015. It telegraphed that it would be the most open, transparent and accountable government this country has ever seen. What has happened over the last eight years? After eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He and his government— Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Mr. Larry Brock: Madam Speaker, my friends can laugh all they want, but this is the sad reality. These are the facts. There has been scandal after scandal. There have been ethical breaches. The Prime Minister is the only prime minister in Canadian history who has been found guilty of ethical breaches not once but twice. It is not only him but also several ministers and other members of the government. We had the WE Charity, Aga Khan and SNC-Lavalin scandals, and the list goes on. Over a year ago, it was discovered that this app, which was so essential to the government to keep Canadians safe, was a complete joke. It was highly ineffective, it was not scientific and, to make matters worse, it cost the Canadian taxpayers $54 million. We did not hear a peep from the government or the Prime Minister with respect to that price tag until it was revealed to Canadians in this House. What did we hear from the Prime Minister? He said he thought that cost was “highly illogical” and reflected “inefficient” practices. He, in essence, conducted his own review. The Auditor General is certainly looking into this, as well as the RCMP now. His review showed that, even given the vast size of the public service, the government could not find individuals among its own consultants to create this app. The public service increased exponentially by the Liberal government, particularly during COVID and beyond. More importantly to the current investigation by the RCMP, the app was contracted for by a very small software company in Montreal, Quebec, known as Botler. No, the government could not do it itself. It had to hire consultants. It has been revealed that there were three such consultants. I am going to name them, because it is important for Canadians to know what the individuals of these companies have done in terms of fleecing Canadian taxpayers. The three companies are GCStrategies, Dalian Enterprises and Coradix. The latter two essentially involve the same directors and CEOs. There are three companies with a grand total of maybe six or seven employees, and they were hired by the current massive government to do the work it should be doing itself in finding individuals to perform the work. The companies do that at a substantial premium, anywhere from 30% to 40%. When Canadian taxpayers take a look at the situation, they are saying to themselves that they are already paying their taxes for the public service. They ask why they need to waste further money to have the government find software engineers in this country. I applaud the bravery of this small software company known as Botler, because it spoke the truth. I want to quote a couple of passages, as reported in The Globe and Mail, that said, “they understand that speaking out could mean their federal funding will dry up and they are taking a big risk without knowing how it will turn out.” One of the directors said, “the issue is wider than Botler.” This is something that affects every single Canadian, every single taxpayer dollar that is taken from very hard-working Canadians who are already struggling financially, which is given and spent through contractors, through improper means. I think that Canadians have a right to know what is going on with their hard-earned money. When I attended, about a week and a half ago, committee during a constituency break week, it was revealed by the Auditor General, the same Auditor General who oversees all public spending and reports to this House, that she had no clue, no idea, that the RCMP were investigating criminality with respect to the contracting of the ArriveCAN app and other such apps. When I asked her if the government had notified her in advance of her learning about this particular investigation, her answer was no. She was profoundly “disappointed”, her word, in the actions of this government, in not notifying her of a very relevant and essential part of her investigation. It is not just, perhaps, ethical issues or improper awarding of contracts. There is now a criminal element to it. I brought to her attention that, according to Botler, this was not just misconduct at the highest level of the senior bureaucracy in this government but that it involved criminality, theft, forgery and fraud. When prosecuted, people will be going to prison for two-plus years for fraudulently fleecing the Canadian taxpayer. This is why not only is my colleague profoundly disappointed, but I am sick over this. This is the government that is not accountable. This is the government that is not transparent. After that damning evidence came out, what did the Liberal-NDP coalition do? It shut down the committee. This was a two-hour meeting agreed to by every member of public accounts and it shut it down. It says the reason was that the Auditor General could not share any further information. That was the furthest from the truth. Members of the Conservative team on that committee were just getting started. We had many more probing questions. They are hiding something and Canadians have a right to know that. That is why I am putting on the record this criminality on behalf of this government. That is why I rose today in the House and asked the question: will this government and will this Prime Minister co-operate with the RCMP or will he continue to hide behind cabinet confidentiality? The motion would be amended as follows, by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting the following: the sixth report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, presented on Monday, March 20, 2023, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on International Trade with instruction that it amend the same to include reference to; (a) the $54 million hard-earned Canadian tax dollars wasted on the application, (b) the inaccurate evidence government officials provided during the committee's investigation, (c) the serious allegations of fraudulent contract practices that are cause for grave concern, (d) the statement made by the RCMP that they are investigating criminality in the contracts that were awarded, and accordingly, it recommends that the Auditor General of Canada update Canadians on where the money went.

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Context: House Hansard - 232 - Oct/16/23

Oct/18/23 3:32:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, no one is above the law, and that includes the Prime Minister. After eight years, he is the only one in Canadian history who has been found guilty of breaking not one, but two, ethics laws and now, with the arrive scam app, the RCMP is investigating criminality in the highest echelons of the government. What was the Prime Minister's response? He shut down debate, and he shut down committees. Now he is hiding behind cabinet confidence. He is not worth the cost. Under dark clouds of suspicion, will the Prime Minister cooperate with the now several RCMP investigations?

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Oct/16/23 3:13:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the government's ongoing corruption, we have yet another scandal. We have had conflicts of interest, nepotism and abuse of power. Now we have allegations of criminality around the contracting practices in the top offices of the government. The $54-million price tag for the arrive scam app is just the tip of the iceberg. Last week, the NDP-Liberal coalition voted to shut down the testimony of the Auditor General's review of this scandal. Why?

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May/30/23 11:54:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am forever the optimist, and I hope my NDP colleagues have listened very carefully to the speeches so far on this side of the House. As I indicated at the end of my speech, I hope they will put their constituents and this country first before propping up this absolutely corrupt Liberal government.

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May/30/23 11:53:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in addition to those “random Liberals”, there is our former Privy Council clerk, Michael Wernick, who was also sacrificed to preserve the legacy of the Prime Minister. There is also, of course, his trusted friend, political adviser and principal secretary, Mr. Gerald Butts.

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May/30/23 11:51:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, David Johnston sacrificed himself and his reputation to preserve the reputation and career of the Prime Minister. He is not the first friend of the Prime Minister who has sacrificed his reputation to preserve the reputation of the Prime Minister and the government, and he will probably not be the last. Let us all remember our former attorney general and minister of justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Let us remember our former minister of health, Jane Philpott. Let us remember our former minister of finance, Bill Morneau. According to the government, just “random Liberals” are all they are. They were not senior ministers but random Liberals, and to—

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May/30/23 11:49:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague's question had many layers to it, so I will try my best to respond. Perhaps he is not aware that for the past year and a half, I was a sitting member of the standing joint committee reviewing the Emergencies Act declaration. I would encourage my colleague to confer with his colleague, the member for Hamilton Centre, an NDP colleague, who will easily debunk everything the member had to say about the element of Russian interference with respect to funding. Experts who testified at committee completely debunked that particular narrative. That was shared with the House numerous times, so I would recommend that he talk to his colleague.

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May/30/23 11:41:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after the release of the so-called special rapporteur report, the Conservatives were working to get Mr. Johnston to appear before committee to answer on his failure to recommend a public inquiry. Again, the NDP showed its true colours in siding with Liberals and voting together to try to silence the opposition and hide the truth from Canadians. Now, 19 sitting days before the summer break, the New Democrats are trying to save what is left of their political legacy by presenting a motion that would once again recommend that the government do things differently. They will then vote blindly against their very own motion. It is hypocrisy at its finest. Foreign operatives should never be permitted to intimidate and harass Canadian people on Canadian soil, as the government has allowed them to do for several years. Rather than following the response of our neighbours across the border, who promptly shut down these police stations and charged those responsible, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety instead chose to spend their energy on misleading Canadians. First, the minister said that the stations were all shut down; we then found out that they were still in operation in Montreal. Now, most recently, the minister comes clean and admits that there may be more illegal police stations run by Beijing across this country. To make matters worse, we have now learned that the government has been providing taxpayer funding to these groups, which are designed to implode our democracy. As reported by the National Post, Centre Sino-Québec is “one of two Quebec organizations ... under RCMP investigation for allegedly hosting a secret Chinese police station”, and it was given nearly $160,000 worth of funds. The solution is not difficult. It is very simple. It is to shut down all these police stations and create and implement a foreign influence registry to protect Canadians now. Canadians have no idea what to believe at this point. Who can blame them? Thus, it is imperative to have an open and honest public inquiry on foreign interference in this country to give citizens the answers they so need and deserve. Unfortunately, we all know very well that the government's lack of action did not stop there. Rather, the Prime Minister showed his true colours when he chose to place his partisan interests above the safety of our institutions and of this country by selecting a family friend and member of the Beijing-funded Trudeau Foundation. He knowingly appointed a ski buddy, a cottage neighbour and a member of the Beijing-funded foundation to a fake job intended to legitimize the Liberal cover-up. As well stated by Canada's next prime minister, in a country of 40 million people, the government could not find anyone who did not have connections to the Liberal Party or who had not been on the foundation. That is unbelievable. It is remarkable. We have so many distinguished prominent Canadians with the same credentials as former governor general David Johnston, and they ignored each and every one of those individuals and hand-picked Mr. Johnston for the job. To make matters worse, while working on the report and during the investigation, Mr. Johnston sought advice from another trusted Liberal adviser, Sheila Block. This is a Liberal supporter who donated thousands of dollars exclusively to the Liberal Party of Canada. If that were not enough, we have another layer of the cover-up cake. When David Johnston wanted to make sure that he was not in a conflict of interest in judging Beijing's interference in the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, we can guess whose opinion he sought. We have all kinds of retired Supreme Court justices in this country who are still alive, but he had to choose Mr. Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada, a member of the Trudeau Foundation. As a lawyer, I am absolutely gobsmacked and astounded that they cannot see this runaway freight train called “the conflict of interest” running smack dab into the middle of the heart of the current Liberal government. It is not only a pure, active conflict of interest. It is the appearance of such an interest. Any lawyer who goes into court knows that many judges have completely recused themselves on the lower grounds of not doing anything that might compromise the integrity of the process. This process has been substantially compromised by the actions of David Johnston, the Prime Minister and his government. In conclusion, sunshine is the best disinfectant, per CSIS. Let the public see. Let us let the public be the judge. Let us call a public inquiry. If NDP members really want to prove that they support a public inquiry, they must tell the Prime Minister that they will pull out of their coalition agreement if he does not call one. Stand up for Canadians, NDP.

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May/30/23 11:37:13 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, to really emphasize my point about how the New Democrats talk out of both sides of the mouth, let us take a look at their history. In 2020, when Conservatives were pushing for a study on the WE Charity scandal and creating an anti-corruption committee, the NDP voted against it with the Liberals. In 2021, the New Democrats helped the Liberal government to shut down any public debates regarding Winnipeg lab documents, which were also linked, coincidentally, to the Communist regime in Beijing. In 2022, the New Democrats blindly supported the Prime Minister in invoking the Emergencies Act. In 2023, when the Conservatives called for Katie Telford, the Prime Minister's chief of staff and most trusted political adviser, to testify on foreign election interference, the New Democrats filibustered for almost 24 hours and voted against it with the Liberals. After the release—

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Context: House Hansard - 178 - Apr/17/23

May/30/23 11:33:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the member for Carleton, the leader of His Majesty's official opposition and Canada's next great prime minister, for sharing his time with me today on such a prominent issue that our country is facing. As always, it is a privilege to speak on behalf of the residents of Brantford—Brant. As we are all aware, the topic of foreign interference in this country has not only been at the forefront of discussions in this House for quite some time now, but it also remains a top concern for Canadians across this country. These foreign operatives pose major threats to the safety and security of our democratic institutions. The fact that this interference was able to grow this extensively on the Prime Minister's watch, and that it took this long for Beijing agents in this country to be expelled, speaks loudly to the current government's complete incompetence in fulfilling its basic duty to protect Canadians. It is unacceptable that the government knew that MPs and their families had been targeted by the Communist regime in Beijing for almost three years. It is unacceptable that it took zero measures to inform those members of this House until these facts were exposed on the front pages of our press. If the government knew that the foreign operatives were using their diplomatic status to conduct foreign interference operations, it should have dealt with those individuals immediately and not years down the line when it was embarrassed because of inaction. Regardless of our political colour, all members must work to fulfill our duties to represent our constituents and to honour the democratic process that brought us here in the first place. The fact that the Communist regime in Beijing was targeting the former leader of the Conservative Party not only shows that it was working to re-elect the Prime Minister's government and defeat the Conservatives but also that the responsibilities of being a democratically elected member of Parliament have absolutely no meaning to the members on that side of the House. Today, we are debating the opposition motion moved by the NDP. The NDP is a party of Twitter warriors who care about Canadians on social media and defend the Prime Minister and his Liberal government every step of the way. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Mr. Larry Brock: Madam Speaker, they can heckle me all they want.

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Context: House Hansard - 173 - Mar/27/23

Apr/17/23 2:11:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week the Prime Minister's chief of staff emphasized that there was nothing he had not read or was not briefed on. However, as expected, no explanation was provided for his absence of action. For example, over the last six years, NSICOP reported on the influence of foreign interference and made recommendations to the Prime Minister. Global Affairs identified Beijing campaigns aimed at discouraging Chinese Canadians from voting Conservative. The Prime Minister and ministers were briefed on Beijing's interference network, which involved at least 11 candidates. The director of CSIS was repeatedly asking the Prime Minister for legislative changes. What did he do in response? He did absolutely nothing. It is clear that upholding Beijing's objective to defeat Conservatives was more important for the Liberals than prioritizing the security of our democratic institutions, which only intensifies the demand for an independent inquiry to openly investigate foreign interference in our country.

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Context: House Hansard - 165 - Mar/7/23

Mar/27/23 2:10:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for the past 20 weeks, Canadians have heard over and over again about the help from the Beijing Communists that the Liberal Party has received in multiple elections. Conservatives have asked hundreds of questions in the House, but the Prime Minister has told us much of nothing. We have asked questions at committees, and the Liberal members have done everything they can to delay, distract and undermine the need for a thorough investigation into this topic. At the beginning of this month, 67% of Canadians supported an open and public independent inquiry that would help provide serious transparency in this matter. All opposition parties voted in favour of the motion to launch such an inquiry, but, as always, the Liberal MPs voted against it. Canadians are losing trust in our political institutions and democracy. I call on Canadians who watch this to call, email and visit their local Liberal MPs, reminding them that they are in this House to represent them and not to blindly serve the self-interests of the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party.

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