NDP-Liberal Government Defies Parliament…Again

Read my thoughts on the NDP-Liberal coalition withholding evidence of Green Slush Fund corruption from the RCMP, the second non-confidence vote this fall, and the King Charles III Coronation Medals.

Government business in Parliament has ground to a halt because the NDP-Liberal government is defying a parliamentary order voted upon by a majority of MPs to hand over documents from the now defunct Sustainable Technology Development Canada to Parliament so it can then hand it over to the RCMP.

The documents I’m referring to pertain to the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund (SDTC), where the Auditor General of Canada found that the government appointees were busy directing monies to businesses they owned or had close ties to Liberal cronies. The SDTC was created in 2001 and was intended to operate as a non-profit corporation, with the mandate of awarding eligible Canadian projects to develop environmentally sustainable green technologies. However, the Auditor General’s report found that since 2017, the SDTC had misused taxpayers’ dollars to fund projects that were not meeting eligibility requirements. Potentially a total of $832 million was entrusted to SDTC. As an example, the Auditor General’s investigation found that eight Start‑up and Scale‑up projects, totaling $51 million, did not meet eligibility criteria but were still awarded to recipients anyway. Overall, it was revealed that $330 million of taxpayers’ dollars were paid in 186 cases with conflicts of interest. Another $59 million was given to projects found to be ineligible under the SDTC criteria. There were 405 transactions approved by the SDTC board and the Auditor General sampled 226 during her audit where she found 186 conflicts of interest in the decisions. What are the chances the other 219 transactions yet to be reviewed have issues of corruption, ineligible proposals and skirting accountability rules? The Auditor General’s findings were also backed by the Ethics Commissioner, who found that the Liberal-appointed chair of the SDTC failed to recuse herself from giving money to businesses and organizations she had direct ties to. Essentially, the SDTC acted as a Green Slush Fund for Liberal insiders and friends, and was shutdown by the Liberal minister whose job was to oversee it following the release of the Auditor General Report earlier this past Spring.

Considering that two independent parliamentary watchdogs found this government to have violated the Conflict-of-Interest Act dozens of times by funneling money to Liberal party insiders, the Conservatives and other opposition parties passed a motion requiring the release of relevant SDTC documents to Parliament that would then hand them to the RCMP. The parliamentary motion gave the government thirty days to hand over the documents, which has come and passed, meaning the government breached the terms of that majority vote in Parliament, and was at-risk of being in contempt of Parliament. Parliamentarians when acting as a majority and passing such a production of documents motion have an absolute right to access government documents. This has been confirmed repeatedly in the past by Liberal and Conservative MPs serving as Speaker. The right is absolute with no conditions. Exceptions have been made in cases directly connected to a national security issue but always subject to Parliament’s right to first see those same documents before deciding whether to release them to the public.

Even the current Liberal Speaker of the House of Commons, who is no friend to the Conservatives, backs this finding as he has ruled all government business in Parliament must be set aside until the government produces those documents. In his ruling, he stated:

The House has clearly ordered the production of certain documents, and that order has clearly not been fully complied with. The Chair [the Speaker] cannot come to any other conclusion but to find that a prima facie question of privilege has been established.

In making his ruling, the current Speaker cited a 2010 ruling from former Speaker of the House Peter Milliken, which also centers on Parliament’s right to order the production of documents. The former Speaker’s stated, as follows:

procedural authorities are categorical in repeatedly asserting the powers of the House in ordering the production of documents. No exceptions are made for any category of government documents.

This is an important reference to former Speaker Milliken as he is widely considered the best Speaker in modern times and was a prominent Liberal MP during his time fulfilling those functions. His judgment from 2010 was against a conservative minority government and was the correct ruling then.

Liberal cabinet ministers have been falsely claiming that a dangerous precedent is being set that violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They claim that a majority of MPs voting to order the government to produce the documents and a Liberal Speaker confirming the Liberal government is wrong and must produce are all infringing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When Parliament rules that documents need to be produced, it is unequivocal. A similar situation arose with the release of Afghan detainee documents in 2008. A minority government then also did not comply with an order for national security reasons. Canada was at war in Afghanistan and actively engaged in conducting combat operations against the al-Qaida terrorists and the Taliban. Eventually following further parliamentary motions, Speaker rulings, a redacted copy of over 40,000 documents were released in two tranches in 2010 and 2011 (still during the active war) after review by judges. Those documents this contain sensitive military operational data, information about informants and information from allied nations participating in the international mission in Afghanistan. Those redactions were for obvious national security reasons. This time, however, the Green Slush Fund documents contain no sensitive national security information whatsoever. The issue at hand is entirely Liberal corruption by Liberal appointees who broke provisions in the Conflict-of-Interest Act to give themselves and Liberal connected companies hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.

This is not the first time this Liberal government has come into conflict with a Liberal Speaker of the House of Commons over the production of documents. In 2021, the Liberal government took legal action against Speaker Anthony Rota to prevent the release of documents related to the Winnipeg Labs Scandal. The Speaker was again acting on behalf of Parliament and at the time reminded the Liberal government that MPs had an absolute right to these documents. The prime minister and the Liberal Party of Canada would eventually call an election August 2021 that effectively cancelled the order. After the election, MPs would return and again restart the process of obtaining the unredacted Winnipeg Lab documents. The NDP and Liberals would reach a majority agreement to have the documents reviewed by judges in private with a limited release to the public over the objections of the Conservatives and the Bloc. Those released documents would lead to more parliamentary hearings at various committees with a final analysis of the government response still being considered by the Canada-China parliamentary committee today.

When the Liberals were campaigning in the federal election in 2015, they promised to run an open and transparent government, even going so far as to say their government would be “open by default.” However, they have broken this promise so many times it is hard to keep track. This open by default promise continues to appear as a cynical joke in Liberal cabinet minister mandate letters today. If any legal misconduct occurred in the handing out of taxpayers’ dollars through the Green Slush Fund, it would be in the best interest of the NDP-Liberal government to turn over evidence to the RCMP and allow the police to decide whether any of it is useable or not. Corruption described by whistleblowers on the Green Slush Fund as rising to the level of the Sponsorship Scandal from the early 2000s is deserving of in-depth, concerted and robust oversight by parliamentarians. My message to the prime minister and his cabinet ministers remains simple: Release the documents and let the sunshine in.

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The NDP have once again voted to keep the Liberal government in power. After the NDP refused to join the Conservatives in ending Trudeau’s failed government last week, Conservatives tabled another motion stating Parliament has lost confidence in the government. But the NDP, along with the Bloc, voted to prop up the Liberals, proving that their opposition has just been performative. This means that the carbon tax, the housing crisis, inflationary policies, and the corrupt practices of this government will continue. In my door knocking in Calgary Shepard and in public polling, we Albertans are looking for a carbon tax election to be called. I will continue to vote non-confidence in the Liberal government and give you, the citizens of Canada, the final say to pass judgment on the performance of the NDP-Liberal coalition government and on my own performance as your Member of Parliament. I welcome that accountability and so should the prime minister and his Liberal MPs.

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Recognizing deserving Calgarians for their contributions, activism and charitable activities that promote our civic culture. These citizens participate in big and small acts of charity, activism, and entrepreneurship, helping making this city a better place. For their efforts, they have been awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for their exceptional contributions. The medals are awarded to candidates who have made a significant contribution to Canada or have made an outstanding achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada. They are minted by the Royal Canadian Mint to make the coronation of King Charles the III and we have not have the coronation of a new monarch in Canada since the 1950s. They are quite rare. A total of 30,000 medals will be awarded across Canada by various organizations on behalf of the Governor General of Canada.

Please check out these amazing Calgarians on my social media for more details on their contributions to our country. William, Jared, Ahmed and Mike, thank you!