Bill S-1003 (Historical)

An Act to amend The United Church of Canada Act

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the point of order I am making is to look for unanimous consent to have an emergency debate on—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am afraid we just did that.

The hon. member for Carleton.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, this is a Prime Minister who has, through his entire public life, attempted to convert public office into private riches.

He did it when he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from charities for speeches he should have been giving as part of his role as a member of Parliament. Many of those dollars also came from public school boards and unions. He was taking money from workers and school children for speaking fees for the kinds of speeches that all of us in this House of Commons give for free all the time because we know that we are already handsomely paid as MPs to do this job as it is. He did so while having one of the worst attendance records in the House of Commons as an MP. He was paid to be here working; meanwhile, he was charging school children, workers and charities for doing the job that all of us would otherwise do for free.

That is his history. Then he has the audacity to look the working poor in the eye and say, “You are not paying enough tax.” It is a kind of arrogance that can only come when someone has been marinated in privilege for their whole life.

We have seen that same kind of elite arrogance from the Prime Minister on display recently—

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I just want to make reference to our rules, in particular with regard to unparliamentary language.

On page 623, it states that:

The proceedings of the House are based on a long-standing tradition of respect for the integrity of all Members. Thus, the use of offensive, provocative or threatening language in the House is strictly forbidden. Personal attacks, insults and obscene language or words are not in order. A direct charge or accusation against a Member may be made only by way of a substantive motion for which notice is required.

The Conservatives consistently have taken personal attacks, virtually from day one, for the last two years, and I think it is time for members to be held accountable. As the rules say, they are not allowed to personally assassinate character in this House.

I would ask that the member be called to order for his comments.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member brings up a very good point of order. It was a discussion that was taken among the Chair officers earlier. I would remind hon. members that when criticizing the other side, regardless of which side it is going to, they can criticize the party but not the individual.

The hon. member for Carleton.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, members will note that I was referring to the Prime Minister's then decision to vote against a 2014 budget that eliminated a tax loophole from which he had benefited during his entire adult life. That is very much related to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind hon. members that they cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly.

I will let the hon. member for Carleton continue.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, somebody should have told the Prime Minister that when he tried to directly pressure his attorney general. I hope that you pass that on to him, Mr. Speaker.

Now that the member wants to talk about personal attacks, I have here a letter from the Liberal member and former attorney general, the member for Vancouver Granville, that she has now submitted to the Liberal caucus. If we are going to talk about personal attacks, then let us do that. I think this is very much apropos and I am very pleased that the member rose on that particular point of order at this moment.

She wrote this to the whole Liberal caucus:

Now, I know many of you are angry, hurt, and frustrated. And frankly so am I, and I can only speak for myself. I am angry, hurt, and frustrated because I feel and believe I was upholding the values that we all committed to. In giving the advice I did, and taking the steps I did, I was trying to help protect the Prime Minister and the government from a horrible mess. I am not the one who tried to interfere in sensitive proceedings, I am not the one who made it public, and I am not the one who publicly denied what happened. But I am not going to go over all of the details here again. Enough has been said.

Growing up as an Indigenous person in this country I learned long ago the lesson that people believing what they wish about you does not, and cannot ever, make it the truth—rather than letting authority be the truth, let the truth be the authority. Indeed, if I had succumbed to interpreting the beliefs of others to be the truth, I never would have been able to push forward in the face of the racism and misogyny that far too many Indigenous women, and others, still experience every day.

Ultimately the choice that is before you is about what kind of party you want to be part of, what values it will uphold, the vision that animates it, and indeed the type of people it will attract and make it up.

She of course is writing to the caucus about the ongoing Liberal deliberations whereby members of the Prime Minister's inner circle are trying to have her expelled from her own party.

Why? It is because she blew the whistle. She saw wrongdoing and she blew the whistle. That is apparently, we are now hearing from numerous media reports and comments from Liberal MPs who support the Prime Minister, an offence punishable with expulsion.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Carleton has been referring to and reading from a letter I believe from the member for Vancouver Granville that apparently has been given to the Liberal caucus. Apparently the Liberal caucus members all have this letter; however, I am not sure if the rest of the House does. I feel that the member reading the letter and not tabling that document puts us at a disadvantage. I would ask if we need unanimous consent in order to table that letter so that all in the House could have a copy of it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Carleton wants to comment on the point of order.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, out of respect for the House of Commons, I take this letter that was written to the caucus chair of the Liberal Party by the member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville and I offer to table it in the chamber.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is remarkable that Liberal members would not consent to the tabling of a letter to Liberal members. This is a letter from a Liberal to other Liberals, and the Liberals want to ban it from being tabled in the House of Commons. It goes on and on.

The member across the way talks about personal attacks. The former attorney general stood on the solid ground of truth. She first spoke truth to power, and when power would not listen to truth, she spoke truth to the people. When power contradicted truth, she provided evidence to prove truth. Now she is being punished for it.

If that party, the once great party of Wilfrid Laurier and St. Laurent and Mackenzie King, has descended to a point where someone is punished merely for telling the truth, what message is it sending to all Canadians? What message is it sending to young people who want to come and serve in this place? If they tell the truth, they will be called names and insulted, and their gender and ethnicity will be raised as points of contention. Finally, at the end of it all, they will be kicked right out of their party altogether.

That is not the message we should send to our young people. We should send them the message that this is a place full of truth-tellers; it is full of people who will say what they know to be true. More than that, it is a place full of leaders willing to accept the truth when they hear it.

That is not the kind of leader we have at the head of the government today. Rather, he has played a game of cover-up, denial, contradiction, evasion and, finally, shutting down debate altogether. We have two parliamentary committees that have closed their doors to this matter because the Prime Minister's majority voted to do so. The Prime Minister kept his members here all night long, for 30 hours straight, voting in the House of Commons rather than just accepting a very simple demand from the official opposition that the former attorney general be allowed to complete testimony before a committee.

Now the government refuses to end my speech by simply agreeing to my one simple demand, which is for a parliamentary committee, namely the justice committee, to convene all the witnesses involved in the political interference in the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal, question them under oath and without restriction, and issue a final report all Canadians can read before they vote in the next election. If the government announces right now that it will agree to that demand, I will terminate my speech immediately. Otherwise, I will continue to speak about this absolutely fundamental issue at the heart of our democratic system and the rule of law.

There is nothing members can do to silence members of the opposition on this. They might attempt to silence their own former ministers with threats, expulsion and denigrating comments in the media, but they will not silence members of the other side of the House. Ultimately, they will find they cannot silence Canadians either.

The people of Canada are too wise. They know that where there is smoke there is usually fire. In this case, there is a heck of a lot of smoke. We have a Prime Minister who is changing his story from one day to the next and making statements that are soon disproved by written evidence and audio recordings.

We have a Prime Minister shutting down an investigation at the justice committee and another investigation at the ethics committee. Here we have it: a justice committee with no justice and an ethics committee with no ethics. That is what it has come to with this Liberal majority.

However, we should not worry, because Liberals have a political strategy to get around it. Their plan, as witnessed by the motion we are now debating, was the Liberal three-step: a massive scandal, step number one; massive deficit spending to distract from it, step number two; and a massive tax increase to pay for it all after the election, step number three.

I have already spent a lot of time talking about step number one, the scandal itself. Let us talk about step number two, the massive deficit spending. The Prime Minister famously promised in the lead-up to the last election that the budget would balance itself. He said it would happen in the year 2019. Well, that time has now arrived. Here we are debating a budget with a deficit of $20 billion, not zero as the Prime Minister promised, but—

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, about a minute ago, a member delivered food to the member for Winnipeg North. He is consuming it at this moment. He has been consuming it for about the last 45 seconds or so. I know that is not allowed in the House of Commons, and I would like you to issue a directive on that.