With the House of Commons resuming for the fall session bringing Members of Parliament back to Ottawa, this will allow Conservatives, as the Official Opposition, to return to our work of holding the federal Liberal government accountable for its governance, legislation and policies.

Conservative MPs were prepared to continue working at Parliamentary Committees throughout the summer, but Liberal Members of Parliament, with their NDP partners in June, voted down efforts to hold more committee meetings over the summer.

 

Some committees were able to continue their work of investigating serious ethical breaches.

Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts were successful in passing a motion calling on the Auditor General of Canada (AG) to conduct a full "value for money and performance" audit on work done by Sustainable Development and Technology Canada (SDTC) since January 1, 2017.

An AG's earlier report on this issue examined dozens of projects SDTC funded - finding that $59 million was given to projects that never should have been awarded any money at all. The AG also found that nearly $76 million in taxpayer money was paid out in 90 cases where there was a potential conflict of interest, with a Trudeau-appointed SDTC Board of Directors approving public funding to companies they own. The case for expanding the AG's investigation is clearly warranted.

A Liberal MP stated the requested expansion of the AG's investigation would "demolish public trust". However, public trust in the government's management of SDTC was demolished when instead of digging into the concerns surrounding SDTC, the Minister chose to shut down SDTC's funding entirely in the wake of the AG's initial review.

The Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner did investigate deeper and found that the Liberal-appointed SDTC Chair of the Board violated Section 6(1) and 21 of the Conflict-of-Interest Act, finding her actions to have 'furthered her private interests.'

Conservatives will continue to push for full accountability for the now often-called "green slush fund" that the Liberal government allowed the SDTC to become on their watch.

 

Similarly, we will also continue to push for accountability in the continuing ethics investigation of the Liberal Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, Randy Boissonnault.

Boissonnault was the co-founder of the company Global Health Imports, which received millions of dollars in federal government grants and contracts, including during his time as the Associate Minister of Finance.

Under ethics law, Ministers are prohibited from operating or managing companies they own while in government. However, text messages unearthed by Conservative members at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics suggest the opposite: that the Minister continued actively managing his company.

Text messages were revealed between Boissonault's business partner and someone named "Randy [being] in Vancouver" on September 6, 2022, when it is known that the Minister was attending a Liberal Government's cabinet retreat in the same city.

This follows Global News' reporting that Minister Boissonnault's former business partners were texting a "Randy" about deals involving a half-million-dollar payment from the federal government.

Both the Minister and his business partner initially claimed it was another company employee, but the business partner admitted under questioning that this was a lie and that the company had not employed any other Randy at that time.

Minister Boissonnault's business partner claimed that multiple references to "Randy" were all the fault of autocorrect and refused to disclose the name of the other allusive person.  Conservatives will continue to investigate the Minister regarding these serious potential breaches of ethics law.  

The Prime Minister once said, "positive leadership creates a virtuous circle." After several breaches of ethics laws by his government, including multiple breaches himself and from various Ministers over the past nine years, questions must be asked about how his leadership has set the tone for an attitude of lack of accountability and poor ethical standards in the current government.

Conservatives will make the case in this fall session of Parliament for more robust rules and empowering the Ethics Commissioner as it applies to MPs and Senators to ensure compliance.

With Parliament resuming, the government can no longer avoid being asked difficult questions about issues important to Canadians, such as cost of living, housing, tax increases, crime and, conflict of interest and ethics scandals.

 

I'd like to hear from you: Are you concerned about the ethical violations and ongoing scandals of the Liberal government?

Please reach out to 250-470-5075 or [email protected] if have any thoughts to share – on this issue or others - or if you need assistance with any federal programs.