Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would make a few observations with respect to this motion that has been put forward by Mr. Green.
First of all, this motion is not unique to this committee. This is part of a coordinated campaign between the Liberal government and their NDP coalition partner in which, once again, the NDP is doing the bidding of the Liberals.
We have a Prime Minister and a government in chaos. We have a government that is 20 points behind in the polls and a Prime Minister who is literally despised by Canadians. We have a government that has managed to screw up just about everything they have touched over the past nine years, from record deficits and debt leading to 40-year-high inflation, to high interest rates that have all created a cost of living crisis. The Liberal response to the cost of living crisis they created is to make life even less affordable for Canadians with carbon tax hikes and now this latest tax hike on health care workers, specifically doctors, farmers, small businesses and home builders. They claim it's a tax hike on the so-called super rich, when in fact everyday Canadians are going to pay, and pay dearly, as a result. On top of that, we have a government that is mired in scandal. In fact, it is arguable that this is the most corrupt government in modern Canadian history.
I see that one Liberal member thinks it's funny, but we have Dominic LeBlanc found guilty of breaching the Conflict of Interest Act. He's a senior minister in this government. We have Mary Ng, who was found guilty of breaching the Conflict of Interest Act. She's a senior minister in this government. We have Bill Morneau, who was found guilty of breaching multiple sections of the Conflict of Interest Act. He was the finance minister in this government. We have a former member of this committee, if you can believe it, a Liberal member, who was found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. Then we have the Prime Minister himself, the first Prime Minister in Canadian history to be found guilty of breaching the Conflict of Interest Act. He was found guilty not once but twice. Now we have the minister from Edmonton, Mr. Boissonnault who has so much to answer for. I'll get into that momentarily.
We have a government that has a history of entitlement, patronage and straight-up corruption. There is a culture of corruption embedded within this government. That's just established based upon the nine-year history of these Liberals. In the face of all these failings and all the scandals and how frustrated and angry Canadians are at these Liberals, it's no wonder they want to get out of town. They want to hide over the summer. They want to shut down the ability of parliamentary committees to provide appropriate oversight. I won't be a party to doing any of the bidding for the Liberals.
There is a reason we have three oversight committees that are chaired by the official opposition—the government operations committee, public accounts and the ethics committee. Boy, all of these committees are working overtime in the face of all of the mismanagement and all of these Liberal scandals.
To simply bring forward a 106(4).... I say it's not good enough. It's not good enough because we've seen the NDP work with the Liberals to adjourn meetings to prevent 106(4) motions from being debated and voted on.
What is the rationale for this motion? The only rationale that I can see is that it's about doing the bidding for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.
There is a reason, in the Standing Orders, that the chair has the discretion to convene a meeting. I say, leave it to the chair of this committee, who is a very good chair.
I want to zero in on the matter that we were discussing earlier today, which is the cloud of scandal that hangs over the Minister of Employment, Mr. Boissonnault. We are going to hear, hopefully, from his former business partners, Ms. Poon and Mr. Anderson, but I would submit that we can't wait until the fall before there's any further scrutiny undertaken by this committee of Mr. Boissonnault and the series of questionable activities he has been connected with in relation to both Ms. Poon and Mr. Anderson.
Let's look at what we're dealing with for Mr. Boissonnault. We have a minister who had started up a company—a lobbying firm—after he lost his seat in the 2019 election. There was a loophole that allowed him to set up a company, even though he couldn't lobby. He hired Ms. Poon, who lobbied for his company. When he was returned to the House of Commons in 2021, he appropriately wound down that company. Ms. Poon took over, but Ms. Poon then set up her own lobbying firm that was lobbying this government and was also lobbying Minister Boissonnault's own department. It also received $110 million in government contracts as Ms. Poon's company was paying Mr. Boissonnault.
Mr. Boissonnault was not transparent. In fact, he attempted to hide his connection to Ms. Poon's lobbying firm in the declaration that he made to the Ethics Commissioner, in which he hid behind the numbered company, not the name that the company held itself out as.
As a result, the Ethics Commissioner was unaware that the firm that was paying Mr. Boissonnault was lobbying his department and other departments within this government in securing contracts. Mr. Boissonnault said that there was nothing to see here because the payments he was receiving from Ms. Poon's lobbying company were in relation to accounts receivable from work that he did prior to his election, except for the fact that he never did any work for Ms. Poon's company.
Why is he being paid by Ms. Poon's company—a company he did no work for and one that was lobbying his department and benefiting handsomely by securing $110 million in contracts? Mr. Boissonnault has provided no explanation for why he was being paid by Ms. Poon's company. It doesn't add up. We need to probe that.
We also need to understand why it is that Mr. Boissonnault hid behind a numbered company. Why was he not transparent? Was it just sloppiness on his part? He says he was cleared by the Ethics Commissioner. He hasn't been cleared by the Ethics Commissioner. He was asked about whether he's been cleared by the lobbying commissioner. As far as I understand, this issue is on the lobbying commissioner's radar. There are many questions to be asked of Mr. Boissonnault in regard to what is, at the very least, the very questionable arrangement of having one's business partner lobby a department the minister is connected to, and where that individual is being paid by a company while that company is securing money from the federal government for clients.
However, there is the issue around Global Health Imports Corporation and the questions, “Where is Randy?” and, “Who is Randy?” This is a company Mr. Boissonnault set up at the beginning of the pandemic. He had no experience in the PPE business and neither did Mr. Anderson, whose career was that of a hockey coach. Amazingly, they set up this company right at the time of the pandemic and began to secure millions of dollars in government contracts for PPE. It raises some questions about how they managed to pull that off. Experts and those familiar with the industry say that it's almost impossible for, essentially, a two-person company with no track record or experience to suddenly start up a company and secure millions of dollars in this area.
I digress.
Needless to say, all has not gone well at Global Health Imports Corporation. Mr. Boissonnault held himself up, as he confirmed when he appeared before this committee, as a partner at Global Health Imports with Mr. Anderson. Global Health Imports did not appear.... Well, I shouldn't say “didn't appear”, because there are judgments to back it up. It did not operate as a good, ethical business. This is a company that has been hit with $7.8 million in judgments by Alberta courts for ripping off clients. It is a company Mr. Boissonnault started and held himself up as a partner in, in which he continues to have 50% ownership.
What does that say, before getting into the bigger issue involving Mr. Boissonnault?
Just on that basis, what does it say about the standard of ethics within this Liberal government that Justin Trudeau has appointed a minister who was involved in a shady PPE company that, under questionable circumstances, secured government contracts, that ripped off clients and that has essentially been found guilty by Alberta courts? Judgments to the tune of $7.8 million have been awarded to those clients who were ripped off by Mr. Boissonnault's company, a company he was engaged in and a partner in during some of the instances of business dealings that led to the lawsuits that resulted in the $7.8 million in judgments.
The fact that there is a minister in this government who was involved in those kinds of shady business dealings, who has a 50% interest in a company that is on the hook in judgments in the amount of $7.8 million, I would think would be enough for the PM to say to Mr. Boissonnault, “You're done. You're fired. You don't meet the ethical standard of serving in the federal cabinet.”
But, again, Mr. Boissonnault is not an outlier in this government when it comes to ethical misconduct. Dominic LeBlanc was guilty; Mary Ng was guilty; Bill Morneau was guilty; Greg Fergus was guilty, and Justin Trudeau was guilty twice. In the case of Randy Boissonnault, it sort of fits into the culture of corruption that I alluded to that is so embedded in a government that is frankly rotten to the core. Mr. Boissonnault said, when the $7.8 million in judgments came to light, that those lawsuits arose after he left. Well, it turns out that's not true. He lied. He straight up lied.
Again, that's par for the course with these Liberals. That's the ethical standard of these Liberals. On the very day that Mr. Boissonnault was set to appear at this committee, where he was going to peddle the falsehood that he had been cleared by the Ethics Commissioner, Global News broke a story in which there were text messages from Randy to his then business partner at Global Health Imports, Mr. Anderson. Now, the text from Randy amounts to basically a shakedown of a client from California who is suing another one of the many companies. Those who've had the misfortune of doing business with Global Health Imports have commenced a lawsuit for fraud against Global Health Imports. The context of his text message was that Randy Boissonnault was writing to Mr. Anderson, saying that the California-based client, the Ghaoui Group, had better wire over what was equivalent to a $500,000 Canadian deposit for the purchase of PPE.
According the Ghaoui Group and its records, it transferred the $500,000 to Mr. Boissonnault and Mr. Anderson's company, and then the PPE never arrived. Global Health Imports just didn't deliver it.
Then, mysteriously—and some might say not so mysteriously—the warehouse of Global Health Imports was burnt to the ground weeks after the $500,000 was wired over to Global Health Imports. It was burnt to the ground. The Edmonton Police have concluded that it was likely arson.
One might wonder who was responsible for that arson. Global News reported that Anderson spoke about paying vendors after his company received insurance money. That's just another coincidence.
You have a minister who is involved in this very sketchy company. However, what is really problematic, of course, about this text from Randy is that if, in fact, it is Mr. Boissonnault—and there's every reason to believe it is—it means that the minister was engaged in and participated in a $500,000 fraud. Also, it's not only that. Mr. Boissonnault was a minister of the Crown on the date of the text messages and when this fraudulent transaction occurred, which Global Health Imports and Anderson orchestrated.
Now, what is at issue there? Well, very simply, it is a blatant violation of the Conflict of Interest Act for a minister to be involved in the operations of a business—of any business. Mr. Boissonnault can retain ownership, but he cannot be involved in the operation of the business. Therefore, it's a straight-up contravention of the Conflict of Interest Act.
Again, he would join the club of Dominic LeBlanc, Mary Ng, Bill Morneau, Greg Fergus and Justin Trudeau in breaching the Conflict of Interest Act.
When Global News reported on these text messages, Randy Boissonnault said that it isn't him, that it's a different Randy. When he came before this committee, I asked Mr. Boissonnault if it would be fair to say that this is a fairly small company, with a handful of people, and he acknowledged that it would be fair. Then I asked who Randy is. He said, “I do not know who [that] Randy is.” He said, with a straight face, that he did not know who that Randy was.
It would be laughable—it's farcical—if the matter were not as serious as it is. I mean, we're talking about a minister of the Crown who was potentially tied up in a $500,000 fraud and who potentially violated the Conflict of Interest Act if, in fact, Randy the minister is the Randy in the text messages.
Now, it really shouldn't be that hard to find Randy. Could there be another Randy? Well, if there is another Randy and Mr. Boissonnault can't identify him—and he should be able to identify him—why can't Mr. Anderson identify him?
Mr. Anderson told Global News that it was a different Randy, that it was a Randy who was involved in the logistics of the company, but when Global News looked into who was responsible for logistics, it turns out it's not someone named Randy; it's someone entirely different. One could say it's highly suspicious.