EXCLUSIVE: Conservative MP says Parliament ‘is seized by Liberal corruption’ amid ‘Green Slush Fund’ scandal

In an exclusive interview, Barrett explained the historic phenomenon that has shut down all government business in the House after a majority of its MPs voted to send unredacted documents relating to the “Green Slush Fund” to the RCMP and Speaker Greg Fergus agreed that the government had to comply and ordered the House to consider that matter and nothing else until further notice.

“The real fine point on this is that Parliament is seized by liberal corruption right now. So, no government bills were debated for all of last week. The same looks like it will be the case this week, unless, of course, the Liberals hand over the documents in the scandal, this billion dollar Green Slush Fund, to the RCMP, Barrett told TPM. “Now the RCMP is going to have the opportunity to consider, as they would with any documents that are turned over to them, whether or not they've launched an investigation. But over the weekend, we learned that they have, in fact, started an investigation and haven't received the unredacted documents that are at the heart of this scandal,” he said.

"The Conservatives have been spending this last session, you know, prior to coming back in September, really trying to peel back this Sustainable Development Technology Canada mess,” Barrett said, referencing the official title of what the Conservatives and much of the Canadian media have dubbed the Green Slush Fund because so many of the initiatives in this job creation scheme were for green energy projects.

“This fund has been around since the early 2000s and under the [Stephen Harper] Conservatives, it received a clean bill of health from Canada's auditor general. But, after the Liberals got into it, they hand-picked a chair, a liberal friendly chair. Then they stacked the board, and then the conflicts of interest started rolling, where we see that this is tens of millions of dollars being handed out inappropriately. It's a $400 million scandal, essentially, with well over 180 conflicts. At the heart of it is these funds being misappropriated, allocated outside of the contribution agreement.”

Another issue that the Speaker ordered to be assessed is the matter of whether Employment Minister, Randy Boissennault (Lib-Edmonton Centre), violated conflict of interest rules and the law by allegedly being a federal government minister while still acting in his capacity as the member of a lobbying firm. Barrett says it is “extraordinary” that the Speaker has ruled that Boissennault’s business partner must turn over vital documents to the House of Commons Ethics Committee.

Barrett said, "These documents could prove that Boissenault was directing the operation of a business that, in fact, went on to win a federal government contract from Elections Canada while he was serving in cabinet, which, of course, is not permitted.”

Barrett said the sheer volume of corruption is showing on the face of the Trudeau government. “I think that the weight of this is really starting to be felt by Canadians when you look at what exactly happened in this case, and it was at a time when Canadians were lining up at food banks in record numbers. These liberal insiders were getting – it's beyond sweetheart deals. They were being given funds, taxpayer funds that they weren't entitled to, that it was inappropriate for them to receive. That's being investigated by the RCMP. So there's now alleged criminality that's at play here. And it shouldn't have to come to this for Canadians to change their government.”

Shortly after the Speaker ruled in favor of sending the documents to the RCMP, Government House Leader Karina Gould said it was an “extremely dark day for this House and a very troubling day for democracy in this country.”

“This is quite frankly an abuse of the power of this place. That is trampling on the Charter-protected rights of Canadians,” she said of the MPs’ decision to send the documents to the RCMP.

Barrett finds that attitude almost beyond comprehension. “No, this is absolute desperation from a government, a Liberal government, that's completely out of gas. They believe that the Charter is there to protect Liberals from accountability for their own corruption. But really, the Charter could be more accurately or more appropriately described as being there to protect Canadians from a corrupt government, not to protect a corrupt government from the accountability that Canadians would bring to bear on it,” he said.

The Conservatives have continued to challenge the Trudeau government with non-confidence motions after New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh said he had “ripped up” his loose coalition agreement with Trudeau. The prime minister has ignored the crisis in Parliament, spending time on the road at last weekend’s Francophonie Summit, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly about the “Summit of the Future” and guesting on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, where he lauded Canadian medicare.