Just when you thought things were changing, they are still the same. It turns out, there have been Liberal registered lobbyists registered to lobby for Justin Trudeau and his office who are still making it and attending cash for access events. This whole cycle keeps repeating itself.
00:00:00.000You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:09.000Well, they thought they were going to have an easy day over there today, but not so fast, Mr. Speaker.
00:00:16.640What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behaviour?
00:00:25.320And now, here's your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:31.240Welcome back to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:35.540It's great to be your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:37.480And our third topic today is just when you thought it was safe with cash for access, of course, the Liberal wheel keeps on spinning.
00:00:45.480It was over a year ago that Justin Trudeau was called out for his cash for access fundraisers where well-heeled lobbyists who were lobbying the Prime Minister, his office, other cabinet ministers were paying for access at ritzy joints and houses throughout the country to gain that special access to the Prime Minister.
00:01:05.780When this came to light, the Prime Minister Trudeau at first defended it and then said, oh, I'm going to make things better anyway with this new piece of legislation, which is going to clamp down on this.
00:01:18.880Of course, the legislation did no such thing.
00:01:20.860It just merely sanctified what the Liberal Party was already doing.
00:01:23.800And now there are new reports that, hey, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
00:01:29.480Just when you thought things would be changing, they are still the same.
00:01:32.960It turns out that there have been Liberal registered lobbyists registered to lobby for Justin Trudeau and for his office who are still involved in cash for access, still making it and attending cash for access events.
00:01:50.620Mr. Trudeau himself as Prime Minister was still a featured guest at two recent cash for access events, one in Montreal, one in Vancouver.
00:02:00.820More than half a dozen lobbyists were on either of those events' guest lists.
00:02:06.240Some specifically registered to lobby Justin Trudeau and his office.
00:02:12.540So here again, the Liberal government says they're doing one thing, but of course, Justin Trudeau and his government are doing something very, very different.
00:02:20.980Our critic of this, John Broussard, has been very, very articulate at explaining why this is a problem.
00:02:31.040You know, he said, if you're a registered lobbyist, you're not going to flip a switch at these events.
00:02:35.740You're going to go there with a specific goal in mind.
00:02:37.980If you're a lobbyist and you are going to these events, you're not suddenly not a lobbyist, is his point.
00:02:43.720Of course, you're going to go there and try to lobby for your specific pet projects.
00:02:48.140And, you know, he has gone very floridly to say, you can't put lipstick on a pig.
00:02:58.180People are paying for access and they're paying to bend the prime minister's ear or a minister's ear.
00:03:04.220The new rules just provided for a cover for an activity that fills the Liberal coffers.
00:03:09.860That's John Broussard, our Barry MP, who, of course, hits the nail right on the head.
00:03:15.780The fact is simple. These fundraisers by the Liberal Party are still ongoing.
00:03:20.780They're still going on. Cash for access involving lobbyists attending these events.
00:03:26.680When the Liberals get caught, they say, oh, sorry, our mistake won't happen again.
00:03:31.020And then it happens all over again. This is part of how outrageous this is.
00:03:36.000It's not just that they're doing this still.
00:03:38.440They continue to do this. They continue to get caught doing it.
00:03:42.820They continue to say as Liberals, oh, we won't do it again.
00:03:45.260And then they continue to do it again.
00:03:46.560This whole cycle keeps repeating itself time and time again, despite the fact that they table legislation supposedly to fix this,
00:03:54.380which, of course, it has done no such thing.
00:03:56.620So these are the issues that make this still an issue.
00:03:59.740You know, as a conservative opposition, we're talking about a lot of things.
00:04:04.460We're talking about the free trade rules.
00:04:07.280We're talking about the Cotter settlement.
00:04:09.520We're talking about things that Canadians are concerned about.
00:04:12.940But this cash for access is still happening.
00:04:15.500So we still have to raise this as an issue and try to get better behavior from this government.
00:04:20.940There's a sense of entitlement coming from Liberal cabinet members.
00:04:25.300But they don't – look, as a former cabinet member myself, you take your lead from the first minister, from the prime minister.
00:04:35.260Unless the prime minister puts his foot down and says this is not acceptable behavior,
00:04:40.460this kind of thing seeps through every part of government until the rot sets in.
00:04:46.020And that's exactly what is happening with the Trudeau government with this cash for access, unfortunately, continuing issue, continuing scandal.
00:04:56.120And that is why we will continue to raise these issues in Parliament when it resumes in September.
00:05:00.920Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
00:05:15.420To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
00:05:19.700search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.
00:05:24.060Thank you for listening to The Blueprint.