Ottawa, ON – Aaron Gunn, Conservative Shadow Minister for Ethics and Accountable Government, and Luc Berthold, Conservative Deputy House Leader, issued the following statement on the latest update to the Liberals’ Green Slush Fund scandal:
“Today, after questioning from the Conservatives, the Liberals finally revealed that none of the mismanaged funds from the Green Slush Fund had been recovered for taxpayers. In fact, Minister Joly declared that failing to recover a single cent from the millions of dollars given to Liberal insiders showed a ‘sound stewardship of public funds.’
“Let’s remind ourselves of the facts: in 2024, the Auditor General found that $123 million worth of contracts had been given out inappropriately, with $59 million being given to projects that never should have been awarded money. $76 million in funding was given to projects tied to Liberal appointees to SDTC, and $12 million was spent on projects that were both ineligible and had a conflict of interest.
“In total, conflict of interest rules were not followed in 90 cases, including a case where the Liberal-appointed chair siphoned off $217,000 to her own company. That’s why, in September 2024, the Public Accounts committee voted unanimously to condemn the ‘blatant disregard of taxpayer funds,’ and call on the Government to recover the erroneously awarded funds.
“Now, after two years, the Liberals have revealed that taxpayers haven’t gotten anything back. While Carney may want to deflect blame for this dereliction of fiscal responsibility, he rewarded the Minister who oversaw the scandal. The Auditor General found that now Finance Minister, Francois-Phillipe Champagne, ‘did not sufficiently monitor’ the contracts that were being awarded to Liberal insiders.
“The repeated failure to ensure Canadians’ money was being correctly spent is why Conservatives brought forward, and passed, a motion calling for documents to be turned over to the RCMP for investigation. Even after being ordered by the Speaker to produce documents, the Liberals refused to comply, paralyzing the House for months, all to prevent potential criminality from being investigated.
“Members of the Liberal club should not be getting rich on the backs of Canadians, and Ministers who fail in their duty to protect the Canadian taxpayer should be held accountable. Conservatives will continue to hold Carney’s government to account and fight to cut waste and grift to save Canadians money.”