The Trudeau government has just been caught red-handed lying to Canadians about a massive $150 million payout to a failed Quebec vaccine supplier.
In fact, the entire deal cost a total of $323 million, in both taxpayer funding and secured research subsidies.
Conservative MP Rick Perkins revealed that censored records show the Liberals misled Parliament about the real terms of this shady contract.
And it’s not just that, but also the fact that a Liberal-controlled committee voted down Conservative calls for full disclosure of the contract.
What are they hiding? The murky deal involves a company tied to a Liberal Minister’s riding that never delivered the promised vaccines.
Is this just a severe case of incompetence or is something more sinister behind this?
The attempted Liberal coverup reeks of incompetence and corruption, and Canadians deserve the truth.
The Trudeau government has just been exposed yet again, for outright lying to Canadians about a massive $150 million payout to a failed Quebec COVID-19 vaccine supplier. In fact, with research subsidies, the total amount of taxpayer money handed to this company was $323 million.
And get this – the vaccine facility never even produced anything. And was never even built. It seems like all of those taxpayer dollars just went down the drain, or more accurately, into the pockets of Liberal elites.
Conservative MP Rick Perkins revealed records showing the Liberals misled Parliament about the real terms of this highly questionable contract.
In fact, in a 6-5 vote, a Liberal-controlled health committee voted down Conservative demands for full disclosure of the deal.
So what are the Liberals hiding here? Why did they funnel huge sums to a company that didn’t even produce a single vaccine?
In 2020, a Quebec-based company called Medicago received $150 million from the federal government for COVID-19 vaccines it committed to supplying. Medicago is owned by the Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi.
Beyond the $150 million, Medicago also received $173 million in research subsidies from Justin Trudeau’s government, specifically through Innovation Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund.
This brought the total amount of taxpayer funds handed to this company to $323 million – about double the amount initially reported.
However, Medicago failed to deliver a single dose of COVID vaccine, despite pocketing all of this money.
The deal was also tied to Liberal Public Works Minister Jean-Yves Duclos’ riding in Quebec. As part of the deal, the factory was to be built in the Quebec riding.
But the entire project was never executed – the vaccine facility was never built and obviously never produced a single vaccine.
So what did Canadians get for our $323 million? Nothing but loads of excuses and finger-pointing from the Trudeau Liberals.
This is where things get even shadier. Conservative MP Rick Perkins compared the Liberals’ public statements about the Medicago contract with records he was able to access. And he says the Trudeau government outright lied about key aspects of the deal.
The Liberals claimed the $150 million payment was written into the contract with Medicago. But based on the documents he reviewed, Perkins alleges that the contract only allowed payments upon actual delivery of vaccines.
And since Medicago failed to deliver anything, Perkins contends that the $150 million payout clearly violated the terms of the contract.
In other words, the Liberals forked over $150 million of our money to a failed supplier linked to a Liberal Minister’s riding, and then misled Parliament about the terms of the agreement.
“They misled a committee of Parliament,” said Perkins. MPs had “the responsibility to call them back and call them on their misrepresentation to Parliament,” he said.
This brings us to the attempted Liberal coverup.
Alarmed by Perkins’ allegations, the Conservatives introduced a motion for full disclosure of the unredacted Medicago contract and related documents.
But the Liberal members of the Commons Health Committee united to vote down this motion 6-5. It’s as if they’re hiding in plain sight. How do they expect to get away with this?
The Liberals don’t want Canadians to see the full details of how our money got flushed down the drain in their Minister’s riding. They are deliberately concealing key information and misleading Parliament about this $323 million fiasco.
This brings us to the question – what are the Liberals hiding here? Is it sheer incompetence? Corruption? Lining the pockets of Liberal insiders?
The attempted coverup has only fueled our already existing suspicions of serious wrongdoing.
Beyond the misleading statements and coverup attempts, there are several other red flags about this deal – why was a foreign-owned company receiving hundreds of millions in Canadian taxpayer funds in the first place?
What was Medicago doing with the money if not producing vaccines as agreed?
Did any of the funds make their way back to the Liberal Party or Trudeau’s re-election campaign?
And why was the facility supposed to be built in Duclos’ riding as part of the deal? This seems aimed at generating positive headlines for the Liberals.
Who decided to hand Medicago our money? Were there connections between company executives and the Liberal government?
The entire affair reeks Liberal corruption – a headline that many common sense Canadians have grown accustomed to seeing lately. After eight years of Justin Trudeau, this has become the norm for Canadians.
The motion, sponsored by Conservatives, asks that the health committee “order the production of unredacted copies of the vaccine supply contract” and all other agreements with Medicago for public release.
But instead what happened was that the Liberal-controlled committee completely shut down the motion in the most shameless Trudeau Liberal antic to date.
“It is voting for a cover-up. It is voting to cover up Liberal incompetence on pissing away $323 million of taxpayer money when there is no contractual requirement to do so. Incompetence, stupidity, government waste, what’s the reason,” Conservative MP Rick Perkins said.
Perkins rightly accused the Liberal-controlled committee of deliberately covering up incompetence and waste by blocking transparency about the Medicago contract debacle.
The Liberals cannot justify handing over $323 million in taxpayer funds to a failed Quebec company tied to a Liberal Minister’s riding. Canadians deserve to see the full unredacted contract now, not continue being stonewalled.
Yet shamelessly, Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski tried dismissing this staggering waste as old news and claimed the damning contract was already disclosed. This is utterly false.
Powlowski also took a cheap shot by stereotyping Conservatives as illogical and erratic for daring to demand the truth.
“This is two years later,” said Powlowski. “These are contracts which have already been made available to another committee, yet some Conservative in the middle of the night wakes up with this brain wave, ‘Oh my God, what happened with those contracts we haven’t seen? Let’s call back the health committee to discuss this right now.’”
But in reality, Trudeau’s Liberals are the ones irrationally clinging to secrecy and coverups surrounding their incompetence and fiscal mismanagement. They expect Canadians to forget about this $323 million Liberal patronage scandal. But Conservatives will continue pressing for full transparency and accountability from this shady, untrustworthy government.
Trudeau and his gang of corrupt liberal insiders should resign in disgrace over this appalling scandal. But of course, they will continue clinging to power while hiding the truth.
This scandal just highlights the fiscal incompetence and culture of corruption that has taken root under Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.
Rather than spending taxpayer dollars responsibly, Liberals first direct funds to companies and groups that will benefit them politically. Results and sound management are secondary concerns at best.
In this case, the Liberals must have wanted to shower money on a Quebec company to shore up political support in the province. They also wanted to bring jobs to a Minister’s riding to benefit him personally.
And they probably don’t want to release the information because they may have pocketed the money themselves. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be that big of a shock anyway. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before from the Trudeau Liberals.
Delivering vaccines to protect Canadians, as they claim, came as an afterthought. And when their crony corporate partners failed to deliver, Liberals covered it up rather than take responsibility.
This is painfully typical of how Liberals operate – doling out favors, scratching each other’s backs, wasting money or pocketing it themselves, and deceiving Canadians.
A Conservative government would have approached the issue in an open, ethical and competent manner putting Canadians first.
Canadians are rightly sick and tired of the Trudeau government. Many must be thinking; how can we pause paying taxes until they start acting responsibly?
Canadians deserve the truth about what happened in yet another Liberal corruption scandal. And in the next election, we deserve the chance to dump this unethical, fiscally reckless Prime Minister and every single one of his cronies. At this point, we need to throw the whole government away.
