Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs: How Fraud, False Identity Claims, and Liberal Entitlement Expose a System Rigged Against Canadians
Ladies and gentlemen, today, we take a closer look at what happens when the carefully constructed facade of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party crumbles. This isn’t just a scandal about one man’s lies—it’s about a government-wide culture of entitlement, deception, and corruption that prioritizes Liberal insiders over the hardworking Canadians they claim to represent.
Why are we here? Because a man named Randy Boissonnault—a former Liberal cabinet minister and trusted Trudeau ally—has been caught at the center of a scandal involving fraudulent business dealings, false claims of Indigenous identity, and federal contracts stolen from real Indigenous businesses. The setting? The Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, where Boissonnault faced over two hours of questioning from MPs determined to get to the truth.
But did we get the truth? Absolutely not. What we got was a masterclass in Liberal arrogance, evasion, and deflection.
At the heart of this controversy is Boissonnault’s involvement in a company called Global Health Imports (GHI), which falsely claimed to be Indigenous-owned in order to win lucrative federal contracts. For years, Boissonnault portrayed himself as a “non-status adopted Cree” based on vague family anecdotes. This label, of course, conveniently blurred the lines, allowing him to gain credibility in Indigenous spaces while avoiding legal scrutiny. Not only did GHI fraudulently secure taxpayer money meant for Indigenous businesses, but Boissonnault’s name and supposed Indigenous heritage were plastered all over Liberal Party campaign materials. For years, the Liberals actively promoted him as Indigenous, exploiting the very communities they claim to champion.
When the media and whistleblowers finally exposed the truth, Boissonnault resigned from his cabinet position. And now, he’s here, at INAN, supposedly to set the record straight. Spoiler alert: he didn’t.
Boissonnault’s opening statement was a lesson in political deflection. He apologized—not for the harm done to Indigenous communities or Canadian taxpayers, but for the “confusion” around his identity. He insisted he never claimed Indigenous status, despite evidence to the contrary, and described his use of the term “non-status adopted Cree” as an effort to honor his adoptive family’s supposed heritage—a claim Indigenous researchers have outright denied.
When pressed on his involvement with GHI, Boissonnault claimed ignorance. He told the committee he left the company in 2021 and had no idea his name was being used to secure fraudulent contracts. Really? We’re supposed to believe that a man who co-owned 50% of the company and whose name was actively used in business dealings was completely unaware of its activities? Either he’s lying, or he’s astonishingly incompetent.
It gets worse. When asked why he hasn’t sued his former business partner, Mr. Anderson, for allegedly using his name without consent, Boissonnault offered the weakest excuse imaginable: he’s “consulting legal counsel.” Months have passed since this scandal broke, and he still hasn’t taken a single step to clear his name. If someone stole your identity to commit fraud, wouldn’t you act immediately?
Thankfully, not everyone in the room was willing to let Boissonnault off the hook. Conservative MPs Michael Barrett and Martin Shields led the charge, relentlessly exposing Boissonnault’s contradictions and demanding accountability. Barrett zeroed in on Boissonnault’s failure to take legal action against GHI, calling it a clear sign of either complicity or cowardice. Shields turned his focus to the systemic failures that allowed this fraud to happen in the first place, pointing out the Liberal government’s negligence in safeguarding programs designed to support Indigenous communities.
Meanwhile, Bloc MP Nathalie Sinclair-Déguin and NDP MP Lori Idlout focused on the harm done to Indigenous communities. They highlighted how fraudulent activities like GHI’s undermine trust, reconciliation, and real opportunities for Indigenous businesses. They also demanded systemic reforms, like stricter oversight and verification processes, to prevent future abuses.
Of course, no Liberal scandal would be complete without the party’s MPs running interference. Enter Ben Carr and Anna Gainey. Carr used his time to praise Boissonnault’s “allyship” and steer the conversation away from fraud and deception. Gainey, who didn’t even bother to show up in person, framed the controversy as a “learning opportunity” for Boissonnault and the government. Neither of them asked a single hard question. They weren’t there to seek answers—they were there to protect their colleague and the Liberal Party brand.
Final Thoughts
Let’s be blunt. What we witnessed at the INAN hearing wasn’t just a scandal about Randy Boissonnault—it was a damning indictment of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal regime and its entire culture of corruption, entitlement, and betrayal of the Canadian people.
Think about what’s at stake here. We’re not talking about a minor oversight or a simple mistake. We’re talking about a Liberal insider who exploited a sacred cause—reconciliation with Indigenous peoples—for personal and political gain. A man who co-founded a company that defrauded taxpayers, deprived Indigenous businesses of opportunities, and damaged trust between the government and the communities it claims to support. And yet, instead of taking responsibility, he shows up to a committee hearing and feeds us a steady diet of deflection and excuses.
But let’s not just focus on Boissonnault. What about the rest of the Liberal Party? A party that promoted him as Indigenous in their campaigns, used his fabricated narrative to boost their image, and now refuses to hold him accountable. What we saw at the hearing was a carefully orchestrated performance. Liberal MPs didn’t ask hard questions because they didn’t want answers. Their job was to protect Boissonnault, protect the party, and protect their grip on power.
And here’s the tragic part: the real victims of this scandal aren’t sitting in Ottawa’s plush committee rooms. They’re the Indigenous entrepreneurs who lost out on contracts, the taxpayers who unknowingly funded this fraud, and the millions of Canadians who believed in a government that promised to do better.
This isn’t just a Randy Boissonnault problem. This is a Liberal problem. A systemic problem. A Trudeau problem. It’s about a government that’s so addicted to power, so comfortable with corruption, that they don’t even bother hiding it anymore.
But here’s the good news: Canadians are waking up. They’re seeing through the Liberal lies and realizing that the system isn’t broken—it’s rigged. Rigged for the insiders, the cronies, and the friends of Justin Trudeau.
So what happens next? That’s up to you, Canada. You have a choice. You can let this scandal fade into the background like so many others before it. Or you can demand better. Demand accountability. Demand a government that works for you, not for itself.
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A new Ontario-wide survey conducted by Nanos Research on behalf of Canada Action finds strong public consensus that Canadian oil and gas revenues are critical to jobs, economic growth, and trade – and that Canada should lean into its energy advantage at home and abroad.
“Our polling feedback shows that a majority of Ontarians recognize the vital, irreplaceable role oil and gas has to play in our national economy. Canadians are telling us they want to see more support for the oil and gas sector, which is foundational to our standard of living and economy at large,” said Canada Action spokesperson, Cody Battershill.
The online survey of 1,000 Ontarians shows that more than four in five (84 per cent) respondents believe oil and gas revenues are important for creating jobs for Canadians and building a stronger economy. Additionally, four-in-five (80 per cent) support Canada developing a strategy to become a preferred oil supplier to countries, while Ontarians are more than eight times as likely to support as to oppose Canada supplying oil and gas, provided it remains a major source of energy worldwide.
“Building new trade infrastructure, including pipelines to the coasts that would get our oil and gas resources to international markets, can help Canadians diversify our trading partners, maximize the value of our resources, and secure a strong and prosperous future for our families,” Battershill said.
Also, nearly four-in-five (79 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important for keeping energy costs manageable for Canadians.
“Our poll is just one of many in Canada since the start of 2025 that show a majority of Canadians are supportive of oil and gas development. It’s time we get moving forward on these projects without delay and learn from the lessons of our past, where we saw multiple pipelines cancelled to the detriment of Canada’s long-term economic success.”
Additional findings include:
Four-in-five (80 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada supplying oil and gas, provided it remains a major source of energy worldwide.
Four-in five (80 per cent) of Ontarians believe oil and gas revenues are important when it comes to building stronger trading partnerships.
Nearly four-in-five (79 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important for keeping energy costs manageable for Canadians.
Nearly four-in-five (78 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada stepping up to provide our key NATO allies with secure energy sources.
Nearly four-in-five (78 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada increasing oil and gas exports around the world, about six and a half times more likely than to oppose.
Nearly four-in-five (77 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada providing Asia and Europe with oil and gas so that they are less reliant on authoritarian suppliers.
Nearly three-in-four (74 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada increasing oil and gas exports around the world, five times more likely than to oppose.
Nearly three-in-four (74 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important to reducing taxes for Canadians.
More than seven-in-ten (71 per cent) of Ontarians support building new energy infrastructure projects without reducing environmental protections and safety.
More than six-in-ten (63 per cent) of Canadians say they are important for paying for social programs, including health care, education, and other public services.
Respondents were nine times more likely to say the government approval process for energy infrastructure projects is too slow (46 per cent) rather than too fast (5 per cent).
About the survey
The survey was conducted by Nanos Research for Canada Action using a representative non-probability online panel of 1,000 Ontarians aged 18 and older between December 10 and 12, 2025.
While a margin of error cannot be calculated for non-probability samples, a probability sample of 1,000 respondents would have a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Pathways Alliance CEO Kendall Dilling is interviewed at the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Carbon capture gives biggest bang for carbon tax buck CCS much cheaper than fuel switching: report
Canada’s climate change strategy is now joined at the hip to a pipeline. Two pipelines, actually — one for oil, one for carbon dioxide.
The MOU signed between Ottawa and Alberta two weeks ago ties a new oil pipeline to the Pathways Alliance, which includes what has been billed as the largest carbon capture proposal in the world.
One cannot proceed without the other. It’s quite possible neither will proceed.
The timing for multi-billion dollar carbon capture projects in general may be off, given the retreat we are now seeing from industry and government on decarbonization, especially in the U.S., our biggest energy customer and competitor.
But if the public, industry and our governments still think getting Canada’s GHG emissions down is a priority, decarbonizing Alberta oil, gas and heavy industry through CCS promises to be the most cost-effective technology approach.
New modelling by Clean Prosperity, a climate policy organization, finds large-scale carbon capture gets the biggest bang for the carbon tax buck.
Which makes sense. If oil and gas production in Alberta is Canada’s single largest emitter of CO2 and methane, it stands to reason that methane abatement and sequestering CO2 from oil and gas production is where the biggest gains are to be had.
A number of CCS projects are already in operation in Alberta, including Shell’s Quest project, which captures about 1 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the Scotford upgrader.
What is CO2 worth?
Clean Prosperity estimates industrial carbon pricing of $130 to $150 per tonne in Alberta and CCS could result in $90 billion in investment and 70 megatons (MT) annually of GHG abatement or sequestration. The lion’s share of that would come from CCS.
To put that in perspective, 70 MT is 10% of Canada’s total GHG emissions (694 MT).
The report cautions that these estimates are “hypothetical” and gives no timelines.
All of the main policy tools recommended by Clean Prosperity to achieve these GHG reductions are contained in the Ottawa-Alberta MOU.
One important policy in the MOU includes enhanced oil recovery (EOR), in which CO2 is injected into older conventional oil wells to increase output. While this increases oil production, it also sequesters large amounts of CO2.
Under Trudeau era policies, EOR was excluded from federal CCS tax credits. The MOU extends credits and other incentives to EOR, which improves the value proposition for carbon capture.
Under the MOU, Alberta agrees to raise its industrial carbon pricing from the current $95 per tonne to a minimum of $130 per tonne under its TIER system (Technology Innovation and Emission Reduction).
The biggest bang for the buck
Using a price of $130 to $150 per tonne, Clean Prosperity looked at two main pathways to GHG reductions: fuel switching in the power sector and CCS.
Fuel switching would involve replacing natural gas power generation with renewables, nuclear power, renewable natural gas or hydrogen.
“We calculated that fuel switching is more expensive,” Brendan Frank, director of policy and strategy for Clean Prosperity, told me.
Achieving the same GHG reductions through fuel switching would require industrial carbon prices of $300 to $1,000 per tonne, Frank said.
Clean Prosperity looked at five big sectoral emitters: oil and gas extraction, chemical manufacturing, pipeline transportation, petroleum refining, and cement manufacturing.
“We find that CCUS represents the largest opportunity for meaningful, cost-effective emissions reductions across five sectors,” the report states.
Fuel switching requires higher carbon prices than CCUS.
Measures like energy efficiency and methane abatement are included in Clean Prosperity’s calculations, but again CCS takes the biggest bite out of Alberta’s GHGs.
“Efficiency and (methane) abatement are a portion of it, but it’s a fairly small slice,” Frank said. “The overwhelming majority of it is in carbon capture.”
From left, Alberta Minister of Energy Marg McCuaig-Boyd, Shell Canada President Lorraine Mitchelmore, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Ben van Beurden, Marathon Oil Executive Brian Maynard, Shell ER Manager, Stephen Velthuizen, and British High Commissioner to Canada Howard Drake open the valve to the Quest carbon capture and storage facility in Fort Saskatchewan Alta, on Friday November 6, 2015. Quest is designed to capture and safely store more than one million tonnes of CO2 each year an equivalent to the emissions from about 250,000 cars. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Credit where credit is due
Setting an industrial carbon price is one thing. Putting it into effect through a workable carbon credit market is another.
“A high headline price is meaningless without higher credit prices,” the report states.
“TIER credit prices have declined steadily since 2023 and traded below $20 per tonne as of November 2025. With credit prices this low, the $95 per tonne headline price has a negligible effect on investment decisions and carbon markets will not drive CCUS deployment or fuel switching.”
Clean Prosperity recommends a kind of government-backstopped insurance mechanism guaranteeing carbon credit prices, which could otherwise be vulnerable to political and market vagaries.
Specifically, it recommends carbon contracts for difference (CCfD).
“A straight-forward way to think about it is insurance,” Frank explains.
Carbon credit prices are vulnerable to risks, including “stroke-of-pen risks,” in which governments change or cancel price schedules. There are also market risks.
CCfDs are contractual agreements between the private sector and government that guarantees a specific credit value over a specified time period.
“The private actor basically has insurance that the credits they’ll generate, as a result of making whatever low-carbon investment they’re after, will get a certain amount of revenue,” Frank said. “That certainty is enough to, in our view, unlock a lot of these projects.”
From the perspective of Canadian CCS equipment manufacturers like Vancouver’s Svante, there is one policy piece still missing from the MOU: eligibility for the Clean Technology Manufacturing (CTM) Investment tax credit.
“Carbon capture was left out of that,” said Svante co-founder Brett Henkel said.
Svante recently built a major manufacturing plant in Burnaby for its carbon capture filters and machines, with many of its prospective customers expected to be in the U.S.
The $20 billion Pathways project could be a huge boon for Canadian companies like Svante and Calgary’s Entropy. But there is fear Canadian CCS equipment manufacturers could be shut out of the project.
“If the oil sands companies put out for a bid all this equipment that’s needed, it is highly likely that a lot of that equipment is sourced outside of Canada, because the support for Canadian manufacturing is not there,” Henkel said.
Henkel hopes to see CCS manufacturing added to the eligibility for the CTM investment tax credit.
“To really build this eco-system in Canada and to support the Pathways Alliance project, we need that amendment to happen.”
