44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 3, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague a lot and I think we can work together in making sure that this bill would better protect Canada.
When we make decisions in matters of national security, I think it would be comforting to the members and the public that is with us today that these decisions are made on the basis of advice from our intelligence agencies and experts. Obviously, my role as Minister of Industry, as well as the role of my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety, is to make sure that we act on the basis of intelligence that we receive.
I would remind my colleague, and he will know very well, because he knows me quite well, that I never hesitate to take action. I blocked three transactions recently, where Chinese companies were trying to take equity interests in mining companies in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I want to commend the minister for his leadership. I say that because this was a request that the Bloc Québécois made in a supplementary report for the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, which looked at the Investment Canada Act. It is nice to see that the government wants to better protect our businesses.
However, in my opinion, national security goes hand in hand with economic security. It is important to protect our head offices, particularly in Quebec. The Quebec economy depends on SMEs and the Investment Canada Act sometimes becomes a weakness or an obstacle for the province. The threshold issue could have been addressed in Bill C-34, but obviously the minister decided not to go that route.
How can we ensure that our head offices are properly protected? How can we do a better job of that? Do we need to think about investment thresholds, particularly if we are on the verge of a recession?
In the context of COVID-19, we saw how an airline company can be devalued very quickly. Would the ability to rely on clear thresholds have been of net benefit to Canada?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague and I have worked together for a number of years now.
We need agility. My colleague is very knowledgeable and he knows that we live in a world where a number of companies are trying to use different schemes to go around the law so they will not be subject to a national security review.
What we want is additional powers for the minister to make sure that we better protect our national security. This bill would achieve what the member just said: having more agility, for example, to make sure that, during the review, we protect intellectual property. Today, there is not even, in the law, a possibility for the minister to prevent the exchange of information while we do the review. When it comes to intangible assets, irreparable harm can be done.
I hope the member will support this bill, because we need more agility.
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Madam Speaker, I applaud the minister and my colleagues.
At the end of last year, we learned that the RCMP had allowed Sinclair Technologies, a company with ties to communist China, access to its security systems. We then were witness to a failure of regular surveillance mechanisms and a failure by the government to try to control access to our technologies by this company controlled in part by China. It took a long time before the government finally decided to end this contract.
My colleague is more familiar with Bill C‑34 than I am. With the new amendments to the Canada Investment Act, is Sinclair Technologies the type of company the minister, who is not listening to us right now, should pay particular attention to?
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Madam Speaker, it is an important question, and I will answer it this way. There is a first stage to preventing what happened.
By the way, as the Minister of Public Safety said in committee this week, just because a piece of RCMP equipment is not connected in the data links of the RCMP communications, all the people who service it get access to all the RCMP locations of their equipment, can understand what the RCMP communications structure is and provide that intelligence back to China, as required under Chinese law.
The issue would have been stopped if there had been a national security review. This bill would do nothing on procurement. It would not have any ability to stop the RCMP and Canada Border Services from acquiring technologies from China.
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Madam Speaker, everything that affects Canada's competitiveness, growth, economic security or national security needs to be looked into. Let me be very clear. I am for foreign direct investment. I am for free trade. However, all aspects that affect our national security and economic security need to be looked into.
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