44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 6, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, this debate is not on the merits of Bill C-34, but on the use of time allocation once again. On principle, I will vote against time allocation always because this is the place where legislation gets debated.
Many members of the House are not members of the industry committee. I am not allowed to be a member of the INDU committee. I have very strong views on Bill C-34 and national security considerations on takeovers of Canadian companies, but will not be allowed to speak to this because, yet again, the guillotine is being brought down. The Harper administration did this time and time again, and the opposition knew it was wrong then. The Liberals promised that they would not, and now it is routine. Time allocation is put on almost every bill.
The hon. minister knows the high opinion I hold of him. I want to be able to discuss this legislation. I was the first MP in the House to identify that the takeover of Aecon by the People's Republic of China should have had a national security review. For a long time, I was the lone voice. We finally got it, and the deal was turned down.
I care about this stuff, and I really think every member of the House has a right to participate in debates. Time allocation defeats that right.
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- Nov/6/23 3:48:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising briefly on a point of order, because I believe the point of order made by the hon. member for Gatineau may have been missed in the furor over other issues.
Being a virtual participant, I find it very distressing when, during votes, there is so much heckling. That was the point raised. It had nothing to do with anything visual we observed. However, auditory interruptions in the voting process are against the Standing Orders, and I just wanted to rise briefly to support the hon. member for Gatineau.
Perhaps the Speaker might come back to that question of decorum to remind us of the rules.
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- Nov/6/23 3:58:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a petition from constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands concerned about equal rights for women. One would not think we would need a petition in November 2023 to point out that, after all this time, women are not receiving equal pay for work of equal value. Canadian women still receive 21¢ less on the dollar than men for substantially the same kind of work.
Petitioners ask that the House of Commons enact legislation and policies to promote pay equity and pay equality and to do it without delay.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place to speak to Bill C-34, which has been before the House for some time. I must state my great regret that time allocation has been applied to it before any member of the Green Party has been allowed to speak to it.
People know that when someone rises on the government's side and says it has had 20 speakers, 20 witnesses and so on, it sounds exhaustive. However, the rules in this place are intended to allow a proper debate of every bill that involves all members with an interest in it. Members will know that I have long decried, as mentioned earlier in this debate, the use of written speeches. This allows more members to speak to a bill who have a strong interest or background in the subject matter.
I think in this case we have the reverse. We have a really important piece of legislation that got all the way through second reading without any speakers from my party, and then it got into committee, where we are not allowed to be members. Then amendments were made, and here we are at report stage already and I have a lot of concerns. Without further pause to reflect on my regret that this is the first time I have been given a speaking opportunity in this place, let me speak to the Investment Canada Act and to the revisions that are made in Bill C-34.
It is very important that we, in 2023, take a new lens and look at what we mean by foreign investments of concern and what that means for national security and national sovereignty. I am concerned that the bill leaves cabinet decision-making more as a discretionary matter and that there will not have to be a cabinet decision unless there is a recommendation from the minister.
Triggering a foreign investment review has never been easy in this country. Let me just reflect for a moment on two specific cases. I think one will be better with the changes made under Bill C-34, but I hate to say that, even at this late hour, I am not certain this bill would improve the situation on a more complicated matter.
Let me speak to the first one. It was a few years ago that a takeover was proposed for one of Canada's largest engineering firms, Aecon. It had gone quite far. It was reported in the business pages that Aecon was to be purchased, after being approved by Aecon shareholders, by a People's Republic of China company, CCCI. It was moving along without concern.
It was in 2018 that I was the first member of Parliament to raise on the floor of the House of Commons a concern: Did we not need a national security review before one of the largest engineering companies in Canada became the property of a company based in the People's Republic of China? It has been a particular concern of mine for some time because, back in the Harper years, a decision was taken by cabinet alone with no vote. I want to repeat that for new members of Parliament, as it will be shocking to them. We never had a vote in the House of Commons on the approval of the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement, otherwise known as a FIPA, between the People's Republic of China and Canada.
It gives corporations and state-owned enterprises from within the People's Republic of China superior rights, if they are a Canadian company, to complain of changes made by regulation, complain of court decisions or complain of any number of matters where a corporation feels that its expectation of profits has been somehow reduced. This originally emerged as an investor-state provision in chapter 11 of NAFTA back in the day when it was NAFTA. Ironically, this investor-state provision has been removed from CUSMA, but it has been transplanted into bilateral trade agreements. However, they are not even trade agreements, as in the case of the FIPA with China. There is no trade deal between the People's Republic of China and Canada. Thanks to former prime minister Stephen Harper, there are investment protections for corporations from the People's Republic of China that Canadian corporations cannot access.
Even worse, the FIPA with China keeps any complaints from the People's Republic of China or its state-owned enterprises completely secret. The complaint process is secret. We would only find out about it if it went to the end, to an arbitration. That would be reported.
I do not have enough time in the time I have to speak to Bill C-34 to fully explain why we must have a very different lens when looking at the takeover of Canadian enterprises by any foreign entity. If that foreign entity has the benefit of an investor protection agreement that gives a corporation superior rights to a domestic Canadian corporation, it is very concerning.
I think I had to raise it two or three times in the House before a few other MPs began to say that they were also concerned about Aecon, and in the end, the minister triggered a foreign national security review. It was turned down. The decision was made by the Government of Canada, I think appropriately, to stop the takeover of Aecon by a corporation in the People's Republic of China.
More complicated and recent is the takeover of virtually all of Canada's pulp and paper production by a corporation owned by one man. It is not a limited corporation. It does not appear on the stock exchanges of any country. The name of this corporation is Paper Excellence. It is owned by one human being, one sole person who is a billionaire from Indonesia.
Some of the media coverage, which thank goodness has been intensive, is quite belated. Basically, Paper Excellence had already bought up Domtar, already bought up Catalyst Paper and already bought up Resolute, and after purchasing Northern Pulp of Pictou, Nova Scotia, suddenly Paper Excellence, which has a registered headquarters in Vancouver but is no more Canadian than the Indonesian billionaire who owns it, has bought up virtually all of the pulp and paper processing across Canada.
This is alarming. Is it a national security threat? The question was never asked. No one really saw it coming. It was only seen through the media investigations subsequent to this Indonesian billionaire-owned enterprise called Paper Excellence becoming the owner of all the pulp and paper mills.
The acquisition of Resolute Forest Products had a major impact in Quebec. Many people, including members of the Bloc Québécois, are very concerned since Resolute is an important player in Quebec's pulp and paper industry.
It is also very important in British Columbia, where Catalyst Paper is based. The mill in Crofton and the mill in Powell River were purchased initially from Catalyst Paper and suddenly became owned by a very mysterious Indonesian billionaire. Should this have had a review? Media coverage has managed to unearth that the buying spree of Paper Excellence was likely, although we do not know for sure, financed by loans from the state investment bank of the People's Republic of China.
Do Paper Excellence mills have access to the FIPA with China to complain if we make changes in any way, like provincial changes in Quebec or British Columbia, where these mills are based? They would have access to the FIPA if they can make the case that they are operations of the People's Republic of China. We do not know if this investment is from the People's Republic of China.
Even with the changes made in Bill C-34, I am not reassured that we would have caught what was going on with Paper Excellence. Would we have had an opportunity to have a foreign investment review before this single Indonesian billionaire began buying up all our pulp and paper mills? I wish I had had an opportunity at committee. I wish I had had an opportunity to be in debate at second reading. I know the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay raised some of these issues at the time. He is also concerned about Paper Excellence.
With the time remaining, I will say I think it is unfortunate that we have time allocation now and these issues are rushed. It is unfortunate that we will not adequately debate the amendments that have come forward at report stage, such as the ones I have heard mentioned by the member for South Shore—St. Margarets. I close here and hope we have not missed too much.
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Madam Speaker, of course, I empathize, but I cannot understand.
I do not like our rules' being abused constantly to bring in forced closure on debate to speed things along. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands will know that I think the solution lies in applying all of our rules. It is against our rules in this place, as it is against the rules of the Parliament of Westminster in the U.K., to read a written speech. If we did not have written speeches handed out to members, we would have fewer speeches about every bill, because fewer members of Parliament would be prepared to speak from rough notes without somebody else putting the words in their mouth. That would speed things up. I understand and I empathize, but I plead with the government not to keep doing this, because too many members are going to assume that this is the way it is done.
No matter who is sitting in the Prime Minister's chair, we continue to see democracy eroded in Parliament.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think so. The difficulty is that, yes, there would be improved transparency once one has a review, but what would trigger a review in an issue like that of Paper Excellence, which I have referenced? How wide is the net cast, and when could we take concerns forward?
I wish we had more time. I will vote for Bill C-34; let me make that clear. It is an improvement and would modernize the Investment Canada Act. I think I would like to also vote for one of the Conservative amendments, to ensure that cabinet would retain control in the reviews. In any case, I will vote for it, but I am very concerned, because the innovative ways in which Canadian corporations are taken over by foreign interests do not trigger the usual notion of national security but can be very significant for national sovereignty. That is my concern.
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Madam Speaker, it is not to denigrate any individual minister, but the reality is that ministers would have pressures on them that might be regional. They might be specific to the concerns that are shared within the region they represent or the sector that has their ear most frequently. On a matter of turning down the purchase of a Canadian corporation by a foreign interest, it is traditionally a cabinet-level decision, and I think it should remain that way.
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