44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 6, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, the minister keeps arguing that we have debated this enough and that all of these amendments were voted on at committee. Getting back to the question that my colleague for South Shore—St. Margarets asked, there is one question that was not voted on at committee, and it is perhaps the most important one. It has to do with ministerial discretion. That was not voted on at committee, which is why we brought it back to the House.
My colleague for South Shore—St. Margarets asked a very direct question, and the minister did not answer it. I think Canadians who are watching these proceedings deserve an answer. Does the minister not think that the country would be better served by all of cabinet undertaking the security review, rather than one minister from a particular region where certain interests are served?
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Mr. Speaker, I know the member to be a good person and an honest person, but he is saying that we have agreed to something that we have not agreed to. I do not think that is appropriate. It has been very clear that we have not agreed, particularly on the amendment to clause 15.
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- Nov/6/23 3:07:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister plans to quadruple the tax on heat, gas and groceries, but then he decided to pause the pain for 3% of families in areas where he was plummeting in the polls and his MPs were revolting. The Liberal rural affairs minister actually said that if people in the Prairies wanted a pause on the tax, they should have elected more Liberals. However, here is the thing. The people in Winnipeg South Centre did elect a Liberal MP, and yet his constituents are not getting the pause.
Will the Prime Minister allow that MP for Winnipeg South Centre a free vote to take the tax off and keep the heat on for people in his community?
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak on Bill C-34.
Before I do, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the calamitous vote the Liberal members of this House took earlier today by excluding all Canadians from being treated fairly by pausing the carbon tax for Canadians all over the country. I come from Winnipeg, one of the coldest cities on the planet. Today, Liberal members from Winnipeg said no to Winnipeggers, while their Atlantic Canadian counterparts seem to be more effective than they are. They have the ear of the Prime Minister who I suppose was trying to save himself from his terrible polling results with this desperate measure by the government. However, at the end of the day the Liberals chose not to pause the carbon tax pain, which is really unfortunate for all Canadians.
As far as Bill C-34 is concerned, I want to say this. After eight years of the Prime Minister, numerous foreign state-owned enterprises have acquired interests and control in many Canadian companies, intellectual property, intangible assets and the data of our citizens. The government is doing too little, too late to protect our national economic and security interests with this bill.
Since the Liberals came to power, business investment per employee in Canada has dropped 20%. At the same time, business investment per employee in the United States has increased 14%. Per capita growth is at the lowest level since the Great Depression some 90 years ago and Canada has the most at-risk mortgage default portfolio in the G7. According to the National Bank of Canada, for the first time ever, business investment is now lower in this country than housing investment. When we think about all the manufacturing, oil production and everything else, investment in those things is lower than it is in housing.
The goal of the Investment Canada Act is to deal with foreign investors controlling Canadian industry, trade and commerce. Foreign direct investment creates opportunities, stimulates economic development and introduces new ideas and innovation to Canada. For Canadians, this means more high-quality jobs and a stronger, more sustainable economy.
Billions of dollars of Canadian natural resources, ideas, IP and land are being controlled by foreign entities. Huawei, a state-owned enterprise that feeds intelligence directly to China, was still working with many Canadian universities as of this past summer.
Another example would be taxpayer-funded dollars at Dalhousie University that are funding Tesla intellectual property and research and that IP is all going back to California.
In 2017, the Liberal government allowed a telecom company from British Columbia called Norsat to be acquired by a company called Hytera, which is a Chinese-based state-owned company. Conservatives demanded at that time a full national security review. The Liberal minister of the day refused to do one and approved the acquisition.
This sort of lax attitude toward issues of national security is clearly a problem. After eight years of the Prime Minister, numerous foreign state-owned enterprises have acquired interests and control in many Canadian companies, intellectual property, intangible assets and the data of our citizens.
The future of Canada needs to be protected in the airwaves, AI and quantum computing. It needs to be protected in our farms, food-processing plants, oceans and fisheries, as well as in developing Canadian LNG, which the world so desperately wants. The government is doing too little to protect our national economic and security interests with this bill. Canadians know the Liberals do not take sensitive transactions seriously and have failed to fully review transactions involving Chinese state-owned enterprises, putting the security of Canadians and the government at risk.
The minister is the minister of broken bills, which is why Conservatives are having to make more amendments to this piece of legislation. On his other bill, Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, after a year and a half he was forced to make amendments.
The Liberals missed the chance to think big and understand what is going on in the Canadian economy. This bill does not go far enough to address the risks faced by Canadians. That is why Conservatives worked to pass four significant amendments to ensure a rigorous review process—
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Madam Speaker, in the House, I think the Speaker was asked a very similar question and said he has relented on that position.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals missed a chance to think big and understand what is going on in the Canadian economy. This bill does not go far enough to address the risks faced by Canadians.
That is why Conservatives worked to pass four significant amendments. For instance, Conservatives ensured that the threshold to trigger a national security review was reduced so that Canadian resources, including intellectual property, are safer.
Among the changes proposed by the government in the bill is the removal of mandatory consultations with cabinet in determining whether an investment is a threat to Canada's national security. This change is problematic given the number of state-owned investments made in Canada over the past eight years that have not undergone a security review because of decisions made by past industry ministers. By removing cabinet from the process, decisions over whether an investment is considered injurious will receive less debate and scrutiny.
These are decisions that should have a national perspective that only cabinet could provide. Foreign investments often have national impacts on our economy and on multiple regions. To leave the discretion in the hands of one minister from one part of the country will negate a broad national perspective. It is a problem that this bill is only as strong as the minister's scrutiny, whoever the minister may be in the future. Conservatives believe matters of such importance should be scrutinized by all of cabinet to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
As I mentioned, one Conservative amendment that was approved at committee was about reducing the threshold to trigger a national security review from $512 million to zero dollars for all state-owned enterprise investments made in Canada. Lowering that threshold was critical so that at least it would trigger and initiate a security review.
Another Conservative amendment that was passed would ensure that items reviewable under the national security review process include acquisitions of any assets by a state-owned enterprise. Until now, the review only applied to acquisitions of the controlling shares of an industry. That was a huge loophole, as it opened the door to circumvent a review where a deal was structured as an asset purchase. For example, buying the shares of a mining company could be reviewed but buying the mines themselves could not. This is a welcome change.
Another amendment would ensure that an automatic national security review is conducted whenever a company has previously been convicted of corruption charges. Another change would require the minister to review any investments or acquisitions made in Canada that exceed $1.9 billion in enterprise value instead of it being an option.
Conservatives could have improved this legislation further had the NDP-Liberal government not rejected many notable Conservative improvements to this legislation. Among the common-sense Conservative amendments that failed to pass committee was one that would have modified the definition of “state-owned enterprise” to include any company or entity headquartered in an authoritarian state such as China.
Another amendment that was defeated would have exempted non-Canadian Five Eyes intelligence state-owned enterprises from the national security review process to prevent any overly broad review processes. Another amendment would have ensured that an automatic national security review is conducted whenever a company has previously been convicted of corruption charges. One other amendment would have implemented a requirement for the minister to trigger a national security review automatically whenever the investment review threshold was triggered. The last would have required the minister to conduct a national security review by changing the word “may” to “shall” to ensure a review would be triggered whenever it is in the new threshold.
It is important that we get this right. Recently at the ethics committee, there was a study on foreign interference and the role that nations, particularly China and Russia, are playing as state-owned actors in making investments in our economy for the purpose of control, including controlling Canadian businesses, Canadian minerals, Canadian resources and, in many cases, some of our northern and offshore areas.
Therefore, it becomes critically important for the government to keep a keen eye, and multiple eyes in fact, on what is happening with foreign investment and approvals. We believe that Conservatives have improved the bill dramatically. We are trying to improve it again in the spirit of good public policy for Canada and protecting our economy against hostile interests, which the Liberals seem not to be that interested in.
I urge the House, including all members of the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the government, to recognize that cabinet's decision-making process is essential to understanding the national impacts of foreign investment. I urge members to vote for our amendment. By removing clause 15 from the bill, all security review decisions would remain reviewable by cabinet and not just by the ministers of industry and public safety. This is all about protecting Canadians and protecting our valuable assets, our businesses, our national security and certainly our interests.
We must take sensitive transactions seriously, and we have failed to fully review some transactions, particularly as they relate to Chinese state-owned enterprises of the past. A Conservative government would not only protect Canadian investment but build Canadian companies and attract investments to grow them.
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Madam Speaker, I always find it interesting that the NDP is stuck in the past. Its members want to keep talking about the last Conservative government or Mr. Harper. My recommendation is that the member and his party start thinking about their future, because it is dismal to tie their wagon to this calamitous Liberal government.
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Madam Speaker, it is a very large concern. One person should not have that much power in a democratic government, period. For example, let us say that the minister of the day is from Ontario and a foreign investor wants to come along from an authoritarian state and spend $30 billion buying a Volkswagen electric battery plant. The minister from Ontario would be under a lot of pressure to allow that type of investment to proceed, but it might not be in the national interest. That is why it is important to have multiple perspectives at the table when decisions are being made about investments that are national in scope and could have major effects on our GDP, our economy and our national security.
I agree that the Bloc is being hypocritical on this. It should support our amendment.
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Madam Speaker, I question the capacity of every minister in the government.
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