44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 6, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, my question for the minister is in relation to the amendment we are debating now at report stage. We are dealing with section 15, which basically takes cabinet out of the beginning of the process and says the minister only has to go back to cabinet at the end of the process if a national security review says there is a problem. If not, the minister does not have to go back.
Does the minister not believe that we get better decision-making by having all cabinet colleagues involved in the decision-making, not just an individual industry minister making that choice?
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Mr. Speaker, it is nothing but a bunch of myths from the Liberal minister. He bragged earlier that he had dropped the threshold; he did not. I brought that motion in, and Liberal MPs voted against it. I brought in the amendment to the committee that put bribery and corruption in. Liberal MPs voted against it. The only reason it is through is because the opposition put it in.
The whole point of report stage is to allow for further amendments. The minister has ignored for a half hour the call to say yes or no to whether he thinks cabinet should be eliminated from the process of reviewing foreign investments. His bill would remove cabinet from that process and put it solely in the minister's hands.
Why, for a half hour, has he decided not to answer the question? Will Liberals support our amendment at report stage to return cabinet decision-making to the Investment Canada Act, yes or no?
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Mr. Speaker, he still has not answered the question. Yes or no, will he vote to return cabinet decision-making to the Investment Canada process? Why does he think he is so important he is allowed to ignore his colleagues in that role in making those decisions?
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Mr. Speaker, I think there is something to be said for both methods, whether we simply require ministerial decision-making or we want it to go to cabinet. Having the minister being the decision-maker in this case adds some nimbleness to it, and there is something to be said about nimbleness and a quick decision. Some of these transactions are happening very quickly in the financial markets. We all know how quickly they can happen.
I have not been part of the committee discussions, so I do not want to presume to say where we will end up on this. However, I can see both sides to that story. I will wait to see what happens.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's honest, thorough, well-thought-out question.
This is something I raised in my speech, which is whether the responsibility for conducting the necessary reviews regarding protecting the integrity of our country from foreign influence and outside investment that would not promote the safety and security of Canadians should not be held by cabinet or, in other words, Governor in Council. It absolutely should be, but it only would if it were to get referenced there by the minister.
That is why, through this bill, a lot of the power would be shuffled over into the seat of one individual, whoever the minister of industry, science and trade would be. The member appropriately identified an area of concern here, which is that this should be a Governor in Council decision and not just a ministerial decision.
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Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague a question on a point she just made with regard to cabinet's having authority over the movement of this type of development in our trade security systems. Can she elaborate on her thoughts regarding why that is so important?
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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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Madam Speaker, my understanding is that the amendment we proposed at committee would have allowed for a takeover by any foreign hostile country to be reviewed immediately. That would have been looked at.
It is again the whole notion of removing the mandatory cabinet review on national security issues. Does the member not feel that those members from the Quebec caucus who are members of cabinet should not have the right to review such sensitive information and sensitive matters when those decisions are being made in Canada?
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Madam Speaker, I know my colleague from Calgary Centre has done a lot of good work in the area of mergers and acquisitions throughout his career. I would like him to comment on what we are actually debating today that some members in the NDP-Liberal coalition do not seem to want to talk about, which is the removal, in the bill, of cabinet from the decision-making process.
Given that my colleague has sat at C-suite tables and board tables, and I know he understands how cabinet works, does he not think decision-making processes in the area of foreign takeovers would be much enhanced by the collective decision-making of a management team, a board or a cabinet as opposed to letting one lone minister make the decisions?
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Madam Speaker, that is the crux of what Conservatives see as being wrong with the bill. It has been led by our industry critic, who just spoke. That is what we need to change more than anything else in the bill: to make sure collective decision-making is happening at the cabinet table. We cannot have one person from one region of Canada deciding what happens to a company that might exist in another province of Canada, without input from people at the cabinet table who might have differing perspectives on it as far as how it affects the country, whether in finance, transport or defence. All of these things have to be taken together in collective decision-making.
That is what we have in Canada right now, and that is what the bill is trying to usurp. This has to change. Conservatives are trying to get that out of the bill, and I thank my colleague for bringing that forward in a very strong amendment. I hope the House considers that amendment very strongly and we can get back to the way democracies function in this regard.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to give the hon. member an opportunity to comment on the issue we are debating, which he did extensively. A lot of the questions from the government and the NDP are not about what we are debating today, which is whether cabinet should be included in the decision-making process.
I would like the member to comment in particular about the members from the Bloc, who seem to think it is okay for cabinet to be eliminated and therefore have no Quebec input on acquisitions made of Quebec companies. Does he thinks it is hypocritical of the Bloc to not express itself on whether it thinks cabinet decision-making should be there in any foreign takeover of a Quebec company?
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Madam Speaker, if I may, with the deepest respect, I think it is a dichotomy that maybe is not necessary. It is possible to do both. It is possible to look after the safety and security of Canadians, to make sure our nation is put first and foremost, and also to want to cultivate prosperity for the Canadian people. Both can be done, but it comes down to the review process.
For example, in the bill before us, one of the things is that a minister would be able to make a decision on their own, without having to bring it to cabinet. By doing that, the minister would actually be acting unilaterally, and I would say rejecting the collective wisdom cabinet would have to offer in many of these cases. Cabinet is an assortment of individuals from many different ways of life, many different backgrounds and different regions, so its ministers have access to information that could help a robust discussion to take place and an educated decision be made. When cabinet is kept out of that process and the minister makes the decision all by himself or herself, Canadian people are put at a disadvantage.
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Madam Speaker, I will do something unusual and ask a question about the bill, unlike the Liberal members, who seem to want to talk about everything but the bill.
The bill is about returning cabinet decision-making to the Investment Canada Act process. I know the hon. member is a former international trade minister and knows more than probably anyone on the government side in the House about cabinet decision-making and the role and importance of it. Without it, we have had poor decisions by the now VP for Rogers, former member Navdeep Bains of the government, who basically said that anything China wanted to buy China could have without a national security review.
I wonder if the member would enlighten the House as to the proper way a cabinet decision-making process should be when a hostile state like China is trying to acquire the assets of our country.
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Madam Speaker, that kind of decision takes a lot of thought. It takes a lot of due diligence. It is much better to have cabinet review, through a cabinet process, a national security-related matter or an investment when we are trying to determine what the net benefit to Canada is.
In cabinet, there may be 15, 20 or 25 people around the table. Everyone is asked to review all of the relevant documentation, and at the end of the day, they are able to discern whether something is in Canada's national interests. If we leave that decision with one minister, there is a huge risk that the minister will be co-opted by special interests within our country or outside of our country and a decision will be made that is contrary to our national interests.
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