44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 9, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, when Stephen Harper was in power, he thought nothing of selling Canada's natural resources to communist state-owned China. He sold Nexen for $15 billion. He signed the secretive free trade agreement with communist China. The Conservatives are saying that those were different times, that it was a different communist China, that the Liberals were to blame. There is no shortage of blame on selling off our country on behalf of the Liberals or Conservatives.
However, the other thing that Stephen Harper sold off were two world-class mining companies, Inco and Falconbridge, selling Falconbridge to the corporate raider Glencore. Immediately, we lost one of the world-class copper facilities, and we have lost all the investment that used to happen in northern exploration from Falconbridge. Glencore is a corporate raider, and Stephen Harper knew that.
However, if the hon. member is talking about how dangerous the world is today and how much things have changed, why does her leader refuse to get security clearance so he knows what he is talking about when we are dealing with the international crises facing us. Why is he the only leader in the history of the country refusing to take his responsibility seriously and get the clearance so he actually knows what he is talking about in dealing with issues, whether it is China, Hamas or any of these issues facing us today?
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question of security clearance is not slander. I would ask the member to withdraw that comment. That was a cheap shot and it undermines his credibility.
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Mr. Speaker, what was raised here was about the Stephen Harper years.
Stephen Harper sold off a massive amount of natural resources to state-owned Chinese companies in a $15-billion Nexen takeover, then signed a secretive free trade agreement with China. He handed the Chinese Communist Party baskets of blueberries to show our good faith.
Now the Conservatives are saying that the world has changed; that was a different Communist government then. They rail about Communist governments now because of the Liberal government. However, the former Conservative government gave up $15 billion of Canada's natural resources to a foreign state-owned company.
That is the history of the Conservative Party, of Stephen Harper and of Brian Mulroney. It is certainly going to be the history, if ever that dark history is written, of the member who represents the party now. How does my hon. colleague think that the Conservatives could now pretend to defend the national interests, when they sold us down the river every chance they got?
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, could we have the chatbot version instead of the real one? It might be more to the point. I would certainly be willing to include it, and if we need unanimous consent, I would support that.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague to elucidate a bit more on the comments by the member for Cumberland—Colchester, because we know he was part of that group that travelled and that had $1,800 worth of champagne and other things. The Danube Institute partly supported that, alongside my cousin, Dan McTeague, and supposedly paid for all that. Imagine that.
The Danube Institute is promoting an attack on the work being done to defend Ukraine, claiming that it is woke, that we would have members of the Conservative Party in Europe meeting with those who say there is a “deep state” over NATO.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague if he has had a chance to look into this mysterious trip with bottles of wine and expensive dinners that were given to four members of the Conservative Party, including the member for Cumberland—Colchester, and this issue with the Danube Institute document that says it is going after so-called “woke” politics and NATO's support for Ukraine.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. Obviously we struck a nerve about the $1,800 bottle of wine and the Danube Institute, but what the member is saying is a falsehood.
If the hon. member has evidence, I would have him submit it, if they will submit who actually paid for the $1,800 bottle of wine that the member for Cumberland—Colchester drank. If he wants to submit evidence, we would ask the Conservatives to give the evidence of who paid for all those drinks.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague on the issue of critical minerals as I represent Timmins—James Bay, which has some of the greatest base metal and critical mineral deposits anywhere.
There is a number of issues that we need to face in Canada in terms of being able to compete in this fast-moving energy transformation. Number one is making sure that that supply chain is able to benefit our economy. We know that other international economies are desperate to get metals.
The other issue is strategic. That is about whether or not we put a lens of sustainability on, for example, metals like cobalt and lithium that are controlled by China and that are being exploited in really brutal conditions, for example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We need to actually have a supply chain that says we can do it sustainability, that we can do it with good jobs, that we can do it with investment, and that we can do it to build up a Canadian-North American economy, as opposed to simply going to the bottom line of what is happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with Chinese control and horrific human rights abuses.
I would like to hear what my hon. colleague has to say on that.
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