44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 9, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-34, otherwise known as the national security review of investments modernization act.
With it being so close to Remembrance Day, I too would like to offer my appreciation for all those who have served and continue to serve, and all the families that support them. I would encourage everybody to make sure they attend a ceremony this Saturday to honour and respect veterans for all of the work they have done.
Speaking of our security, the NDP-Liberal coalition has, for far too long, not taken our national security seriously, so it is good to see some efforts being made through the legislation before us. Unfortunately, our reputation on the world stage has taken a beating over the past eight years. We have seen numerous diplomatic debacles over those years, and a Prime Minister who regularly embarrasses Canada on the world stage. It seems that every time I go on social media, another country's news broadcast is mocking the Prime Minister. It is one thing to embarrass oneself with a tickle trunk of outfits to wear to another country or by wearing blackface more times than one can remember, but the Prime Minister has forced our allied nations to lose confidence in us as a partner.
Just this past July, Dan Sullivan, a United States senator from Alaska, called out the Liberal government for consistently failing to meet NATO’s 2% GDP target for defence spending. What is worse is that the Liberals are cutting $1 billion from our defence budget this year. While the American ambassador played it nice a few weeks ago and said he is not yet worried about our failure to meet our NATO targets, we all know and can recognize how our allies feel about Canada these days. If we had been taking our national security seriously, perhaps Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States would not have separated off from the Five Eyes alliance and created their own strategic defence partnership without Canada.
With regular disruptions to our ports and railways, we are losing the perception of us as a reliable trading partner that can deliver the goods we produce here in Canada to market. With a changing climate, our adversaries see the north as an opportunity. They see a wealth of resources and future transportation routes, and we are increasingly unable to protect our own sovereignty in the north. The sad reality is that under the Liberal government, we have become a bit of a laughingstock on the world stage, and it is disappointing to admit that. However, I cannot think of a single nation around the world with which our relationship has improved over the past eight years.
Given all of the failures internationally, one would assume that perhaps we would want to take care of our domestic economic needs here at home, but we have not done that. Although we are taking a good step with this legislation, after eight years, foreign state-owned enterprises, particularly those connected with the Communist regime in China, have heightened their influence in Canada. I will provide a few examples. In 2017, the government allowed Hytera Communications, a firm with ties to China, to acquire B.C.-based satellite communications company Norsat International. In 2020, Nuctech, a company owned by the Chinese government and founded by the son of a former Chinese Communist Party secretary general, won a bid to, get this, provide security equipment to over 170 Canadian embassies around the world. Imagine that. The government was going to entrust the security of Canadians stationed abroad to technologies linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
I know there are a lot of examples like this, but I will end with one more. Just last year, the CBC revealed that in 2017, the CBSA began using radio equipment and technology from Hytera, the company I just referenced. It was quite literally using the technology at our borders while our main ally, the United States, was indicting the company for 21 espionage charges. It banned the company from operating and doing business because it posed an unnecessary risk to national security. At the same time as our border guards were using the equipment, our American counterparts and friends were kicking the company out of their country.
It seems as though often the current government is focused on political interests and not our national interests. We should not be surprised. We all remember when the Prime Minister alluded to his level of admiration for China's basic dictatorship. It is perhaps why the Liberals have given China so many passes and why they have allowed Chinese-linked companies and agencies to infiltrate our university campuses, co-opt our research and take our technologies that innovative Canadians, innovative students and innovative companies in Canada have been spearheading.
We could talk about all these failures all day, but I want to address specifically some pieces of Bill C-34. I was pleasantly surprised that the Liberals brought the legislation forward, because it is an important idea to try to always enhance our national security, particularly as things evolve and our competitors become our allies and our allies become our enemies in the global world.
The goal in the legislation of amending the Investment Canada Act to protect our national security is not a bad one at all, but I really thought that for once, the Liberals had come up with their own idea. However, looking back to our 2021 platform, I noticed we had pledged to do the same thing: “Canada's Conservatives will: Protect Canadian intellectual property with a strengthened Investment Canada Act”. As the old proverb goes, imitation is the highest form of flattery, and there has been a lot of mimicking going on lately. My first speech in the House was just last month, about the affordable housing and groceries act, which was plagiarism, effectively, of two Conservative bills, Bill C-356 and Bill C-339. Of course we also saw, just last week, a climb-down on the carbon tax for home heating for some Canadians in some parts of the country.
Not all mimicking is bad, but at the end of the day, as my fellow Manitoban colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman said, “The Liberals are tired, they are weary and they do not have anything else to bring forward”. This seems to be the case. While I would prefer an election so we can put forward a strong platform that will include enhancements to the Investment Canada Act, among many other things, I do hope the current Liberal-NDP coalition keeps copying a few of our ideas. It can start with axing the carbon tax in its entirety, but I am not going to hold out a lot of hope.
Overall, Bill C-34 needs to go further. It does not go far enough to address the risks faced by Canadians. By and large, the largest threat we have to investments here in critical services is by state-owned or state-connected enterprises from authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. Canadians are rightly concerned about this problem. Foreign direct investment is a good thing. We should want to draw investment dollars into our communities. However, we should also want to maintain our sovereignty and our national interests. The reality is that we have become a place where people do not want to do business. Investments in our natural resource sectors, among many others, are flooding out. Our counterpart, the United States, which does not have a carbon tax, is more appealing to do business with. Companies would rather go just south of the border, south of my riding, and set up business there.
The bill does not include the ability for the government to create a list of authoritarian countries that are prohibited from owning Canadian companies or assets, which I think it should do. The Conservative team, at the committee stage, did a great job of bringing forward common-sense recommendations for changes to the legislation. Not as many were adopted as should have been, but Conservatives did work hard to fix some of the flaws.
One last issue that is becoming increasingly important and visible, particularly in my area in the Prairies, is the increased buying of farmland by Chinese-linked companies and organizations. Not only does this threaten our long-term food security but it also significantly increases prices for young farmers who are trying to enter an already very difficult industry to get into. It is important that we enable the Investment Canada Act to be broad enough and flexible enough to have cabinet be able to make important decisions on whether a takeover or change in ownership is in the best interest of Canadians. This seems like common sense to me. We know it is something only Conservatives can provide.
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Mr. Speaker, what a weird time it is to cut $1 billion. I am all for finding efficiencies in government, and after the last eight years of absurd inflationary spending, we absolutely can find billions of dollars to cut. I find it interesting that we are finding cost savings by going to a third party consulting company and paying it $660 million to give us advice on how we can best stop spending money on consultants.
It is important, at the end of the day, that when my colleague criticizes common sense and links it to the Mike Harris days in Ontario, my constituents, my friends and my neighbours have common sense. They know it when they see it, and they know they do not see it in the current Liberal government.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague across the way for the well-wishes.
I will start by saying that there has been a shift over the past eight years. We had a previous prime minister who was strong and principled on the world stage. I think back to the moment when he told Putin to get out of Ukraine the first time that he invaded. That is the Canada I want to be a part of. I want to have a strong foreign policy vision for our nation.
In terms of India and China, the member is right: Our best strategy is diversification. We are an export nation. We are a natural resources-based nation. We are a trading nation, and it is something we should be proud of. A pan-American agreement is a good approach. At the end of the day, we need to make sure we are doing things in the best interest of Canadian companies and of Canadians themselves.
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Mr. Speaker, that was a very good question. The fact is, it took eight years. That is too long. We do need to act and to make sure we have the flexibility to look at evolving national interest issues and track them better so we can be more flexible and responsive in identifying problematic investors.
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