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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Nov/22/23 3:33:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you are examining this question, I would encourage you to examine the statement by the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca on June 14, 2014, using the same word.

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

Nov/22/23 4:21:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the issue of replacement workers, as we know, it has been in the news that the ambassador from South Korea has been talking to officials in Windsor about bringing in up to 1,600 replacement workers at the Stellantis plant in Windsor. In fact, they would be taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers. I wonder whether the minister would comment on this. Is there anything in the bill that would change the fact that the current government signed the contract that allows taxpayer-funded replacement foreign workers to come into Canada?

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

Nov/22/23 4:32:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today. I will start off by saying I will be splitting my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable. Normally, our shadow minister for labour would be leading the debate on this, but he is dealing with—

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 4:33:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. Those who had the joy of sitting on the finance committee and listening to me speak for 18 hours while the Minister of Finance would not show up to defend her budget know I can go for 18 hours if members would like. I appreciate—

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 4:34:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the support from the member for Kingston and the Islands. I know that he loves to hear from me. I am disappointed in the member for Winnipeg North. There seems to be a division in the caucus on this issue. As I was saying, our shadow minister for labour would normally lead off on this bill in second reading, but he is back home because he has had a death in his family. As the shadow minister for industry, I have been asked to lead off. I would like to lead off by following up on the point that the member for Sarnia—Lambton made during the minister's intervention that the bill does not cover the Government of Canada, but the industries of the Government of Canada. I appreciate that the member is sticking to his knitting, but it is not unusual for the government to amend multiple bills or do omnibus bills if it truly believes in something. I think this is a bit like the shoemaker's children in that it is asking private sector companies regulated by the federal government to abide by a law that it is not asking public servants to abide by. On the issue of replacement workers, the minister spoke quite at length, as is his right as the lead speaker and sponsor minister on the issue of replacement workers, so I would like to speak to replacement workers. We know that one of the most critical things now is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has indicated that a record subsidy to three large multinational auto companies has been brought in by the government. It is already $6 billion over its budget, or its claim of what the subsidy is, to over $43 billion over a six-year period for some of the largest foreign multinationals there are. In doing so, the government has refused to release what those contracts are. The reason that pertains to replacement workers is that one of those multinationals has already sent their ambassador from South Korea, who I do not believe is freelancing, as I do not think ambassadors for South Korea freelance. The ambassador was in Windsor meeting with senior officials, the mayor, the chief of police, and telling everyone that Windsor had to get prepared for 1,600 replacement workers for the Stellantis plant replacing the Canadians that the minister said would be hired. I will throw out what the Minister of Industry said. To be clear, it was not the Minister of Labour, as I do not believe that the Minister of Labour has spoken on this. He may have outside the House but not inside the House. However, the Minister of Industry said, “Today's announcement is great news for Canadian jobs” and the Prime Minister echoed the same thing. He said, “By working together, we are creating thousands of new jobs, making a difference in the lives of people now and making sure that future generations have a clean environment to live in.” I think that folks who heard that announcement thought that the Prime Minister was talking about southwest Ontario and Windsor, but it turns out he was talking about working together to create thousands of new jobs for people in South Korea, using $15 billion, in that instance, of taxpayer money. As our leader has said, there are 15 million households—

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 4:38:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member for Kingston and the Islands does not want us to talk about the fact that the government, once again, is hypocritical and inconsistent in applying its philosophy on replacement workers. It not applying it not only to federal government workers but also to the contracts it signed with Canadian taxpayers. Since the minister referred to replacement workers multiple times within his speech in the context of people doing other people's jobs, talking about replacement workers is what this is about. That is the way the minister introduced it and spoke to it. If I irritate the members for bringing up the fact that they did not have the courage to sign contracts with foreign multinationals that would prohibit foreign replacement workers from being employed in these plants and instead allowed it and did not make sure that taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers were not part of the contracts they signed, then they have left themselves open to this problem. Do the members of the government know who is disappointed by this? It is all Canadians who believed the government when it said it was protecting Canadian jobs in the unionized auto industry. All the unions that represent the auto workers in southwestern Ontario—

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 4:41:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will come to the crux of the issue. I know the member had the joy of sitting and listening to my 18 hours in the finance committee, so I am sure he will appreciate these three minutes. Where do I go? More replacement workers are a potential not only in the NextStar plant in Windsor, but also in the Volkswagen contract. I have had the privilege of reading the Volkswagen contract, and what is not in the Volkswagen contract, which is apparently a mirror of these things, is a prohibition on replacement workers being put into these taxpayer-funded plants. I know members on the other side have been questioning this issue. The Government of Canada's website has a job bank and there are about 20 jobs advertised for Stellantis. It says on it who can apply for these jobs, including Canadian citizens and permanent residents or temporary residents, but, more important, other candidates with or without a valid Canadian work permit. It is right on the government website. The ambassador for South Korea has been telling us that there are going to be replacement workers at this plant. I would ask about the other contracts the government has signed. A South Korean company is part of the Ford contract in Quebec to produce cathodes for the EV business. Can the government share with us that contract to make sure replacement workers are not being used and that the government got guarantees? Can the members share with us that in the Volkswagen contract there is a clause that says that replacement workers from outside of Canada will not be used for those jobs? It is incumbent upon the Liberals to come clean on those issues. We have been asking for that clarity and transparency from the government. I do not believe it says in any of those contracts that the Government of Canada has the ability to prevent those contracts from being made public. If the Liberals are so opposed to replacement workers, as the minister said, why do they not show Canadians that they put their money, taxpayer money, where their mouth is and actually ensure that only Canadians will be employed in these unionized jobs in the auto industry? They are unwilling. In fact, Liberals voted against that in the industry committee last night. I would like to know from the Liberals on the other side of the House what they are hiding. Is it that they have put clauses in these contracts to allow the replacement workers from other countries in these auto businesses? The Minister of Labour is so desperately trying to prohibit these replacement workers in federal institutions, but is signing contracts to spend $15 billion to $30 billion of taxpayer money to allow replacement workers from other countries in these auto businesses.

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 4:45:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the great benefit he is seeking from all levels of government with this legislation would be more credible if he would support our desire, and that of NDP members, frankly, who voted to release these contracts publicly last night, which the Liberals stopped, to see that the company has put their money where their mouth is and is not going to allow foreign taxpayer-funded replacement workers in the good, unionized auto jobs in this country, which they purport to be trying to protect.

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 4:47:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the government will probably take longer than 18 months to release the contracts on the deals that have been done. I do not know why we would want to do that in the auto business. I would remind the member from the Bloc that two of the subsidies in the auto business, where replacement workers can be brought in through the agreement, unless we are shown that it is not in the contracts by releasing them, are in Quebec. One of them, in fact, is in the leader of the Bloc Québécois's riding. I would think they would want to know that the Northvolt plant has the ability, potentially, to bring in Swedish workers. If the Liberals want to dispute it, they can release the contracts. The other one, which I mentioned earlier, is for EV battery parts and is with a South Korean company. Let us make sure that it is not doing that as well.

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 4:49:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what brings home powerful paycheques and powerful union paycheques are contracts to build auto plants that do not involve bringing in replacement workers from South Korea, Sweden and other countries in Europe. Perhaps the hon. member should defend the unionized auto jobs and the 7% unemployment rate that exists in Windsor. The government is refusing to ensure that those good-paying union jobs go to auto workers in southwest Ontario.

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

Nov/22/23 6:43:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on the discussion about the report from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade entitled, “The Russian State's Illegal War of Aggression Against Ukraine”. As Canadians know, Conservatives have always stood with Ukraine. Those who have had the pleasure of hearing at committee some stories from my personal history will have heard that, back in 1991, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, I was the senior adviser to Canada's foreign minister. I can remember the weekend that I spent on the phone with the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office and former deputy prime minister Don Mazankowski, the first Ukrainian deputy prime minister of Canada, discussing what we should do. The Soviet Union had not quite collapsed, and Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to institute his glasnost reforms. It looked like, within a few weeks, there would be a collapse. We had a long discussion about recognizing Ukraine first. We were the party that recognized Ukraine on that weekend, December 2, and we were the first country in the world to recognize Ukraine as an independent country, separate from the old Soviet Union. That was a momentous thing because, of course, we have a large diaspora of Ukrainians in Canada. I am proud to have played a very small and minor role as a senior adviser to the then minister of foreign affairs, Hon. Barbara McDougall, when we did that. We do support all of the recommendations in this report, but I would like to draw attention to a couple of particular interest to us. The previous speaker spoke about recommendations 12 and 13, and I will come to that, but I would like to focus a little on recommendation 8, which says: That the Government of Canada work with its international and domestic partners to improve the coordinated implementation and enforcement of sanctions against Russia, by working to identify all assets connected to designated persons and closing any loopholes that may exist. There are a lot of loopholes that still exist today. Not to toot my own horn, but I worked on creating the legislation the Government of Canada still uses today back in 1991, when there was the coup in Haiti. We wanted to impose economic sanctions, globally through the OAS and then through the UN, on Haiti and the illegal coup of Haiti's first democratically elected president. There was no power to quickly impose economic sanctions. We quickly created within about four days a piece of legislation that was introduced and passed unanimously through the House and Senate within about 48 hours to create a bill that gave the Governor in Council the power to quickly move and impose economic sanctions. We know these sanctions are leaking, and I have raised this before in committee. I said it as a member of the fisheries committee. While the government has targeted specific individuals, and all of those are justified, what it has not done is looked at the leakiness of the sanctions overall. I have an example that has had a very large impact on Atlantic Canada. The snow crab fishery is a very big fishery off Newfoundland, and 52% of the crab fishery caught in Newfoundland was, until this war happened last year, bought by Japan, through contracts. When the war broke out and Russia was desperate for cash, it started to sell their snow crab at a much cheaper price on the global markets. Most countries respected the fact that that money would be used for fuelling Putin's illegal war and did not bite. Japan did bite, broke every contract in Newfoundland and stopped buying all their snow crab from Newfoundland. Now Japan buys most of their snow crab from Russia, helping to fund their war. The minister and the Liberal government have never raised those kinds of issues with counterparts. We have raised them with the minister, and the minister was totally unaware that this had happened. It is not unusual for a Liberal minister to be unaware, but one would think that, when we are dealing with sanctions in a war, it is not just about the individuals but is about the flow of cash that is going in by buying goods of our G7 allies. I would also like to comment on recommendation 12, which reads, “That the Government of Canada not grant a sanctions waiver to Siemens Energy Canada Limited for Nord Stream 1 pipeline turbines....” Remember, with the turbine, Russia did this fake thing about needing the turbine for the pipeline that brought natural gas and oil into Europe. It brought in a need for repair, and the government said it was no problem, to bring it in here and we would repair it. Then the war broke out and Russia said it wanted it back in order to facilitate the continued supply of that oil and natural gas, supposedly. The government acquiesced, granted a waiver, sent it back to Russia and allowed it to continue to ship oil and natural gas to fund its war. In fact, if we look at some of the testimony in this report, it quite clearly shows that a number of witnesses were flabbergasted the Government of Canada would allow such fakery to happen. In addition, in a rare moment of clarity on the liquefied natural gas issue, the Minister of Natural Resources said at the time, and this is from page 31 of the unanimous report, that he could not “overemphasize the depth of concern on the part of the Germans, but also on the part of the European Union, with respect to the potential implications associated with their effectively not being able to access natural gas.” The report goes on: In addition to the concerns expressed by Germany and the EU, the Minister [of Natural Resources] noted that, in conversations had with the United States, “they reflected and shared the concerns about the divisions that could end up undermining support for Ukraine....” That was the Liberal minister, but yet when the Chancellor of Germany came to Canada and Germany was begging for our natural gas to deal with the issue of the impact on energy supply in Europe because of this illegal war, the Prime Minister said that there was no business case to ship it oil. Maybe there is a case to get it done because there is a war on, but of course we were not ready to do that. When the Prime Minister and these Liberals came to power in 2015, there were 15 LNG plants on the books. As they progressed with their agenda, their no-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, or the “no capital bill”, as I call it, to drive capital out of Canada, we have how many? I am sure there are members here who could tell me how many have been built since those 15 were proposed and going through the environmental system. I hear a colleague say zero. Maybe the true answer the Prime Minister should have given the Chancellor of Germany is that he messed up and that he was not ready to deal with the issue of making sure good, clean, ethical Canadian natural gas could be accessed by Europe, which has become totally dependent on Russia, in case of emergencies. Unfortunately, that was not his answer. He glibly said that there was no business case for it. I am not sure the Prime Minister has actually ever read a business plan, but he told the Chancellor that, and so Germany went and obtained the natural gas it needed from dirty dictatorships. That is the great foreign policy we have had. My colleague mentioned the fact that if the Liberals were truly interested in supporting Ukraine, they would have put provisions in the free trade bill to enable and foster the ability of our country to supply more munitions to Ukraine and to manufacture them. In fact, if there is a gap in political risk insurance by the EDC, it is easy for the Government of Canada to show its commitment to Ukraine by using the Canada account to help Canadian munitions manufacturers located in Germany and deal with the risk insurance issue. Have the Liberals used the Canada account to do that? No, so their commitment to Ukraine is, like all other things, fairly superficial and not done with the seriousness one would expect from an ally of an important democratic country in this world and of our diaspora of 1.5 million Ukrainians in Canada who expect more from the government.

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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23

Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 6:54:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know the member for Winnipeg North has a selective memory, but I will remind him that we had a free trade agreement with Ukraine already. It was negotiated by the Harper government. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Rick Perkins: Madam Speaker, yes, they signed it, but they did not negotiate a comma of it. It was all negotiated and put to bed and then the election happened in 2015, so they came in and signed it, just like Jean Chrétien in 1993 when he said that he would tear up NAFTA. Then it came in and became part of the “three amigos”. He talked like he invented free trade with NAFTA, even though he ran on an election campaign against it, as did another former Liberal leader, John Turner, who fought the 1988 election against free trade. Thankfully, we won that election 35 years ago yesterday or we would not have free trade with the United States. The member should do a little bit of history about which party has truly been committed to free trade and which party has tried to impose woke conditions on a carbon tax on a country that is at war, taking advantage of that country to put forward its domestic political agenda and impose it on another country.

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Nov/22/23 6:57:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would agree with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who made an eloquent speech on this very issue previously. It is outstanding to me that the Liberal government would think that the priority of what to do with the Ukrainian government right now is to try and impose a Canadian carbon tax on Ukraine and then, at the same time, vote against providing the ability of Canadian companies to establish free trade and manufacturing facilities back and forth in munitions, during an illegal war. There is a coalition between a former and still, really, KGB agent, Putin, who is in an unholy alliance with China and Iran, trying to attack these dictatorships and trying to attack democracy around the world. The government has not banned and declared the Wagner Group, which is in this report, as a terrorist group. It has not abided by the resolution of this House for many years now, and still refuses to declare the IRGC as a terrorist group. I do not know why the government is so opposed to declaring these organizations as terrorist groups and letting them operate in Canada, while not providing our ally, Ukraine, what it needs.

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