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House Hansard - 266

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 12, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 266 - Dec/12/23
Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)
  • Dec/12/23 6:36:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government is spending an enormous amount of money on subsidies to various manufacturers involved in batteries here in Canada. Over $40 billion is being spent on this particular business subsidy program. This subsidy plan will cost every single Canadian family about $3,000. Conservatives are committed to always standing up for workers, which is why we have asked for clarity from the government about whether there are protections for Canadian workers in the subsidy contracts that it signed with companies. Will Canadian workers actually benefit from this enormous outlay of taxpayer money? It is $3,000 per Canadian family; Canadians would like to know, and they would like to know how much workers are going to benefit. The parliamentary secretary is clearly eager to respond. He is saying that they are going to benefit “lots”. What we have asked for, quite simply, is that the government show its work and release these contracts to the public, so we can know the impacts. The particular genesis for this demand is that we have found out that the companies involved are actually going to be hiring a large number of foreign replacement workers. Therefore, over $40 billion in Canadian taxpayer money— An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Garnett Genuis: Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary seems to think this is funny. It is not. Over $40 billion in taxpayer money is being used not to employ Canadian workers but to hire foreign replacement workers, who are going to come to Canada to do the job. That is concerning, obviously. Did these contracts include protections for Canadian workers or guarantees for jobs for Canadians? We would like to know. If the government left that out and just said it was going to give tens of billions of dollars to these companies, and it does not know whether or how much Canadians are going to benefit, then that would be seriously troubling. This is why, again, we have insisted that we want to actually see these contracts. Consistently, Liberals have been filibustering in the government operations committee in order to block the release of the contracts. For a while, we had all opposition parties, including Conservative, Bloc and NDP, standing together and prepared to vote in favour of ordering the production of the contracts. The Liberals were against it. They were filibustering to block their release. Then, tragically, we had a flip-flop from the NDP. Rather than standing with workers, as they like to say they do, the New Democrats betrayed workers. They said that they do not actually need to see the contracts anymore. It is a shameful betrayal of workers from the NDP, under pressure from its colleagues in the costly and corrupt cover-up coalition. The Liberals put a bit of pressure on their friends in the NDP with a little filibustering. It was not even a very long filibuster, and I would know. Simply because of a little bit of pressure, the New Democrats buckled and betrayed workers. The only party that will stand consistently with workers in the House of Commons is the Conservative Party. I hope we get a direct answer to my question for the parliamentary secretary, rather than more of the unrelated bluster that we often get from the government. What did the government offer the NDP members, its colleagues in the costly cover-up coalition, to get them to change their position, flip-flop and betray workers? Moreover, why will the government not release the contracts?
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