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Member of Parliament

Hon. Ed Fast

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Abbotsford
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $146,571.88

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 156 - Feb/8/23
Hon. Ed Fast
  • Feb/8/23 6:31:18 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-34 
Madam Speaker, as I was saying, foreign investment, whether it is investments coming into Canada or Canadians investing abroad, can contribute markedly to our national prosperity. I have travelled all around the world promoting Canadian investment, because there was a time when Canada was a great place to invest. Sadly, over the last few years under the Liberal government there has been a decline in foreign investment. Why is foreign investment abandoning Canada? It is because of high taxes and regulatory uncertainty. This should concern all Canadians, because when foreign investment comes to Canada, for the most part it drives job creation if it is done right and contributes to our overall prosperity as a country. However, as we welcome foreign investment into our country, we also have to be very judicious, making sure that those investments, first, represent a net benefit to Canadians and, second, do not represent a national security threat to our country. That is where the Investment Canada Act comes in. It was created to ensure that as foreigners invest in Canada, we have mechanisms and tools available to review those investments, to welcome those who are going to contribute to the overall good of the country and to reject those who are not good for our country. The bill before us is seeking to introduce some amendments to the Investment Canada Act that purportedly will really improve the robustness of this regime. Unfortunately, if we dig down into the seven main amendments being proposed, they are mostly tinkering around the edges. Why do I say that? I do not believe they will markedly reduce the influence of foreign corporations and their ability to invest in Canada, especially when they come from increasingly hostile regimes around the world. When we look around the world, I think all of us can agree that investments coming from a country like Russia require special diligence. Investments that come from places like Iran and China require a special degree of vigilance to make sure they serve our national interest. More and more often, we have seen under the Liberal government that investments have come from abroad from the more hostile regimes around the world, which engage in espionage and make investments that are not necessarily for the good of our country but promote a foreign country's economic interests. My colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge has already articulated some of the cases where the Minister of Industry has failed to subject investments to the kind of rigorous review that Canadians would expect of its government. For example, we had a situation where an RCMP contract was awarded for the supply of sensitive hardware for communications to a company that had earlier been purchased by a China-based company beholden to the communist regime in Beijing. How can that be? It is because the minister refused to do a national security review of that foreign investment into Canada. It was also revealed that the Canada Border Services Agency has used communications equipment and technology from the same company. Canadians need to know that this very same company was charged with 21 counts of espionage in the United States. Would we trust this company not to conduct espionage in our country? Of course not. The reality is that I could go through the same list of foreign transactions my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge listed, to which the minister refused to apply the kind of rigour to reviewing these foreign investments that Canadians would expect. We also have to understand that the geopolitical and security landscape around the world has changed dramatically and the risks Canada faces are that much more acute. We look around the world at countries like China, Russia and Iran that are flexing their muscles economically and militarily in the field of cyber-espionage, and we are incredibly vulnerable, so we have to pay attention to this. I would also mention that, as we look at investments from abroad, there are some who have said we should be very cautious about welcoming investments of state-owned enterprises from a country like China into our country because of the allegiance of those corporations to the communist regime in Beijing. However, the reality is that, not long ago, China passed a national intelligence law, under which all Chinese corporations and citizens, whether at home or abroad, are required to act as agents of the government and hand over any information the Chinese communist authorities demand. Therefore, any company from that country, and any citizen from that country, is expected to be an agent of the government, so as we look abroad for investment, it behooves us, as legislators and decision-makers, to make sure we are prudent in whom we welcome to our country to invest. The largest majority of investments come from countries we would gladly welcome investment from. Obviously, if the United States has a corporation that wants to invest in Canada, we would say we welcome that investment, generally speaking. If it is a huge investment, we may want to put a special spotlight on that investment to make sure there is a net economic benefit to Canada, but by and large, the investments we attract to Canada, we welcome. As such, the Investment Canada Act is targeted and makes sure that the investments that are problematic are reviewed by our federal government. The legislation before us, unfortunately, had the opportunity to implement the nine recommendations an earlier report from the industry committee had brought forward. Sadly, only two of those recommendations have actually been adopted by the government in its amendments to the Investment Canada Act. What a lost opportunity. We, as a country, can do so much better, and the reality is that we, as Conservatives, have long had a robust approach to foreign investment. When we were in government, we made major reforms to the Investment Canada Act. We said “no” to investments. We required a number of foreign investments to be qualified and conditional before they could be invested in Canada. I have just outlined very briefly what it is we are debating here, the Investment Canada Act amendments. Let us make sure we get it right.
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