- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Abbotsford
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $146,571.88
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, as we know, this bill would not measurably impact investments coming from the United States, because we have special carve-outs for our free trade partners.
Having said that, it is important that we do have an act like that and that, from time to time, we review it—
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Madam Speaker, at least this question relates, although obliquely, to the Investment Canada Act.
With respect to the Nexen transaction, prior to that point in time, Canada had absolutely no rules about how state-owned enterprises could invest in Canada or if they even should be investing in Canada. When that transaction came forward and cabinet had to review it, we said to hold it because with this transaction, there were no rules for us to be guided by. Therefore, Stephen Harper at that time articulated a clear set of rules for when countries like China or state-owned enterprises from countries like China, Russia and Iran, which are hostile actors, want to invest in Canada. We established the first set of rules for that, and of course, that—
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Madam Speaker, we are talking about the Investment Canada Act. We are not talking about the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement.
I will say this, to complete my thoughts. The Investment Canada Act is there to protect Canadians against investments that are not in Canada's national interests. This act would be a small step forward—
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Madam Speaker, this is a great opportunity to talk about foreign direct investment in Canada, why it is important and why this legislation is before us.
Our viewers might ask why foreign investment is so important to Canada. There are many reasons that we should be looking to attract foreign investment into our country. Foreign investment provides Canada with the capital it needs to develop its full potential and, yes, that includes our abundant natural resources, such as oil and gas. Foreign investment in Canada is also a source of innovation, allowing Canada to benefit from evolving technologies. As one of the most educated countries in the world, we also use that foreign investment in innovation to build our own technological capacity.
Intellectual property will drive our future prosperity. We had better ensure that this advantage is not squandered by failing to properly review foreign investments.
It goes without saying that foreign investment creates many jobs across our country. Invariably, when a foreign investor makes its investment in Canada, this creates new job opportunities for Canadians. Related to that is the fact that jobs created by foreign investment generate higher wages. At a time when the worst affordability crisis of a generation is raging, when many families are struggling to make ends meet and pay for groceries, schooling, gas and rent, it is important that the jobs that Canadians have available to them also have decent paycheques attached. Foreign direct investment also drives increased productivity, leading to greater prosperity for our country. When foreign investors commit to building our economy, they also increase our tax base, which of course allows governments at all levels to deliver the services that Canadians expect.
Unfortunately, for quite a number of years now, especially since the current Liberal government came to power, Canada's foreign direct investment performance has lagged far behind that of many of its OECD competitors. What I mean by this is that there is more investment flowing out of Canada and being invested in foreign jurisdictions than there is foreign investment flowing into Canada. We actually have a very significant deficit. Why has this happened?
There are many reasons. I will not go into them all, but I will begin with this: Canada is suffering from regulatory gridlock. In other words, regulatory and approval processes at all levels of government are so complex and reflect such an overreach that nobody wants to invest in Canada anymore. We have labour force challenges, heightened uncertainty, deteriorating public finances and increasingly unmanageable debt loads.
By the way, our system is not tax competitive. For years, we have been talking about tax reform, yet over the last eight years, no reform has materialized under the current Liberal government. As a result, it has become too expensive to do business in Canada.
Most recently, the Liberal government decided that not only would it maintain a punishing carbon tax on everything, but it would also quadruple the carbon tax on the necessities of life, the things that Canadians need to survive, such as home heating, natural gas and groceries. Prices have skyrocketed as the Prime Minister ratchets up his carbon tax. Putting gas in the car is becoming prohibitively expensive for many families. He plans to quadruple the carbon tax on fuel for our cars as well.
To make matters worse, while the Prime Minister recently announced that he would temporarily suspend the carbon tax on home heating oil for 3% of Canadians, the remaining 97% of Canadians will receive absolutely no break from the carbon tax on their own home heating costs. I thought he once said, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. It is another vacuous promise from a failed Prime Minister who seeks to divide Canadians and pit them against one another.
The bottom line is this: The world no longer sees Canada as a great place to invest. It is the government's policies, grounded in an ideology that disregards the importance of making Canada a welcome place for foreigners to invest, that is the basis of these problems. We have to get foreign direct investment into Canada right, because it can raise our standard of living and give Canadians, especially young Canadians, the hope that they can live out the Canadian dream.
However, not all investments are necessarily in Canada's best interests. There are benevolent investments that benefit Canada's economy, and then there are investments that are being made by malevolent actors around the world who simply want to take advantage of Canada. As we consider which investments fall into each of these two categories, it is absolutely critical that we make the determination that we are going to focus on Canada's net benefit, on defending our sovereignty and protecting our national security. That is why we are discussing this legislation today.
Bill C-34 simply attempts to update the Investment Canada Act, an act that is quite a number of years old now, but it has not kept up with the changing conditions on the ground, in a rapidly evolving global environment. I would mention that, after eight years, the government has been unable to put in place the kinds of policies and regulations that would actually protect Canadians against their key industries and companies being bought out.
I will give an example. Hytera and its associated company Sinclair Technologies have been charged with 21 counts of espionage in the United States. In fact, President Biden has banned the company from doing business in the U.S. However, in 2017, the Liberal industry minister, Navdeep Bains, refused to conduct a full national security review on the sale of a B.C.-based telecoms company, Norsat International to China-based Hytera, which is banned from doing business in the United States. It was here in Canada buying up one of our companies.
The RCMP awarded a contract to Hytera to supply sensitive hardware for its communications systems. The Canada Border Services Agency has also been using communications technology from Hytera. Members may recall that a few years ago, the industry minister set up some rules about making sure that key Canadian companies, especially within the critical minerals space, would not be bought up by foreign hostile actors, yet that is exactly what happened.
In 2022, the Liberal government fast-tracked the takeover of Canadian lithium mining company Neo Lithium by Chinese state-owned Zijin Mining without a national security review. Every single citizen in China, every single company, whether a state-owned enterprise or otherwise, has a responsibility to report to the government any information it asks for with respect to the business that they carry on.
We want to make sure that this bill does what it is supposed to do. Briefly, this bill would streamline the minister's ability to investigate national security reviews of these foreign investments. It would strengthen penalties for failure to comply with the Investment Canada Act's review provisions. It would create a new power to generate a list of sensitive industries. It would improve coordination with our international partners. It would also vest power to the minister, rather than allowing cabinet to make these kinds of decisions in the first instance.
Would it not be better, instead of having two eyes on this kind of transaction, to have all the eyes of cabinet focusing on whether an investment is in Canada's net benefit or whether it represents a risk to our national security? The bottom line is we tried to get some amendments. To their credit, some members of the committee agreed with us and we actually got four critical amendments passed. However, there were seven other amendments we tried to make, some of which were contained in a unanimous report from the industry committee, and guess what? The Liberals on the committee voted them down.
We can do better, but this is a start.
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Madam Speaker, I do thank the member for that very good question. He has not yet provided us with a copy of the amendment that he would like to propose. We will look at it very carefully.
Quite frankly, it sounds like it makes sense. We, as Conservatives, strongly believe that the Investment Canada Act must be made more robust. I believe the member knows that we will be bringing forward our own amendments at committee to make sure we get that outcome. We do, in principle, support the legislation. It is just that it is a bill that is so lacking in substance when we have an opportunity now to get this right.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals have yet to learn that they should never ask a former international trade minister a question they do not know the answer to.
Here is the answer. I get my information from the International Monetary Fund. Members will notice that the member did not actually address investment. He talked about GDP, economic performance and regulation, but he did not talk about Canada being a destination for investment.
The IMF said, “According to the latest results...the world’s top ten recipients of foreign direct investment...[are] the United States, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, China, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, and Germany.” Canada is not even in the top 10. Shame on us, that we would be so far down the list.
Let me suggest that the member go back to the drawing board, get his statistics right, and then come back to the House and start debating.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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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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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to talk about foreign investment, because as members may recall, in a past life in the Harper government, when we had a robust trade and investment agenda, I had the opportunity to be the trade minister. I travelled around the world to many different countries promoting Canadian investment. That is a two-way street, of course. We can talk about Canadians investing abroad, which we do, but there are also foreign companies—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Madam Speaker, I think what my hon. colleague from the finance committee is signalling is a concern over the financialization of housing in Canada, where people see housing as simply being an investment to be profited from rather than a roof over a person's head. I do share his concern that, if we are not sensible about this, it is going to cost Canadians significantly.
However, I do take issue with his assertion that, under the Harper government, somehow housing prices also spiked. No, that is not true. Housing prices were very stable during the Harper years. We a had a slight appreciation in value over time, which is what Canadians expect. They want to see a return to stable house prices in Canada. We, as Conservatives, are capable of delivering that.
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- Apr/4/22 6:30:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would remind the member that Canada has the worst record of the 30 OECD countries when it comes to attracting investment, and he knows that. When we are at a place where the world says that Canada is no longer a good place to invest in, we should be concerned.
My friend referred to this debt management plan that was incorporated into last year's budget. Do members know what that debt management plan was? It was a trajectory. There was no firm target. We asked the Liberals, time and again, here in question period when the budget would be balanced. The finance minister never, ever gave us an answer.
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