- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- North Okanagan—Shuswap
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 69%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $117,514.07
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for the question and for his support on something that I am passionate about, the prevention of aquatic invasive species into the Okanagan, Shuswap or any waters in B.C.
On the three points the member mentioned, the current government has certainly failed. We are seeing taxes at higher levels than they have been in years. Inflation is incredibly high. The investment attitude in Canada is not good. We need a common-sense Conservative government that will re-attract business to Canada and allow businesses to profit and prosper.
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Mr. Speaker, we are seeing that, after the inflationary spending of the current government, many businesses are struggling to survive. With the high interest rates that have been created, we are concerned about how many businesses may not be able to do so. However, to quickly sell them off to a foreign entity, which is really just looking to buy up businesses for pennies on the dollar, is not the answer. There should be a way for Canadians to invest in Canadian companies to make sure that those businesses are viable and can continue.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay is correct. We need to do everything we can to ensure the safety and well-being of our senior citizens, especially those who are in care homes and do not have families to support them.
With respect to the technicalities of exactly what the current government can and cannot do, I would not want to be quoted on that. I believe it is a bit more of a legal decision. However, I agree with the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay: We need to ensure that there are measures in place to protect against foreign overtake of Canadian companies that serve our citizens. We must make sure that they are well protected.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this House as a representative for the amazing people and spectacular region of North Okanagan—Shuswap.
Before I speak to Bill C-34, I would like to acknowledge that this is Veterans Week. I also acknowledge the recent loss of a dedicated community volunteer, constituent and friend, Steve McInnis, a 37-year veteran with the Canadian Armed Forces, where he served with distinction. In 1988, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to UN peacekeepers, and Steve received this fitting recognition for his service in the cause for peace in the Sinai peninsula from 1977 to 1978. Steve served his country and community proudly and with distinction and will be deeply missed. I am confident Steve has reconnected with his long-time friend and fellow veteran Paul Shannon for beers, laughter and, of course, their famous shenanigans.
I say to Steve, Paul and indeed all veterans and Canadian Forces families that Canada appreciates their sacrifices and we will never forget.
I rise today to speak to Bill C-34, an act to amend the Investment Canada Act. The proposals of this bill seek to amend the Investment Canada Act's governance of acquisitions of Canadian companies by foreign entities. After eight years of Liberal inaction, this bill is long overdue. I will provide some examples of how overdue it is.
In 2017, six and a half years ago, red flags were raised and alarm bells sounded about the takeover of B.C. seniors homes by profiteers in Beijing. I will quote one of my Conservative colleagues at the time, the former MP for Kamloops—Thompson—Caribou, Cathy McLeod, who stated:
Our seniors are concerned about the quality of care, of food, and the credentials of the people caring for them. This transaction is clearly not about charity; it is about profit. Why would the Prime Minister put the care of our parents and grandparents at the mercy of profiteers pulling strings from Beijing?
The Liberals' response to Ms. McLeod's concern was dismissive and short-sighted. As the industry minister at the time, Navdeep Bains, said, “the additional financial resources will allow Cedar Tree the ability to expand, provide better service, and create more jobs.”
Despite the Liberal reassurances back then, services for B.C. seniors were neither expanded nor improved. To the sad contrary, services became worse. It was B.C. senior citizens who suffered when multiple Beijing-controlled senior care homes failed to achieve standards of care for some of our most vulnerable citizens. The Liberals ignored warnings from the Conservatives, and the result was a Beijing-controlled disaster that caused suffering for seniors in British Columbia, suffering the Liberal government was warned of, suffering it ignored and suffering it enabled. That was the first example of how the government's hesitance and delay in protecting Canada have hurt Canadians.
As another example of how overdue this bill is, I will reference a 2019 report from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, entitled “West Coast Fisheries: Sharing Risks and Benefits”. The fisheries committee undertook this study in response to very serious concerns raised by Canadian fish harvesters and coastal communities who had seen their access to Canada's fisheries eroded by increasing levels of foreign control.
The committee's study was in response to alarm bells warning us about very significant portions of Canada's west coast fisheries being bought and owned by foreign buyers. Alarms were raised by Canadian fishers who were and continue to be very concerned about the loss of control of not only a valuable Canadian food source to foreign entities, but a source of culture, economies and well-being for our coastal communities. The Liberal government should have acted sooner in response to the testimony we heard during that study, which pleaded for the government to protect Canada's interests from foreign interests. One witness testified:
As for overseas investment, besides a few large companies, this is very hard to trace, but there are examples. For instance, you may have heard of the recent scandal with money laundering through gambling and real estate in B.C. We traced one company that has been investing in groundfish and now owns 5.9 million pounds of quota. The director of this company is the same overseas investor named in newspaper articles on money laundering through casinos and real estate in Vancouver.
This testimony was provided to Parliament over four years ago. What is even more troubling is that even though that report was tabled in this House back in May 2019, the same fisheries committee was recently provided an update on the Liberal government's progress in addressing foreign takeovers. That update exposed that the government has failed to prioritize and take actions required to prevent foreign ownership and the control of Canadian fisheries resources that Canadians and Canadian communities depend on.
One key recommendation from that 2019 report stated:
That based on the principle that fish in Canadian waters are a resource for Canadians (i.e. common property), no future sales of fishing quota and/or licences be to non-Canadian beneficial owners based on the consideration of issues of legal authority, and international agreement/trade impacts.
When the committee received an update on the Liberal government's response to that report recommendation, we learned that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans still had no way of knowing who owns what when it comes to west coast fishing licences and quota. The Liberals put out a botched survey to try to find out, but little else has been done to address the issue.
These are just two examples of how the Prime Minister and his government cannot be trusted to do what is right for Canadians' interests. I will say, though, that there are members of this House who can be trusted to provide improvements to legislation, even such as this bill, which was flawed as originally drafted. I would like to recognize and thank my colleague, the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets, for the work that he and other Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology have done on Bill C-34 to strengthen it and hopefully deliver some much-needed and overdue protections to Canadians.
At the committee stage, the member for South Shore—St. Margarets recognized the flaws in this bill and, by working with the other opposition parties, was able to get significant amendments passed to strengthen the bill and protect Canadians' interests. Some of those amendments included, number one, that for any state-owned enterprise from a country that does not have a bilateral trade relationship with Canada, the threshold for review by the Government of Canada would be zero dollars, and number two, that any transaction over zero dollars would be reviewed, compared to the threshold now, which is $512 million.
Chinese government-controlled and other foreign entities are buying a lot of assets through sales of under $512 million now, without review. The new threshold, should this bill pass, would be zero dollars to trigger a review. The same would apply for a new concept that was added, which is that all asset sales would need to be included in the test with a state-owned enterprise so that an investment to acquire, in whole or in part, the assets of an entity could be subject to a review.
As I close today in the final minutes of debate before we all return home to our communities to take part in Remembrance Day ceremonies, on behalf of my family and all the residents of North Okanagan—Shuswap, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the brave members of our Canadian Armed Forces for their service, and express this gratitude to Canada's veterans, many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, and to their families. We will never forget.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the kind mention of my work at FOPO. We have heard from witnesses. Some have asked to appear in camera, with their names not divulged, because they were afraid of repercussions. We have heard of other harvesters who are concerned, but, out of fear of repercussions, simply will not testify. It is very concerning to us as members, and to me as a parliamentarian, to hear that there are those kinds of threats and concerns being brought. Sometimes, the only way people and their families feel safe is through back doors. I think it is a bigger issue that we as parliamentarians owe a duty to Canadians to fully investigate, to fully make sure we retain beneficial ownership of Canada's resources for Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today as the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap, one of the most beautiful areas in the world at any time of year, and especially as we turn from spring to summer.
I rise today to speak to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. I would like to thank the member for Langley—Aldergrove for splitting his time with me and for his thoughtful intervention.
The government has stated that the objective of Bill C-42 is to protect Canadians against money laundering and terrorist financing, deter tax evasion and tax avoidance, and make sure Canada is an attractive place to conduct business. One has to ask why the Liberal-NDP coalition has taken so long to act, when it has been evident for years that change is needed.
While I believe there is support for the concept of a national public registry of beneficial owners of companies, I also believe we may need to look at extending the transparency of beneficial ownership of other assets. For example, at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, or FOPO as it is known around Parliament Hill, we have been hearing testimony from witnesses who are extremely concerned about the purchase and control of fishing licences and quotas by foreign entities, and even unknown entities. That is right: unknown entities. Let me take us back in time to explain what I am referring to. In 2019, the FOPO committee tabled a report titled “West Coast Fisheries: Sharing Risks and Benefits”. This report was the result of a study initiated partly out of concern at that time, over four years ago, over the situation of local fish harvesters unable to compete with unknown entities bidding higher prices for access to Canada’s fisheries resources, a common property resource for the benefit of Canadians. Now, over four years later, can members guess what is being studied at FOPO, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans? It is foreign ownership and corporate concentration of fishing licences and quotas.
I will go back to my earlier question about why the Liberal-NDP coalition taken so long to act. Here we are; it is four years after that report, and even longer into the government’s mandate, since the concerns were first raised by stakeholders. Here we are, restudying almost the same issue, hearing that the same issues and concerns still exist, and the government has failed to take steps to ascertain that Canadians are the primary beneficiaries to access to Canada’s common property resource, Canada’s fisheries. It was somewhat shocking to hear testimony over four years ago, and now to hear similar testimony over recent weeks, that there is no real method of tracking beneficial ownership of fishing licenses, quotas and possibly vessels on Canada’s west coast. Although some have tried to track beneficial ownership, in some cases the web becomes so tangled that no one can clearly identify who owns what.
The 2019 report I referred to contained a number of recommendations to the government. In fact, there were 20. However, there were a few key recommendations related to foreign ownership that the government should have acted on, but it has been slowly dragging its feet, with almost no response. I will refer to some of the recommendations quickly, and talk about what should have been done and what has not been done.
Recommendation 2 from the report stated, “That based on the principle that fish in Canadian waters are a resource for Canadians (i.e. common property), no future sales of fishing quota and/or licences be to non-Canadian beneficial owners based on the consideration of issues of legal authority, and international agreement/trade impacts.” What has been done on this? Little to nothing has been done. There is nothing that the committee has been made aware of.
Recommendation 4 is somewhat similar. It states, “That, to increase the transparency of quota licence ownership and transactions, Fisheries and Oceans Canada determine and publish, in an easily accessible and readable format, a public online database that includes the following”. Has that been achieved? Certainly not.
Recommendation 5 states, “That Fisheries and Oceans Canada prioritize the collection of socio-economic data for past and future regulatory changes and make this information publicly available.” Again, there has been no action that the committee is aware of.
Recommendation 14 states, “That Fisheries and Oceans Canada develop a new policy framework through a process of authentic and transparent engagement with all key stakeholders". For example, some of the key stakeholders are:
Active fish harvesters (or where they exist, organizations that represent them) in all fisheries and fleets including owner-operators, non-owner-operators, and crew;
First Nations commercial fish harvesters (or where they exist, organizations that represent them);
Organizations representing licence and quota holders that are not active fish harvesters, including fish processing companies.
The last recommendation was a key one, and there has been very little action by the government that the committee restudying the same issue has been made aware of.
I am going to cut my time a little shorter today to make sure there are opportunities for other members to speak, but I will repeat what I said earlier. We have heard from some who are most impacted by the potential of foreign investment and foreign ownership of our common property resources here in Canada, yet there has been little or no action with respect to who the beneficial buyers and owners are.
I will close by saying that there is merit in a registry of individuals with significant control of corporations in Canada. If this is done, it must be done in ways that protect personal privacy and also protect the common resources for the benefit of Canadians.
I look forward to following the debate on Bill C-42 as it goes through the process, to see if it accomplishes the stated objectives without unintended consequences.
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- Mar/28/22 1:41:18 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today representing the people of North Okanagan—Shuswap as I speak to Bill C-8, An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021 and other measures. That was three and a half months ago, and 21 months after the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
Much has changed in the past months since this bill was introduced. When I look at sections of this bill, I cannot help but question why the government has been so slow to respond to the pandemic and provide Canadians, and provincial and territorial governments, with the support they need.
In part 1 of this bill, we see one section proposing the introduction of a new, refundable tax credit for eligible businesses to claim ventilation expenses incurred to improve air quality. Why did it take 21 months for the government to offer this support to Canadians and workers?
Part 2 of this bill proposes to implement a 1% tax on the value of vacant or unused residential properties directly or indirectly owned by non-resident Canadians.
Part 4 of this bill authorizes payments to be made out of the consolidated revenue fund for the purposes of supporting ventilation improvement projects in schools. I hope we can all support measures to protect students, teachers and school staff, but again, why did it take 21 months for the government to propose this measure?
Part 5 of the bill authorizes payments for the purposes of supporting COVID-19 proof of vaccination initiatives. I ask everyone not to worry. I believe that within this too little, too late bill, there may be a timely response in part 6, as it authorizes the Minister of Health to make payments of up to $1.72 billion for rapid COVID-19 tests.
I do not want to get too excited about this proposal. I would like to know how many rapid tests Canadians will receive for this proposed $1.72 billion, so that all members may have a sense of what the cost per unit is that the government has negotiated. We still do not know what the cost per unit is that we paid for vaccines. Perhaps someone on the government's side could provide this information in today's debate, because my constituents and I, and many other Canadians, would like to know.
We are now months beyond the introduction of this bill and many more months beyond the point in time when Canadians, families, employers and schools needed timely, improved ventilation and access to rapid testing. Both as a Canadian and as a member of the House, I have to say that the government and its leader have let Canadians down. Why did the government wait until December 2021 to table these proposals?
When it was apparent that the Prime Minister would not recall Parliament for some time after last year's unnecessary election, I initiated consultations with representatives of indigenous, provincial, regional and municipal governments in my riding of North Okanagan—Shuswap to receive their perspectives on the needs and priorities of the communities we represent.
This bill could have helped Canadians and those communities as they worked their way through the challenges of COVID-19 had these proposals been tabled sooner. Rapid COVID-19 test kits could have helped to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially in workplaces. Supports for improved ventilation systems could have also made workplaces safer for workers, and schools safer for students, teachers and other staff.
Unfortunately, like much of the government's response to the threats facing Canadians and the global community, this bill was too little, too late. Over 18 months ago, Conservatives were calling on the government to make rapid tests available to Canadians so that family members could see aging parents in care homes.
We called for more rapid tests so parents could have an alternative to keeping their children in isolation, home from school and out of other activities. People have missed work and businesses have closed because workers had to isolate, not knowing if they were positive or not. Others have lost their jobs and may not be able to return. All of this has impacted the hard-working residents who live in those communities I mentioned.
The timely provision of rapid tests could have saved jobs and businesses, and here we are today debating $1.72 billion for COVID-19 tests, over a year and a half after they were needed. How many family members have suffered anxiety, stress and mental health issues because they did not have timely access to testing? This is a number we may never know, but it is safe to say it is a significant number. I believe we all hope that the people in our communities will never endure those anxieties and uncertainties again.
Much of what I am speaking on today is about preventive and pre-emptive steps the government should be taking in order to avoid higher costs and to confront damages after they have been inflicted. In many of the consultations with the community leaders I mentioned, there was a common theme: the need for timely preparation for and prevention of known and likely threats and disasters, whether it be enhancing protection perimeters of communities against threats of wildfire and enhancing flood protection systems, or building more reliability into transportation and infrastructure, such as the Trans-Canada Highway from Chase, B.C., to the Alberta border. Residents and communities expect and need their federal government to be proactive and invested in prevention. Time is of the essence.
As for part 2 of this bill, does anyone in the House actually believe the 1% tax on absentee foreign owners will address skyrocketing housing costs in B.C.? Since 2016, the price of an average home has ballooned from $476,000 to over $811,000 today. This increase has been propelled by more factors than foreign buyer pressure alone. The government must take the necessary steps to look at this in its entirety, and the housing crisis, and develop proposals for a holistic response to deal with it. Increasing real estate prices are part of the inflation wedge that is expanding the gap between Canadians already in the market, who have housing access, and Canadians still trying to raise a down payment while clinging to the shrinking hope of owning their own homes.
I pray that it is not too late to curb the rising inflation for young people, such as my constituent Ryan, who lives in Vernon. He and his family are desperately trying to save for a down payment to purchase their own home instead of renting part of a home from their parents. Like many communities across Canada, communities in the North Okanagan—Shuswap need increased housing inventory to meet the needs of residents, especially those at low and medium income levels.
When I look at this bill, I am also disappointed that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance failed to recognize the need for enhanced mental health supports. With all of the money her government has printed and spent over the past two years, one would expect some recognition of the mental health needs of Canadians, but this bill has none.
I would be remiss if I did not say that I speak today not out of personal concern for myself, but out of the concern I have for the young people of today and future generations who will be left to pay the interest on the debt the government is amassing under a short-sighted leader who only looks at today or the next election rather than at the long-term future of Canadians.
I call on the government to change its ways and embrace the notion of prevention. In the months and weeks leading up to the pandemic, the government ignored warnings from the Department of National Defence and the National Research Council. Prevention can save costs. Prevention can save lives.
In closing, I would like to thank the elected representatives across the North Okanagan—Shuswap, who I work with on an ongoing basis for the benefit of the constituents we represent, and the people of the North Okanagan—Shuswap.
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