- 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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- Feb/20/22 1:43:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I join fellow members of Parliament in debating the government's invocation of the Emergencies Act and the extraordinary powers of the act that have never been used by any government since the act was created in 1988. As the House debates the matters in front of us today, I believe the responsibility each of us carries individually to our respective constituents and the responsibility we hold collectively to the people of Canada are of extreme gravity.
Today, Canada is likely more divided than we have ever been before. This division has grown during a time when Canada has faced not just one crisis but layers of crises and unprecedented challenges. It is within the context of division and crisis that Canadians look to us, their members of Parliament, to focus on the leadership required to start healing divisions and focus on the questions that need to be answered for the government to produce a plan for recovery. As we undertake our work today and any other day, let us not forget for a moment that Canadians are counting on us, all 338 of us, to deliver the leadership that they want and deserve.
Prior to the government's official confirmation on February 14 that it was invoking the Emergencies Act, the leader of the official opposition asked the Prime Minister if he considered the protests in Coutts, Alberta; Windsor; and Ottawa to be the “threats to the security of Canada” that section 16 of the act refers to. In response to her question, the public safety minister told the leader of the official opposition that, since the beginning of the blockades, “this federal government has provided law enforcement with all of the resources that they have needed.”
It is important to note here that the Minister of Public Safety did not confirm that the blockades represented threats to the security of Canada, the threshold set out in section 16. Rather, the public safety minister confirmed that the federal government had provided law enforcement services with all of the resources they needed. If the government believed on February 14 that the blockades represented threats to the security of Canada, described by section 16, it should have said so, but it did not. If the government had truly provided law enforcement agencies with all of the resources they needed since the beginning, then who needed the resources of the unprecedented powers that the government invoked with the Emergencies Act?
On February 14, before the government invoked the Emergencies Act, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor was reopened and the blockade at Coutts was in its waning hours before it ended the next day. In Ottawa, the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police had established an integrated command centre with the Ottawa Police Service, three weeks after the blockade began. Within four days of forming the integrated command centre, law enforcement officers in Ottawa were clearing the blockades. All of this is to say that, of all the blockades that the Prime Minister was questioned about on February 14, one was cleared, a second one was coming down and the days of the Ottawa blockades were numbered as law enforcement branches integrated their commands, yet here we are today, in this extraordinary sitting of the House, trying to get a straight answer from the government as to why it insists on continuing to invoke the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act.
This is a question of profound gravity because the powers the government has bestowed upon itself, with scant explanation of why, are profound. I am disappointed that we are here today debating this serious question. The fact that this question and many more have not been clearly answered by the government over the past six days should raise red flags for all members.
It is incumbent on all members of all parties to insist that the government provides us and Canadians clear, complete and timely answers because our history is stained by instances where individual rights and due process were errantly passed over by powers similar to those we are examining today.
The Emergencies Act was created in 1988 to replace and prevent the abuses inflicted under the War Measures Act. The War Measures Act was replaced because its powers had been wrongfully applied by federal governments that failed to reflect on asking and answering essential questions before its powers were deployed on Canadian citizens.
These powers were wielded in Canada's World War I internment activities from 1914-20. Although internees were predominantly recently immigrated Europeans, mostly from the western Ukraine, Canadian-born and naturalized British subjects were also interned. Similarly, the powers of the War Measures Act were also wielded in the internment of persons of Japanese heritage, including Canadian-born Japanese Canadians and others during the Second World War. These applications of the War Measures Act raised and continue to raise serious questions of what thresholds of threat to the security of Canada justify the application of powers such as those invoked by the government on February 14.
It is up to all of us here in the House of Commons to ensure that we have learned from history, because if we have not learned and if we have not asked the questions and if we have not made informed and just decisions, we make ourselves and Canada vulnerable to repeating history.
We are examining the questions before us today because the government has chosen to invoke the Emergencies Act even though two of the three blockades that existed a week ago have been eliminated and the third is all but over. That said, I call on the government to rescind this invocation and turn its focus and the focus of the House to the crises in Canada that persist unabated today.
As I mentioned at the outset, Canada today is severely divided, wrapped up in crises and Canadians are counting on us to provide leadership in pursuit of the recovery that all Canadians want and need. Last week, the Conservative motion proposing a reasonable approach to help lower the temperature across Canada by providing Canadians with a specific plan and timeline for ending all federal mandates was defeated. I call on colleagues from all parties to reflect on the opportunity that was missed last week, a missed opportunity to start taking down fences and rebuilding bridges.
Canadians need a signal and hope that we are nearing the end of restrictions and mandates. For too long, Canadians have been hoping for a plan to move forward and I am not sure how much longer some can continue to hold on. Over recent months, I have heard from constituents suffering from extreme stress and mental health challenges. Some called me in tears because they are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being confronted because they are unable to wear a mask or be vaccinated due to extreme conditions. Many others have called because they have not been able to spend time with their families and loved ones, and others have called because they have lost their jobs due to the multitude of COVID-related mandates and restrictions.
Canadians need unity, not division. Overcoming the crises and unprecedented challenges Canadians face today should start with the members of the House embracing the mantles of leadership, setting aside partisan interests and embracing national interests on behalf of Canadians. United we can learn from our past. United we can adapt to overcome the realities of COVID-19. United we can start reclaiming our economy, help Canadians get back to work and start paying off the national debt. United we can start to restore connections and mental health eroded by two years of restrictions and isolation. United we can rebuild the confidence of Canadians in their Parliament and their country. United we can build a better Canada.
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