- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- South Shore—St. Margarets
- Nova Scotia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,927.65
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the speech by the hon. member, and it started with a false premise. The hon. member seems to think he is an expert going back to the Investment Canada Act's introduction on how many investments have been approved or not approved through the process. Of course, he said none, which is completely false. Even in the Harper government, just briefly, there were examples. PotashCorp was rejected by the Harper government, as were the sales of the Canadarm to U.S. interests and Radarsat. Thus, the member should do his homework a little more before he speaks about those issues.
However, on the bill itself, could the member explain why he thinks the government believes that cabinet should not be involved in the decision-making process in any acquisition of a corporation by a foreign entity?
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Madam Speaker, I will do something unusual and ask a question about the bill, unlike the Liberal members, who seem to want to talk about everything but the bill.
The bill is about returning cabinet decision-making to the Investment Canada Act process. I know the hon. member is a former international trade minister and knows more than probably anyone on the government side in the House about cabinet decision-making and the role and importance of it. Without it, we have had poor decisions by the now VP for Rogers, former member Navdeep Bains of the government, who basically said that anything China wanted to buy China could have without a national security review.
I wonder if the member would enlighten the House as to the proper way a cabinet decision-making process should be when a hostile state like China is trying to acquire the assets of our country.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to give the hon. member an opportunity to comment on the issue we are debating, which he did extensively. A lot of the questions from the government and the NDP are not about what we are debating today, which is whether cabinet should be included in the decision-making process.
I would like the member to comment in particular about the members from the Bloc, who seem to think it is okay for cabinet to be eliminated and therefore have no Quebec input on acquisitions made of Quebec companies. Does he thinks it is hypocritical of the Bloc to not express itself on whether it thinks cabinet decision-making should be there in any foreign takeover of a Quebec company?
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Madam Speaker, I know my colleague from Calgary Centre has done a lot of good work in the area of mergers and acquisitions throughout his career. I would like him to comment on what we are actually debating today that some members in the NDP-Liberal coalition do not seem to want to talk about, which is the removal, in the bill, of cabinet from the decision-making process.
Given that my colleague has sat at C-suite tables and board tables, and I know he understands how cabinet works, does he not think decision-making processes in the area of foreign takeovers would be much enhanced by the collective decision-making of a management team, a board or a cabinet as opposed to letting one lone minister make the decisions?
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Mr. Speaker, he still has not answered the question. Yes or no, will he vote to return cabinet decision-making to the Investment Canada process? Why does he think he is so important he is allowed to ignore his colleagues in that role in making those decisions?
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Mr. Speaker, it is nothing but a bunch of myths from the Liberal minister. He bragged earlier that he had dropped the threshold; he did not. I brought that motion in, and Liberal MPs voted against it. I brought in the amendment to the committee that put bribery and corruption in. Liberal MPs voted against it. The only reason it is through is because the opposition put it in.
The whole point of report stage is to allow for further amendments. The minister has ignored for a half hour the call to say yes or no to whether he thinks cabinet should be eliminated from the process of reviewing foreign investments. His bill would remove cabinet from that process and put it solely in the minister's hands.
Why, for a half hour, has he decided not to answer the question? Will Liberals support our amendment at report stage to return cabinet decision-making to the Investment Canada Act, yes or no?
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Mr. Speaker, my question for the minister is in relation to the amendment we are debating now at report stage. We are dealing with section 15, which basically takes cabinet out of the beginning of the process and says the minister only has to go back to cabinet at the end of the process if a national security review says there is a problem. If not, the minister does not have to go back.
Does the minister not believe that we get better decision-making by having all cabinet colleagues involved in the decision-making, not just an individual industry minister making that choice?
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Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the parliamentary secretary's remarks on the Investment Canada Act changes, and I would like to ask a question. What we are debating here today is the report stage and some amendments. Conservatives have put forward a particular amendment that would restore cabinet decision-making in reviewing foreign investment. This bill would actually take that out of section 15.
I wonder whether the parliamentary secretary thinks that cabinet decision-making is of value, or whether we should just have a lot of little independent ministers who could run the roost over making individual decisions on whether an investment is good for Canada or not, without the input of their colleagues, including their colleagues from Quebec or other parts of the country?
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Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the speech by my friend from Halifax, the parliamentary secretary, and it is interesting to note that the Minister of Industry did not do a security review on the purchase by Hytera, a state-owned enterprise of China, a telecommunications business. He did not do a security review of China's takeover of our only producing lithium mine. He did not do any security checks on the RCMP buying telecommunications equipment from a Chinese state-owned enterprise. This bill would remove the cabinet from any discussion and involvement in making those decisions at the beginning. Only at the end, and only if the minister decides to take it there, does this bill actually involve the cabinet.
When the Minister of Industry has made such poor decisions on our national security over the last eight years, why does the member think it would be great to remove the cabinet and just leave it up to a minister who clearly does not get it?
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Madam Speaker, the government for which the member was in cabinet actually approved two acquisitions. One was Hytera acquiring Norsat, and the other was a Chinese state-owned enterprise acquiring a mining entity that has 65% of Canada's lithium production. The government approved those without a national security review. There is nothing in this bill that would change that, especially if the minister does not have to go to cabinet.
I would like the member's views on that.
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Madam Speaker, I know that the hon. member has been a cabinet minister, so I would like to ask her this question in the context of her time in cabinet.
This bill would remove the minister's responsibility to go to cabinet to actually seek agreement to do a national security review and would remove them from having to report back to cabinet on that, unless they deem it to be a national security review.
Do you think that removing cabinet from the process of determining that will help, because in the past, this government, which I think you were in the cabinet for—
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his work over the years on the industry committee and that particular report. It is a very good report. I would encourage all members to read it. I support all of the recommendations in that report.
I think we can work together when Bill C-34 comes to the industry committee, to work on that transparency. Reasons why an acquisition is reviewed and reasons for accepting or rejecting it by the cabinet, the Governor in Council and the minister are things that should be published with the decision each time. That way, Canadians would be able to fully understand the rationale behind what sometimes look like very odd things, such as when we lose very important Canadian-headquartered businesses to other jurisdictions, particularly when they are, in the case of some acquisitions, countries not as aligned with our goals as we would like.
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