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Member of Parliament

Rick Perkins

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • South Shore—St. Margarets
  • Nova Scotia
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $136,927.65

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23
Mr. Rick Perkins
  • Nov/22/23 4:34:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the support from the member for Kingston and the Islands. I know that he loves to hear from me. I am disappointed in the member for Winnipeg North. There seems to be a division in the caucus on this issue. As I was saying, our shadow minister for labour would normally lead off on this bill in second reading, but he is back home because he has had a death in his family. As the shadow minister for industry, I have been asked to lead off. I would like to lead off by following up on the point that the member for Sarnia—Lambton made during the minister's intervention that the bill does not cover the Government of Canada, but the industries of the Government of Canada. I appreciate that the member is sticking to his knitting, but it is not unusual for the government to amend multiple bills or do omnibus bills if it truly believes in something. I think this is a bit like the shoemaker's children in that it is asking private sector companies regulated by the federal government to abide by a law that it is not asking public servants to abide by. On the issue of replacement workers, the minister spoke quite at length, as is his right as the lead speaker and sponsor minister on the issue of replacement workers, so I would like to speak to replacement workers. We know that one of the most critical things now is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has indicated that a record subsidy to three large multinational auto companies has been brought in by the government. It is already $6 billion over its budget, or its claim of what the subsidy is, to over $43 billion over a six-year period for some of the largest foreign multinationals there are. In doing so, the government has refused to release what those contracts are. The reason that pertains to replacement workers is that one of those multinationals has already sent their ambassador from South Korea, who I do not believe is freelancing, as I do not think ambassadors for South Korea freelance. The ambassador was in Windsor meeting with senior officials, the mayor, the chief of police, and telling everyone that Windsor had to get prepared for 1,600 replacement workers for the Stellantis plant replacing the Canadians that the minister said would be hired. I will throw out what the Minister of Industry said. To be clear, it was not the Minister of Labour, as I do not believe that the Minister of Labour has spoken on this. He may have outside the House but not inside the House. However, the Minister of Industry said, “Today's announcement is great news for Canadian jobs” and the Prime Minister echoed the same thing. He said, “By working together, we are creating thousands of new jobs, making a difference in the lives of people now and making sure that future generations have a clean environment to live in.” I think that folks who heard that announcement thought that the Prime Minister was talking about southwest Ontario and Windsor, but it turns out he was talking about working together to create thousands of new jobs for people in South Korea, using $15 billion, in that instance, of taxpayer money. As our leader has said, there are 15 million households—
574 words
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