Thank you very much for having me, and thanks very much for accommodating me via video conference.
I've been asked to speak about changes to the Investment Canada Act in the omnibus budget bill.
My union's perspective on foreign investment has very much been shaped by our recent experiences with multinational corporations. Specifically, we represent the employees of the former Inco, Stelco, and Alcan. All of these Canadian companies were taken over by foreign companies that made Investment Canada Act commitments. Shortly after these takeovers occurred, the new owners, Vale, U.S. Steel, and Rio Tinto, demanded huge concessions and pushed very aggressively for those concessions from their Canadian workers.
I would draw the committee's particular attention to the situation with Rio Tinto, because the former Alcan employees continue to be locked out in Alma, Quebec, as we speak. Rio Tinto is trying to replace them with contractors who would be paid half as much.
The United Steelworkers union is of the view that the current Investment Canada Act is not very effective in ensuring a net benefit for Canadians. We also believe that the Harper government has not been very effective in holding companies to their Investment Canada Act commitments.
Moving on to the omnibus bill itself, the main change it makes to the Investment Canada Act is to allow the minister to disclose reasons for accepting or rejecting proposed foreign takeovers. We believe this increase in transparency is a step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough.
First of all, the act would allow disclosure, but it would not require disclosure. The minister would still have a great deal of discretion to withhold information from the Canadian public. We believe that it's actually quite important to disclose not just the reasons for decisions but also the commitments foreign companies have made to gain approval under the Investment Canada Act. That disclosure would allow Canadians to hold investors to those commitments and to know whether the commitments have been violated.
More fundamentally, we believe that the Investment Canada Act review process needs to be opened up before a decision has been made. It's not just a matter of transparency about a decision after the fact. We need to really open up the process to allow workers and workers organizations that are likely to be affected by these foreign takeovers to actually provide some input and some response to proposed takeovers.
Moving a little bit beyond the omnibus budget bill itself, the government has indicated that it plans to make another change by regulation, and that change is to raise the threshold for proposed takeovers to be reviewed under the Investment Canada Act to $1 billion.
Our concern about this is that we believe recent evidence and recent experience argues for greater scrutiny of proposed foreign takeovers, not less scrutiny. Raising the threshold would basically have the effect of exempting a whole new tranche of foreign takeovers from any scrutiny at all under the Investment Canada Act. We would see this increase in the threshold as a move in the wrong direction.
To summarize, we're very much concerned about foreign takeovers. We believe the omnibus bill takes sort of a baby step in the right direction in the area of transparency but doesn't go nearly far enough in improving the Investment Canada Act. We would also note that outside the omnibus budget bill, the government has stated that by regulation, it intends to make a change that we see as a step in the wrong direction.
I would also like to briefly respond to a point my colleague from the C.D. Howe Institute made about the need—