International Trade committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. It is an honour and a pleasure for me to address the members of the committee today. My remarks this afternoon will focus on the logic of the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms, or ISDS, and on the choice you members of the committee face as pa

Industry committee  This is a difficult question. In a way, you could say, well, foreign investors can't buy a Canadian company unless that Canadian company has reached a certain scale, thereby forcing investors and entrepreneurs to reach that scale, but that also imposes great limits on entrepren

Industry committee  I mean, this is a broader debate, one for which I'm not sure we have a lot of time. It takes us outside today's meeting, in a way. One issue, for instance, is government funding for R and D. When governments give funding for companies, in terms of tax credits or other things, to

Industry committee  The issue of industrial policy was mentioned earlier, where in a way we would have broader, more comprehensive strategies with targeted sectors or types of technologies, such as artificial intelligence or things like that. We would monitor that and decide what do we do to promote

Industry committee  Probably even less. The answer is that it should not matter what the valuation of a company is, whether we are in COVID or not. I think if we deem something of national interest or national security, including the inability to provide ourselves with certain goods, whether it's s

Industry committee  The big issue is whether we actually follow up on these things and whether we hold these companies to what they actually promised. That, to me, is the crucial thing.

Industry committee  I'm not an expert who has studied the Rona acquisition. I was more making an issue about what is strategic and what is not. I believe that you raised the issue of job creation and what happens after an investment. You mentioned a number of them that have ultimately been failure

Industry committee  Daniel, do you want to take that one?

Industry committee  Yes. Obviously, the issue of trying to define what is strategic is that, in my view, most of what we would consider strategic probably falls under national security, whether, as Daniel mentioned, it's technology or whether it's infrastructure, and we can think about energy, ports

Industry committee  I would say so. I think maybe we can revise the guidelines. Maybe, again, companies like transparency; I agree with the idea that we should be as transparent as possible in our decisions and also in our guidelines—i.e., “Here are the expectations.” Now, if we want to stipulate c

Industry committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank you, committee members, for inviting me here today. I'd like to discuss three topics related to today's meeting. The first has to do with the stability of the Investment Canada Act. The second topic is the definition of a strategic Canadia

Industry committee  Certainly. Is this better?

Industry committee  The act has a dual purpose. First, it encourages investment in Canada, which in turn promotes economic growth and job creation. Second, it seeks to protect national security. This is a more recent development. It's important to note that the act can only achieve its first object

International Trade committee  I can start. This is ongoing thinking, but I've already mentioned this idea that—as was mentioned in the panel review for heritage—if we were to treat social platforms as broadcasters and wanted to regulate their content, for instance, and make them liable for what they publish

International Trade committee  It's possible. For now, the agreement provides that privacy rules apply to personal data in the private sector. However, if we were to change the rules and further constrain the transfer of data from Canada to the United States, American companies seeking access to the data could