Evidence of meeting #9 for Canada-China Relations in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was companies.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Mr. Boulerice, you are out of time. I did stop the clock, by the way, so that you could repeat your question.
We will now go to Mr. Chong for five minutes or less.
9:20 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll split my time with Mr. Genuis if that's okay with you.
Mr. Chair, there have been consultations among the various members of the committee. If you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent to adopt the following motion:
That the Chair be directed to present the following to the House forthwith: That the committee express its support for the brave and courageous Chinese protesters who are fighting for their fundamental human rights and freedoms of association and expression, and call on Beijing to respect the right to peaceful assembly and avoid a repeat of the Tiananmen square massacre of 5 June 1989, and request the government respond to this report under Standing Order 109.
9:20 p.m.
Liberal
9:20 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
9:20 p.m.
Liberal
9:20 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
9:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
They are all willing to say yes, Mr. Chong.
(Motion agreed to)
Thank you
9:20 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Mr. Chong.
Sam and Aileen, it's great to see you both. Thank you for your presence here, but, more importantly, thank you for your work on such a vital issue.
I think it's important to underline how this issue—products made by slave labour being imported into Canada, and Canadian pension dollars, or other dollars from Canada, being invested in companies that are part of repression in China—is fundamentally not a new issue. This is an issue both of you have been working on, and sounding the alarm on, for years. We've discussed it in Parliament and various committees.
I'm pulling up a 2019 question by my friend Mr. Kmiec, who's sitting here beside me. He asked the government specifically about CPPIB investments in companies that are complicit in crimes related to the Uighur genocide. It was three and a half years ago, at least, that we raised these issues in Parliament. I think the extent and horrors of the situation called, then and now, for an ambitious action plan from the government. We continue to talk about it and hear some of the right words from government members, but the fact is that we haven't seen any kind of action, or action plan, around this.
We talked a bit about Bill S-211. That's a private member's bill. It was proposed by an independent senator, championed by various members, and sponsored by a backbench member of the governing party, but we haven't seen any kind of government legislation, efforts to negotiate new international agreements, or substantive proposals. There's been a lack of government response and ambition in trying to address this very significant problem. It's great that you're here and we're talking about this, but I think it's far past time that the government take some action on this.
When it comes to the CPPIB specifically, the response to my honourable friend, three and a half years ago, was that CPPIB operates independently, at arm's-length, and that the government trusts its decision-making. The response to questions I've posed to directors at the CPPIB has been, “Well, we operate under framework legislation. We're constrained by that framework legislation. That defines the factors we should or shouldn't take into consideration.” There is a bit of finger pointing both ways going on here, but we desperately need some action. I think leadership has to start with the government.
Could you comment specifically on what kinds of concrete actions you would like to see the Government of Canada take, as soon as possible, to address the unacceptable importation of goods involved in slave labour, or investment in companies involved in this?
9:25 p.m.
Author, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Hong Kong Watch and Co-Founder and Co-Chair, New Diplomacy UK, As an Individual
I think, first of all, that a piece of legislation mandating a regular blacklist should be published for investors, restricting investment in China—a summary piece of legislation that defines ESG and, in particular, mandates the CPPIB to integrate the ESG definition, as set out by lawmakers, into all of its investments.
9:25 p.m.
Co-Founder and Trustee, Hong Kong Watch
Also, there should be country analysis attached to the Indo-Pacific strategy. I think that is very important. Lay out the potential losses, when there are conflicts.
9:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you. I am quite confident that—
9:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Mr. Chair, I have been timing. I'll defer to you, but I don't think I quite was.
9:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I think there would be support among a majority of parties, at least, in the House for some kind of legislation that would establish certain moral guardrails when it comes to CPPIB investments. I'd love to see that legislation.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I note the “ish”, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.
The question goes to Ms. Calverley first.
Thanks to both of you for your presentations.
Ms. Calverley, from about 2019 into 2021, the issue of Hong Kong was front and centre. It was capturing front-page attention in this country and other countries. Now, we'd be lucky to find the issue of Hong Kong covered on page A20, let's say, of The Globe and Mail or other newspapers.
Do you worry about that? How do you see that? Certainly, with respect to China, the focus is on Taiwan, at the moment, for obvious reasons. There's a danger that we'll lose sight—either as parliamentarians or within Canadian society, generally—of the importance of the issue of Hong Kong. I think there's something generally lost there, as far as Canada's engagement with China is concerned.
9:30 p.m.
Co-Founder and Trustee, Hong Kong Watch
I think I worry, and I also don't worry too much. I worry, of course, that, like what you said, people will forget about Hong Kong, but I think that for the value of the protest cycle.... In 2014, there was a lot of focus, and then it died down. Then, in 2019, it came back, five years later. Between 2016 and 2017-18, there was no news among the media and parliamentarians hardly talked about it, but that doesn't mean that the whole movement was destroyed. I think it's just a different momentum, and I believe the focus will be back to Hong Kong one day.
Right now, of course, we're also doing a lot to get attention from the media and also to get support from parliamentarians. For example, there's the “lifeboat” scheme that is helping those who need to escape the repression to escape from Hong Kong. That's an area we're working on. We get bits and pieces about the lifeboat scheme from the media—for example, the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail—but of course, on the harder issues, I think, to talk about Hong Kong in the last year, possibly we get four to six pieces of news about Hong Kong.
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
My last question goes to Mr. Goodman. We heard in the previous panel, sir—and I'm not sure if you were able to follow it—from a witness that Germany offers the most progressive kind of legislation with respect to supply chains. If you're familiar with the German law, do you have the same point of view?
9:30 p.m.
Author, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Hong Kong Watch and Co-Founder and Co-Chair, New Diplomacy UK, As an Individual
I'm not aware of the details of the law, but I did hear the previous witness, who said that this law will come online next year. I'm not sure how effective that will be. I guess it will depend on the positioning of the German government. I think that if you look at the German government—I was in Berlin two weeks ago—you see that they're very divided on this issue of China, and they're having a very active and healthy debate about these investment matters that we've discussed here.
At the same time, one of the things they're looking at is cutting investment incentives for German companies investing in China, which I think is an important issue as well and is something that deserves further consideration from this committee on how it can be replicated in Canada.
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you very much. I should have specified that it “would offer”, but thank you for that, Mr. Goodman.
Those are my questions, Chair.
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos. We'll now go to Mr. Bergeron for two and a half minutes.
9:30 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Given the warning signs, which have been clearly visible for a number of months, if not a number of years, what do you think can lead investment funds and pension funds to want to continue investing in China?
9:30 p.m.
Author, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Hong Kong Watch and Co-Founder and Co-Chair, New Diplomacy UK, As an Individual
Well, I think the Chinese government is very good at co-opting businessmen who go to China. They're very good at rolling out the red carpet.
I think a lot of investment funds follow some of the big leaders in the field, like BlackRock, which has been the sounding cry, really, for further investment in China. In fact, BlackRock, up until last year, was saying that the weighting in the emerging markets was too small and they were actually trying to have a bigger weighting. I think there's a risk where a lot of investors are being sucked up because some of the leading investors clearly have quite a pro-business sentiment when it comes to China.
I also think that people want to deal with the China that they imagine, rather than the China that is the reality, and I think that at this point in time we need to realize that Xi Jinping and China and the investment environment in China have fundamentally changed.