Mr. Chair, this week marks the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and we are currently seeing repression of the democracy movement in Hong Kong. We know that Communist China oppresses minority groups and does not respect human rights.
In spite of this knowledge, the Harper Conservative government signed a lopsided and anti-democratic investment treaty with China in 2012, the Canada-China FIPA. This Conservative deal gave Chinese state-owned corporations extraordinary powers to challenge our democratic decisions through a secretive private tribunal system.
In the years since the FIPA was signed, with no vote in Parliament, Chinese state-owned corporations have been purchasing Canadian assets and resources. These corporations can seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers for the loss of potential profit when our laws and policies get in the way of their profit-taking.
Can the government tell us whether any of these Chinese corporations has threatened to use the anti-democratic investor-state provisions of the FIPA to seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers?