Government Operations Committee on April 29th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Next on our list is Ms. Vignola, but I was going to stop at 1:30 for a washroom break. We're at 1:29, but we'll move up for one minute. We'll suspend for three or four minutes to allow everyone to make use of a quick rest.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We are back in session. Thank you for allowing the break.

Mrs. Vignola, the floor is yours, please, on the amendment.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much. I'll be brief.

I agree with the amendment. I completely understand my colleague Mr. Perkins when he says that the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology already has a lot to do, including the study of a bill. That study should go on until December.

That said, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates also has a great deal to do. We have a number of studies on the table. Some of them have gone on for too long, and we should be presenting those reports as soon as possible.

As for the amendment, I agree because we would be letting the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology handle its business. In terms of time constraints, it's the same thing for us. Even if we did decide to do the study proposed in the main motion, it would be quite a while before we could start it.

Just before Christmas, in November and December, we discussed the subject of the main motion over four or five meetings. We're repeating ourselves. It's Groundhog Day, and unfortunately the groundhog isn't predicting an early spring.

So I'd like us to come to an agreement quickly and not take five meetings to do it. That would be too long.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Chair, we're still on the amendment. Is that correct?

You know, I think this is worthy of a study. To echo Mrs. Vignola's comments, OGGO is currently preoccupied with other topics.

I would love to see us get to a report on the rural postal delivery study that we're currently conducting. We're still waiting for the president of Canada Post to come to share some insights with the committee.

The intention here is to send it off to INDU and have them decide whether they want to conduct a study. In my view, the best way to go about it would be to invite the relevant ministers, the labour unions and the companies involved to find out whether there's a justification for making these contracts public.

I do think that comes with a degree of risk, as has been mentioned by my colleagues. At the same time, the questions about Canadian jobs are valid ones, and I think they deserve a thorough airing before the committee.

I would prefer that OGGO not become sort of a catch-all for these emerging issues where we sideline the rest of our work to take on stuff that other committees can't fit into their schedule, because, of course, we have a work plan of our own. In my view, it's better suited at INDU, which is why I made the amendment in the first place.

I'm happy to vote on it. I'm not going to speak at length like some of my colleagues have, but this is an important issue.

See? I was just filibustering until my colleague came into the room.

I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chair, in the hope that we can get to a vote on this amendment to refer it to the industry committee. With that, I'll welcome my colleague, Mr. Masse, who lives quite a bit closer to these investments than I do and who I know has been working very hard on this file at the industry committee, like Mr. Perkins, who I understand also migrated over from the industry committee to OGGO today. I'm sure they'll both have many sage words.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Bachrach. It's nice to see members from other committees being promoted to a more important committee.

I have Mr. Jowhari on the list, and then it's Mr. Perkins.

Go ahead, Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In the spirit of being short and to the point, I support neither the amendment nor the original motion, for a number of reasons.

First of all, there were two versions of the original motion sent to us. I'd like at some point to get clarification on which one of those we're talking about, but the reason I'm not supporting either of them is the fact that we have two members of INDU sitting here, leaving their committee and coming here and trying to move this motion. That tells you that this motion does not have a place in OGGO. That's aside from the work we have.

My biggest concern is this. When we try to bring into public the content of contracts between the Government of Canada and companies that were drafted in confidence and then try to publicize that while the union, the government and the company are working on finalizing and clarifying some of those.... Publicizing this is nothing more than a media show.

As we saw, MP Perkins was out there three minutes before, during the break, and was already passing judgment. This is not about protecting jobs. This is not about getting clarification. This is about getting a two-minute clip, and I think the clip is done.

I think the Conservatives have been successful getting the clip after what happened on Thursday: a historic investment by another amazing auto manufacturer that decided to do that investment in Canada and decided to partner with all levels of government. When stories like that come, what do the Conservatives have to do? They have to create some type of diversion. This is another example of it.

Aside from all of that, fundamentally, publicizing and asking for documents and reviewing in public or in private—it doesn't matter—the content of a contract that was drafted and was signed is wrong. There are negotiations going on. All three parties are at the table. All three parties, especially the union, have said that they're working on resolving some of the potential areas that they need clarification on. It's ongoing. Publicizing this is not the right place. We don't do negotiations. We should never do negotiations in public, especially through the media and all of that. I'll be opposing the amendment as well as the main motion.

For clarification, Mr. Chair, could you tell us which one of the two versions of the motion Mr. Genuis has put forward that we're looking at? I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Sure. There's just one motion. It was sent out as two separate motions, emailed out to the committee.

Mr. Genuis stated that he was introducing the first one, which is the one that starts with, “In regards to recent announcements of EV battery”, and ends with, “That information related to the above specific areas not available in the contract...”. It was just the one that he tabled.

Next on the list is Mr. Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm pleased to speak on the amendment to Mr. Genuis's motion.

I was struck by some of the things MP Kusmierczyk said. He may not have thought we were listening, but we were. I was particularly struck by the fact that he said his community has been through hell in the last eight years. I can understand why, with this Liberal government, his community been through hell in the last eight years. I would just mention that most Canadians have—

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I don't appreciate Mr. Perkins putting words in my mouth that I did not speak. If he could take that back, I'd appreciate it, especially on an issue as important as this.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order, Chair.

I don't appreciate Mr. Kusmierczyk not knowing that not appreciating something is not a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you.

Contrary to what MP Kusmierczyk said, INDU is not doing a study on this issue. I don't know why he keeps saying it. Perhaps he was having some challenges with the Internet connection when I was speaking earlier to it, when I said that INDU is in the middle of Bill C-27—the government's bill on privacy and artificial intelligence—and doing clause-by-clause to 256 amendments that have been proposed, all of them substantive, including the 55 amendments from the broken bill that the government proposed to its own legislation. There is no ongoing study of this, and it's misleading to say that, even though he heard me say it earlier.

The reason we're here is because this isn't me, this is the union, the Canada's Building Trades Unions, saying that this is happening. Let me get into some specifics, since apparently the Liberals missed the point on the $50-billion subsidy that they should be Canadian jobs if you're going to subsidize. Here's what the union is saying. They said LG has instructed Jeil and Daejin—they are subcontractors on employment—to use eligible Korean nationals and Mexican nationals who could qualify for a certain work visa on the site, and even told them to seek out refugee claimants in Canada who could perform the work. This is apparently in an effort to keep their costs low. NextStar is increasingly tapping into two contractors that are using foreign workers to take work originally promised to local contractors. This includes work on multi-million dollar press lines and installing module lines. The CBTU has told folks that they have lots of proof that foreign workers are performing this unspecialized work, and they have unionized members who are unemployed that could be doing this. In fact, after the Prime Minister met with NextStar on March 14, the union actually amped up their hiring of foreign workers after talking to him. I'd be curious as to what was discussed in that meeting that they felt after meeting the Prime Minister they could actually hire more foreign workers for the construction.

And there is no pause going on, as was claimed. That's the reason the union wrote this letter—there is no pause. In fact, they've got to the point where they're frustrated. Even after the threat of going to the media, the union had yet another meeting with management to try to get an MOU, an understanding, on not having foreign replacement workers. These are jobs, just to be clear, that Canadians can be hired for; workers who are available for work but are being replaced by people not from Canada. They're generally known as a foreign person coming in to replace workers in Canada—a foreign replacement worker—and that is what's happening at this plant.

The contract says they can only hire Canadians, or a limited number. I can tell you at one point NextStar said they were going to hire 600 full-time foreign replacement workers in the running of the plant. They also said they would have up to 1,000 foreign replacement workers. That was in the media. They changed their tune once they started to get public pressure by this committee and others.

This is a real issue. It's not something the government says Conservatives are making up. This is the letter from the union. Perhaps they didn't hear it. I could read it again, Mr. Chair, just in case some of the members' earpieces weren't working. I'll leave that.

However, if you don't know this, this is on the Government of Canada's website: material handler for the plant, languages needed, Korean. This is the Government of Canada's own website, and it says who can apply: candidates with or without a valid Canadian work permit. That's on the Government of Canada's website. Do you recognize the logo of NextStar Energy? A general affairs specialist is hardly some specialized worker from Korea who needs to come here. Let's see, it says that as a general affairs specialist, you will be responsible for various aspects of the company's operations, providing administrative and organizational support. Your tasks will be related to the efficient functioning of the office and ensuring smooth daily operations of the company. It also says here, “Responsibilities: office management and organization, correspondence handling and mail management, coordination of meetings and events, administrative support for various departments, document management and archiving, managing office supplies and inventory”.

These are really specialized tools that only Koreans have: “Supporting HR in recruitment and training”; “Building and maintaining positive relationships with vendors and clients”; “Assisting with travel arrangements for employees”; and “Ensuring compliance with safety and company policies”. Requirements include “Experience in a similar role or related field”; “Strong organizational and multitasking skills” and “Excellent verbal and written [skills]”.

They sound like very specialized, unique things that you can only find in South Korea, plus “Fluency in Korean”.

However, that's not all, Mr. Chair.

Here is another general affairs specialist with similar types of things, including more office management, in a separate posting by NextStar. It says that Korean is preferred. For the position of material handler, Korean is an asset. The position of general affairs specialist requires fluency in Korean. The position of electrode quality engineer is bilingual in English and Korean. A module production planner position requires English and Korean proficiency. In quality management systems, global experience is preferred. For a module production technician, the language requirement is reading and writing in English. Hey, we found one! A listing for a cell/electrode quality engineer says, “Bilingual in English [and] Korean”.

It goes on and on and on.

MP Kusmierczyk clearly isn't looking at the job sites when he is making this defence of his government, and I understand why he's doing this. He's embarrassed by the fact that his government didn't think to use the words “employ Canadians” when they made this commitment. He's embarrassed by the fact that the company has said it is going to hire up to 1,000 construction workers who are outside specialists.

Therefore, there will be 600 Canadians and 1,000 foreign workers. I guess it takes 1,000 specialized people to oversee 600 general construction workers. Also, there will be 500 to 600 permanent workers from Korea out of 2,500.

This is not one or two here or there. This is a serious issue. This is $15 billion in taxpayer production subsidies in this plant. This is half a billion dollars in construction costs being paid by the taxpayer. If you're going to do business with the Government of Canada, and you're going to suck all this government taxpayer money—Volkswagen, Stellantis, Northvolt, Honda—you had better be prepared for some public scrutiny. You had better be prepared to prove that you're hiring Canadians.

It's beyond me why the NDP does not want clarity on this. The motion at the industry committee, by the way, for those of you who don't watch the clock, ended an hour ago. That's why people are here. That motion was only to have the ministers appear. It wasn't to actually have the contract—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Order, please.

Mr. Perkins, please continue.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It wasn't there to have the contract released. I'd love to have the union come.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

You voted against that. I think you blocked the union from coming. You voted against the province. I've got an amendment.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Let's have them here.

I have the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Perkins, please continue.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Why won't you release the contracts? What's wrong with them? Why are you afraid to release the job conditions in the contracts? It is because there is no requirement for Canadian jobs in those contracts. Again, I look around the table, and only one person here at this table has read the contracts, and it isn't anyone on the government side or Mr. Kusmierczyk, who's sitting wherever he's sitting attending this committee.

Colleagues, I've read the contract, and there is no government commitment or requirement in that contract. I can't tell you what's in it, but I can tell you what's not in it: a commitment that the jobs have to be Canadian. That's why we need to have this done. This is the union saying this stuff is happening. I don't understand why the NDP-Liberals don't want to get clarity on the contracts. Why don't they want to get clarity on the contracts and release them?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, Mr. Perkins, I'm going to interrupt. We're running out of resources because of the continual interruptions, so I'm going to suspend for question period. The clerk is going to contact everyone for the continuation of this meeting after that.

We are suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I call the meeting back to order.

Before we go back to Mr. Perkins, I want to go through the new, additional requirements for our microphones to avoid feedback.

I would remind meeting participants in the room of the following important measures to prevent disruptive and potentially harmful audio feedback incidents that can cause injuries.

All in-person participants are reminded to keep their earpieces away from the microphones at all times, which I haven't been doing.

As indicated in the communiqué from the Speaker to all members on Monday, April 29, the following measures have been taken to help prevent audio feedback incidents.

All earpieces have been replaced by a model that greatly reduces the probability of audio feedback. The new earpieces, replacing the old grey ones, are black. Please make sure that you only have the approved black earpiece.

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The room layout has been adjusted, as everyone can see, to increase the distance between the microphones and reduce the chance of feedback from an ambient earpiece.

These measures are being taken to prevent injury to our very valued and very important interpreters.

We are resuming debate on the amendment.

Mr. Perkins, go ahead, please.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome back, everyone.

I would just remind those who are tuning in for perhaps the first time that what we're discussing here is that the Conservatives put forward a motion this morning to release the contracts with the main players, for which the government has signed large taxpayer subsidies for EV battery assembly plants, mainly for the assembly of parts that are made in China for Volkswagen, Stellantis and Northvolt. The latest one is with Honda, although I understand that it is an MOU; it's not a formal contract the way the others are.

For a while, we've had a number of players, both from within the company and from the Korean government, stating that there are two phases. There's the construction phase for the Stellantis contract in Windsor and for the Volkswagen contract in St. Thomas, Ontario. Then there is what's called a production subsidy contract, a separate contract that subsidizes the production of every battery produced in those plants. For the production subsidy, for every battery, the taxpayer will pay a certain percentage of the cost.

As we know, in the public statements the Liberal government has made over the last year or so on some of these contracts, they've claimed that both the construction jobs and the jobs that will be permanent in the plants will be held by Canadians. This process around the Stellantis plant actually started in the fall when the South Korean ambassador went to Windsor and said they were trying to make sure there was room to house 1,600 workers involved in either the construction of the facility or the permanent running of it. Those are jobs for workers from South Korea, not Canada. That's out of a total of about 2,300 construction jobs and supposedly 2,500 jobs at the Stellantis plant once it opens. The cost of those plants is quite high. An estimated $15 billion of taxpayer money will be going into production subsidies for the Stellantis plant in Windsor once it starts producing batteries. Half a billion dollars of taxpayer money is going to go into the construction of that particular facility. In the case of Volkswagen, $778 million is going into the construction.

Members of the government have accused us at various times, whether in the House of Commons or in this committee, of making this stuff up, but this all started with the South Korean ambassador saying that they needed a place to put 1,600 people. This isn't something we made up; it's indeed what he said. On November 16, 2023—and this is a quote from a newspaper article—“Chief Bellaire and members of the Windsor Police Service were honoured to be visited by His Excellence, Ambassador Woongsoon Lim and his colleagues from the Republic of Korea,” who said, “With the new [LG Energy] Solutions battery plant being built, we expect approximately 1,600 South Koreans traveling to work and live in our community in 2024.” So this isn't one, as was claimed initially by the government, or just a few, as some of the Liberal MPs have claimed.

I'll give you this quote from one of the local business development people that goes back as far as August 18, 2023:

LG asked us to put together a group of local developers and investors to present their needs for the next one to three years, said Invest WindsorEssex vice president of investment attraction and strategic initiative, Joe Goncalves.

I quote Joe Goncalves:

They're expecting from 600 to 1,000 workers will be coming to set up equipment. Another 300 to 500 people will be coming from LG to run the facility here. The specialized workforce was needed to set up the half-dozen buildings on the NextStar battery plant site and they will come from South Korea. There will be a lot of need for housing. They wanted to let the community know early what the numbers would be and the types of housing and workers.

I don't know about you, but over the years, off and on in my interaction with governments—and I did serve for a few years in the dark ages for the foreign minister of Canada in the Mulroney government—I never met, or rarely met, a diplomat who freelanced who went out on his own making stuff up. They usually went at the behest of the government and businesses.

For those who said that this is nothing, you say that more than $15 billion of taxpayer money is going into an auto plant where, of the 2,300 construction workers and a similar number of supposedly permanent workers once it's open, 1,600 of them are going to be coming from South Korea. That's what started this whole controversy last year.

The government disputed that, and we began a process in December in this committee, which examines government expenditures, to ask for the release of those contracts. The reason we asked for it is that construction had already started. The money had already started being spent in the Stellantis case on construction, so half a billion dollars of taxpayer money was already going into that. Officials from the Korean government were saying something different from what the government was saying publicly.

The head of NextStar at one point verified that those were sort of the numbers. It would be up to 600 people to 1,000 people coming in from Korea to oversee 600 local construction workers. Again, in the House, one of the Liberal ministers said that there would only be one work permit issued. Subsequently, we learned that, in addition to what the ambassador had said, on the ground things were clearly much different from what was being said by the Liberal government about what was happening in the Stellantis construction.

The letter dated April 10, not that long ago, to the Prime Minister from Sean Strickland, the executive director of the Canada's Building Trades Unions, condemned the Prime Minister for the lax contract that was allowing this to happen.

In fact, in his letter, he wrote, “We are writing to request your personal intervention”. Prior to this letter, the Prime Minister had had a visit there. “We are writing to ask for your personal intervention to resolve the ongoing use of international workers in the construction of the Stellantis NextStar EV Battery Plant in Windsor.”

They went on to say that they have been negotiating, talking and trying to work with Stellantis to get an MOU to ensure that good, local Canadian tradespeople were being hired for the construction. Their responsibility is the construction phase, but their best efforts had not borne any fruit.

In fact, he said, “Despite our best efforts at negotiating a resolution, without public or media commentary”. In other words, the union went to Stellantis in good conscience, and all due respect, and said they should have a private conversation to make sure that what they were seeing didn't continue in the hiring of workers who were doing non-specialty jobs and coming in from abroad when, according to the union, 180 tradespeople in their union who are unemployed and looking for work could qualify for these jobs. They said they were not going to the media. They were just going to try to have a legitimate, good business discussion.

In spite of that goodwill, “LG and Stellantis continue to use international workers through subcontractors for work which our members are ready and able to perform”. It went on to say that, as I mentioned, “180 local skilled trades workers in Essex, Kent region, millwrights and ironworkers are underemployed, and in some cases unemployed, and available to perform this work. In fact, Canadian workers are being replaced by international workers at an increasing pace on work that had previously been assigned to Canadian workers.”

What the union is saying here is that there were actually Canadian tradespeople working on the site, but they've been replaced by people from outside the country, otherwise known as foreign replacement workers displacing Canadian unionized trade skills people in helping to build this plant.

They say that, as of April 10, “Fifty additional international workers are expected to arrive and begin work that was previously indicated would be performed by Canadian workers.” That's right in the letter to the Prime Minister. Apparently, what the government is saying publicly is not what's happening on the ground. The union went on to say, “Canadian workers are being sidelined without consequence.” There's no penalty. Government's putting half a billion dollars of taxpayer money into this construction. It's okay if you take Canadian tradespeople out of the construction of this and replace them with people from South Korea. I'm even told, through sources through the union, that some of them who are actually on the ground are coming from Mexico and not South Korea and replacing in not specialty jobs. These jobs are for forklift operators or general construction. They're replacing them.

In fact, the union went on to make the accusation that, “This is a slap in the face to Canadian workers and utterly unacceptable”. This is particularly, as they recognize, when “shareholders stand to benefit from more than $15 billion” of tax incentives from the Canadian government.

Just so the people watching understand what that tax incentive is, it's in response to a bill that President Biden passed through the U.S. Congress called the Inflation Reduction Act, which actually spends a lot of money. Spending money doesn't actually reduce inflation. It increases it. The misnomer of the bill aside, it sets out the subsidy that the U.S. taxpayer would pay for battery assembly of EV batteries in the United States. It sets out that any batteries made between now, when a contract is signed, last year....

I shouldn't say “made”. They're not made. They're assembled. Over 90% of the parts for EV batteries currently come from China, helping out that economy. They get assembled here, in Ontario, and then are subsidized between now and the end of 2029. Can you guess by how much? How much do you think it would be reasonable for the taxpayer to pay companies that have more revenue than the Government of Canada and subsidize the assembly of Chinese battery parts in an EV battery in Canada? I can tell you. I'm seeing puzzled faces around the committee table. The answer is 100%, if you can believe it.

That's between now and the end of 2029.

Some things in life.... Occasionally, somebody asks me a question and I say, twist my rubber arm. I think, twist my rubber arm, why don't you come here and set up a battery assembly plant where you can bring in foreign replacement workers, and the Canadian taxpayer will pay 100% of the cost of that assembly. That's a tough business decision to make when that means that the battery—and I don't know if people watching understand this—in an EV takes up 30% to 40% of the manufacturing cost of any EV. In other words, between now and the end of 2029, the great negotiating skills of this Liberal government see 100% of those costs being borne by the taxpayer, meaning 100% profit for these auto companies that are larger in revenue than the Government of Canada.

Now, if that's not enough, I know in the Volkswagen case, for example—I'm not sure that this is the case in Stellantis—Volkswagen doesn't assemble any cars in Canada and has no plan to. So Volkswagen's going to put all those batteries on a truck and ship them to their plant in Tennessee, assemble them there, and sell the cars in the United States.

Let's put it another way. The Canadian taxpayers are making sure that Volkswagen gets a clear 40% profit on the sale of their EVs, paid for by the taxpayer in Canada, for cars that will be assembled in the United States and sold in the United States. That's a hundred per cent. Now, not to be outdone, of course, they didn't want to take it too far, so in 2030 the contracts in the IRA, which these mirror, makes that 30%, down to 75%. So there's a bargain. Volkswagen and Stellantis only have to cough up 25% of the cost after five or six years of manufacturing batteries. After all of that, they then do 25% of the cost and then wait for it in 2030, 2031, when it's 50%.

We're shortly getting to a parity thing here, and in 2032, finally, they're paying 75%, but the Canadian taxpayer is still paying 25% of the cost of those batteries. And somehow the Liberal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry thinks that he negotiated a great deal. He thinks that, if it wasn't for his efforts, Volkswagen and Stellantis wouldn't have been willing to come here to have the Government of Canada pay 100% of the cost of assembling the batteries. They must have been asking for 110% of the cost, and he got them down to 100%. Way to go. That is the basis of this so, even in that extreme, we've got the union writing and saying, even in that extreme you don't have to employ Canadians. So they say, on the ground, the real experience—not as some of the local MPs have claimed—the union is putting in this letter is that these are not about knowledge transfer, these construction jobs, or specialized knowledge. The union says, “It's a brazen displacement of Canadian workers in favour of international workers by major international corporations thumbing their noses at both the Government of Canada, taxpayers, and our skills trade workers. For our members in Essex-Kent, the current state of affairs is intolerable. As such, the Canadian Executive Board has authorized us to use all necessary measures required to remedy the situation.”

So what happened after this letter went to the Prime Minister and they started to kick up a fuss and threatened to go to the media? LG and Stellantis said, let's sit down. Maybe we could have another chat. My understanding is they did and it resulted in what kind of MOU between Stellantis and the Building Trades Unions? My understanding is none. Zero. So the issue continues because the government's now claiming that the one job is now 72 jobs only, so it's okay.

As it escalates, maybe the government can explain what the acceptable level of foreign replacement workers would be that would justify this. It was one. Apparently, when that didn't turn out to be true, they decided it would be be 72. However, the union says in their letter that there are another 50 coming.

Now, let me understand what's going on in terms of this. If you don't think the union is right and you think that, for some reason, the union has an agenda that's different from the Liberal government, there are these job postings all over the place.

These are not specialized jobs. Material handler, Korean—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Mr. Perkins.

Mr. Masse, go ahead.