Government Operations Committee on Nov. 27th, 2023

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I just want to address some of the statements made. The Liberal MP moving this amendment said that he opposes this production order because he wants to stick to the facts. This order would get the facts. This production order, if passed, would produce the documents. I don't imagine there's a lot of editorialization in the documents. I'm not sure if the Prime Minister is going to write a cover letter with the documents to put some of the government's spin on it. The contract itself would be the fact, and that should speak for itself. That's the part that's so puzzling here.

They're saying there's misinformation out there. Okay, what's wrong, and who's wrong? The local union rep said that there were qualified Canadian workers who could fill those jobs, but they would be left in the cold as taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers come to fill jobs that should otherwise go to Canadians. Is he wrong? The police representative said that they were asked to prepare for up to 1,600 foreign workers to come in to the Windsor area. Was he wrong? Is the reporter who first cited the number of 1,600 wrong? Is it closer to 1,200, or is it closer to 2,000?

There could very well be some details being discussed publicly that could be off the mark. What better way to ensure that we're all dealing with facts than to get the contract itself and to see exactly how many jobs the Liberal government guaranteed would go to local Canadian qualified unionized workers and how many jobs it allowed the manufacturing company to fill with workers who would come from overseas? Once we get the contract and once we can see it, then we can have a conversation about whether it's letting in too many replacement workers and whether Stellantis needs more. We could actually have a discussion based on the facts once we get the contract in front of us.

This comparison to the production order passed in another committee is totally bogus, because it doesn't count if you can't inform the Canadian people themselves. Basically, what they're doing is like what they've done, by the way, in many other instances where they said they will allow the actual information to be shared with parliamentarians, but they're going to force them to keep it secret. They will to let them look at the contract, but they can't take notes. They can't talk to anybody else about it. They can't inform Canadians as to where their tax dollars are actually going. That's no way to run a government.

Then, I'd like to address the idea that somehow sharing this information with the public would somehow be injurious or would damage the overall deal. The government chose to make Canadians shareholders in this deal by signing this contract. If we put ourselves in the shoes of shareholders in a private sector company—let's take Stellantis as an example—and if we owned shares in Stellantis, we could show up at an AGM, and we could demand to see the details of the contract. We could demand to know what the board of directors had decided to do with our investment dollars. It would only be fair for taxpayers to have the same rights as Stellantis shareholders because taxpayers are the shareholders on the government side of the equation.

Informing Canadians what has happened with their tax dollar should be just as important as Stellantis shareholders knowing what has happened with their investment dollars. Why should the Canadian taxpayers be treated almost as second-class shareholders versus what the shareholders in the private sector company have as their rights? Why should Canadian taxpayers have fewer rights to get to the bottom of this decision than Stellantis shareholders have?

That's what Conservatives are fighting for here. We're fighting to get the facts. We're fighting to protect the interest of tax dollars. If the government is so proud of what it's done, and if it's so sure this is a good deal for Canadians, then it's certainly not acting like it. It's acting like it's embarrassed of this. They're acting like they're afraid of what's going to come to light.

If I were in the shoes of my Liberal counterparts, I would be eager to get this published. In fact, I think my Liberal counterpart actually said he wanted more Canadians to know about this deal. That's great. Let's make sure every Canadian knows every aspect of this deal. Let's publish the contract and—this brings me to the actual amendment itself—let's make sure this motion actually comes to fruition and actually gets results. We've seen too many examples where there have been orders like this that don't include an enforcement mechanism and the government just ignores it.

We've seen them say things. Remember, with the SNC-Lavalin scandal, they said they were going waive attorney-client privilege, but not for cabinet confidences. We still don't actually know what type of pressure was applied to Jody Wilson-Raybould during that whole scandal because even in that example they refused to waive all cabinet confidences.

We've seen this with the McKinsey production orders. Remember that sordid affair? The government failed to comply with production orders to get to the bottom of McKinsey's role in government consulting, its involvement in big pharmaceutical companies and the role it played in causing the opioid crisis.

It seems like there's a lot of agreement that the facts should come to light. We're all agreed on that. It sounds like the Liberals at least pretend they are. They claim they are. They said it. We all agree on that.

We should all agree on the important role that committees play, as parliamentarians and if we take off our partisan hats. No matter what the order is, once a committee adopts it, we should all agree, even if we voted the wrong way on it, that the will of the committee should be respected. When Parliament exercises its privilege on behalf of Canadians and on behalf of Canadian taxpayers to inform the public as to what has happened with the tax dollars, we should all agree on that principle as well.

If we agree that the facts need to be made public, that the work of parliamentary committees is important as they pass motions and issue instructions and production orders, and that those orders should be respected, and if we agree with the important role that Parliament plays in protecting tax dollars and informing the public as to decision making, this should pass unanimously. Unamended, this should be a routine motion. We should have talked about this for maybe five minutes and then moved on with the committee's work because we all agree on those principles—unless there are some people on the committee who are pretending they agree with those principles, but in reality they are not and it's just a phony smoke screen for covering up the Prime Minister's error on this.

I hope my colleague, the NDP member who opposed this motion, will have some time to reflect on what the problem would be with passing it unamended and in its original form. I really do think it achieves the objectives he stated.

I know we're coming to the end of the allotted time here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm just going to interrupt you there.

Colleagues, I'm going to suspend because I think we are kind of at the end of our rope, so to speak. We are suspended. We'll continue this at a later time.

Thanks, everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Good evening, everyone. We are back in session.

We are continuing with the debate on Mr. Kusmierczyk's amendment.

We have a speaking list. It's Mr. Fortin, Mr. Genuis, Mr. Sousa, and Mr. Kusmierczyk. This is the speaking order on Mr. Kusmierczyk's amendment.

Mr. Fortin, welcome to OGGO. The floor is yours.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm pleased to be here. Mrs. Vignola will be with us as soon as possible. She'll be here in a few minutes, I hope. She's on her way back from Quebec City.

Mr. Chair, in the meantime, I'd like to propose an amendment to this motion on behalf of Mrs. Vignola. However, I understand that this is not the time to do so, if I correctly understood the discussion we had. We are currently working on other amendments to remove paragraphs (g) and (h) from the motion. Is that it? That's where we're at.

I'll tell you right now, then, that I'll propose an amendment to this motion, but I'll hold back, and I'll table it when we've completed our work on paragraphs (g) and (h).

Mr. Chair, I would respectfully submit that, in our view, these provisions are unnecessary. In fact, paragraph (g) in particular is unnecessary, and we'd be more in favour of keeping paragraph (h) in the document. Paragraph (g) doesn't seem useful to me at this stage. We won't get into a long debate about it. We'll defer to what the committee as a whole wishes, but, if we have to vote, I'll announce right away that we'll vote in favour of withdrawing paragraph (g) and in favour of retaining paragraph (h).

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fortin.

Next, we have Mr. Genuis on the amendment.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Because we're continuing from an earlier committee meeting this morning, I want to reiterate where we're at and the lines in the sand from our perspective in the Conservative party.

Chair, we have put before the committee today a motion to get contracts for our awareness and the awareness of the public about how billions of dollars of taxpayers' money is being spent effectively in corporate subsidies. We have proposals from the government for billions of dollars worth of corporate subsidies, and we hold to the fairly modest proposal that people should be able to see the details of those agreements.

We note that it has recently come to light that, in one particular case at least, there appears to be a very large number of foreign replacement workers being brought in to work as part of this subsidized project. As such, we feel that it is reasonable and urgent for this committee to request access to these documents so that Canadians—the taxpayers, the people whose money we are spending, at the end of the day—can understand the terms of those agreements and what is going to be the impact of them.

We've heard in this discussion that Liberals do not want these contracts to be requested. They oppose this motion and, in the meantime, they will do everything they can to water it down, because they do not believe that the taxpayers have a right to this information. This is consistent with what we've been seeing for the last eight years, which is the complete lack of respect for taxpayers' money from this government.

In the process of trying to water this down, they have effectively tried to take the teeth out of this motion. That is, they've said, “Okay, if we request the documents, then we don't want to have a mechanism for the committee to follow up to ensure that those documents are delivered.” We have added a provision such that, if the documents are not provided, the chair may make a report to the House, and this would initiate proceedings that provide the committee and the House with tools for insisting on the production of the said documents.

If we do not have provisions (g) or (h) in this motion, then there is no mechanism for ensuring that those contracts will be delivered. This is, of course, what the Liberals want. Ideally they would prefer there be no motion at all requesting this contract, because they do not want to share this information with the public.

If there must be such a motion, they would rather the motion be toothless and have no enforcement mechanism, because it will be their intention not to provide these contracts, certainly not in a way that's transparent and will allow the public to access this information. They have moved an amendment to remove (g) and (h) from the motion, trying to remove teeth and enforcement capacity from this motion.

As we have said earlier, provision (g), the request for an immediate report to the House, is nice to have, but it's ultimately less important. Provision (h) is crucial. Provision (h) only kicks in if the documents are not provided. If documents are provided as requested, provision (h) is irrelevant.

The fact that Liberals are keen to remove paragraph (h) underlines that they intend to not provide these contracts to the committee. If they intend to provide the contacts to the committee, leave (h) in. It's no big deal. It's only a provision that applies in the event that the documents are not provided, but, because Liberals are so keen to have (h) removed, they are making clear to the committee that they do not intend to provide these documents. The Conservative position on this is clear. The Liberal position is now clear.

The question, then, is where the other parties—where our friends in the NDP and the Bloc—stand on this matter. I believe that the Bloc have made clear that—and I'm pleased by that—they agree with us that at least provision (h) should remain in the motion. It is not an automatic report to the House. It is simply a provision that kicks in if, and only if, the government does not provide these documents.

The deciding vote on this will swing to the NDP, whether the NDP sides with the other opposition parties in insisting on accountability and transparency in asserting that sunlight is the best disinfectant or whether the NDP votes with the government in a way that facilitates the bearing of these contracts.

The government has made clear that their intention is not to provide these contracts, which is why they want paragraph (h) removed. Therefore, the NDP now have to decide if they will vote with us to keep paragraph (h) in and insist that the documents be provided and that there is a mechanism for ensuring that the documents are provided, or whether they will vote with the government for the removal of paragraph (h), which, in effect, will mean that the government will not provide the documents to the committee and that the government will stymie subsequent attempts to hold the government accountable for it.

I hope that this committee votes in the majority to order the production of contracts that provide details on corporate subsidy deals worth billions of dollars. Parties that stand for the interests of taxpayers and parties that put the interests of people ahead of the interests of corporations will vote for transparency and to keep paragraph (h) in this motion and will, therefore, oppose the amendment from the Liberals to strike it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Now we have Mr. Sousa, please, on the amendment.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes, it's on the amendment. I have a lot more to say, obviously, on the general motion. However, on this amendment, we already have paragraph (f), which states that we will supply the documents to the clerk within the period of time that I think is being suggested—and we may amend that as well—“and without redaction”. That's how it's being presented at this point.

By deleting paragraphs (g) and (h), we're also being sensitive to some of the confidentiality matters of the documents. The members will have the opportunity to review them more in depth—and I think that's appropriate—without compromising the situation and the competitiveness of what foreign direct investment requires.

I find it rather surprising that the members continue to ask this to be provided, when we already have other committees requesting the same documents going forward. I, therefore, reinforce the issue that it is being asked that the documents be presented, which we'll be obliging, and that's that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, you're next on the list on your amendment.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You probably put yourself on the list about eight hours ago.

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

Yes, exactly—when it began eight hours ago.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to say that, again, we're interested in facts. We've said from the very beginning that there are 2,500 full-time, permanent jobs building batteries at the battery plant that are going to local, Canadian and unionized workers. We know that there will be up to 2,300 construction jobs in building the battery plant. Those will go to local, Canadian workers. We also know that close to 50% of the jobs for the installation of equipment will be going to local, Canadian workers.

Those are the facts, and we're interested in establishing and sharing those facts and supporting those facts with Canadians because this is good news. It's not just good news for Windsor. It's very good news for other areas that have landed a battery plant thanks to federal leadership, whether it's the Umicore battery plant near Kingston, the Northvolt battery plant in Montreal or the battery plant in B.C. We are eager to share the good news about the thousands of jobs that are being created in those communities.

At the same time, in the industry committee, we've already stated that we are interested in making sure that the information about the contracts is shared with MPs. We voted for that. There are six studies being conducted at the industry committee to study those investments.

Again, like I said, our interest is to make sure that facts and information are being shared with Canadians because, again, these are investments that are changing the future for communities like ours, communities that, eight years ago under the Conservatives, had 11.2% unemployment. Today, we have workers working, and we have 2,500 permanent jobs coming to communities like mine.

I just want to say, at the same time, that we also want to balance the information in the contracts with the fact that we don't want put these investments at risk. We know that there's commercially sensitive information in those contracts. We want to make sure that we don't risk the current agreements and investments but also future investments that we know are on our doorstep. In the case of Windsor, we know that there are billions of dollars on our doorstep from suppliers that want to locate in Windsor. They want to supply the battery plant. We just want to make sure that we're not taking any false steps that put those additional investments in jeopardy.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Next, we have the other half of Windsor.

Mr. Masse, welcome back to OGGO.

Go ahead, please.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thanks, I'm a repeat offender, I suppose.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We get a lot of repeat offenders.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thanks.

I appreciate the committee, and the work it's doing on this. We've had a couple of our members here from the industry committee. I listened as I did another committee at the same time this morning. I appreciate the hours the committee has put in on this.

I'm going to be direct, because it's the best way to deal with this. I came here tonight trying to, hopefully, get answers for the public as best I can.

There are a number of different things I intend to do tonight. We don't support (g) and (h), because we don't support concurrence motions in the House that will cause problems. We do support, though, making sure the government is going to follow through with this commitment.

I would be a bit concerned, hearing there might be an amendment about translation later on. I know it would be pertinent for documents to be translated sooner rather than later, but maybe one week is too much. We'll see. I hope there wouldn't be any issues with that.

As well, I'll tell you this much that, tonight, I won't be supporting some of the preamble language proposed to me after seeing the amendments by both the Conservative and Liberal parties. The reason being is that it's basically an opinion as to what's out there. I want to find some more facts here to restore public confidence in the investments that are taking place, but I believe we need to try to be as transparent as possible.

I'm also concerned. I do have an amendment at some time to work through it if I can, and, hopefully, find consensus like we did at the industry committee about how we can get the actual information of the foreign workers who are coming, the foreign workers who will operate the plant, and also the specific foreign workers who will be doing the training of the Canadian workers, and for how long. Is there a way to protect proprietary information? Can it be done in a trustworthy way? I worry about handing all of that over to companies and the government, so I'm trying to find a way to do all of those things, and I know there are other amendments coming.

To be clear, we won't support (g) and (h) at this particular point, but I take the reservation the Conservatives sincerely have about it concerning whether we're going to get the information or not. I believe we can under (h), and I believe there will be the political will to do so, because the companies, which are noted in this thing right here, don't want this story to continue to go on and on in perpetuity.

I think the government will be understanding of that, because if it doesn't produce these documents as soon as possible, it's going to continue to undermine public confidence in the materials here. I will be supporting the amendment to remove (g) and (h), but I have high expectations that they will be deliverable in terms of the rest of the motion.

Much like I did at the industry committee, I will be voting to get rid of the preamble, and just get to the contracts. I'm searching for ways to bring some consensus to the fact that we do want as much information as possible, and not unilaterally turning over the entire keys of the operation for redaction to the companies and the government. I'm working on those elements to see if I can find a way as we go through this day.

Again, we won't be supporting (g) and (h) at this particular time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

That exhausts our speaking list on Mr. Kusmierczyk's amendment.

We'll go to a recorded vote on the amendment.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Chair, could we have two separate votes, since the withdrawal of paragraph (h) and the withdrawal of paragraph (g) are two different amendments?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No. It's one amendment to delete both (g) and (h).

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We're back to the original motion without (g) and (h).

We'll start our speaking list with Mr. Perkins.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I live in hope that the government will live up to the words they've said, which are open transparency. I'm not surprised that there seems to be some confusion among the Liberal members about what actually is being seen at the industry committee, since that committee is not seeing public documents. It's a secret, hidden process that tries to ensure that members are unable to ask questions, once they see the contracts, about what's in them.

Having read the Volkswagen contract, I can tell you what's not in it. What's not in it is a commitment to Canadian jobs, contrary to what the Liberal members say. That contract has no commitment to hiring jobs for Canadians. I can also tell you what else isn't in it—a power of the government to redact the contract on request of it being public. Those are facts. Those aren't in the contract, and since the minister has said these marry with each other, we know that that's the case in Stellantis. Why would anyone want to presuppose what should be released by picking and choosing contracts, which most members here have not seen, and by picking and choosing which clauses should be public? They don't know what clauses should be public, because they haven't seen the contract.

There are provisions in most normal commercial contracts with the government that allow when you're getting taxpayer money, particularly in this case more than $15 billion of taxpayers' money, $1,000 per household, that you expect when you're doing business with the Government of Canada, that elements of your contracts will be open and transparent. That's part of doing business. If you don't want to do that business, then don't take taxpayer money if you want to be secret and hide from what you're trying to do.

The question here before us in this main motion is that we have a motion that simply asks for transparency. I just came from questioning theMinister of Industry in the finance committee on this contract. When I asked him if he read the contract, he gave a “Bernadette Jordan” type of answer. You remember Bernadette, the former fisheries minister, whom I beat. She was asked if she had read the Marshall decision, a pretty fundamental thing for the fishery, and she said no before committee. Do you know what the minister said? He said he'd been apprised of it and has been kept informed about what's in the contract.

The minister, a corporate lawyer, has the department approve a $15-billion contract, which he hasn't read. Obviously, that's why he's confused, because the ambassador from South Korea said there are 1,600 South Koreans coming as foreign replacement workers. They're going to need housing, and that's why he met with everybody. At the same time, the minister—this minister—has said only a couple of days ago that there are only a few jobs, contradicting the South Korean ambassador, who I don't think was freelancing.

Then we had another minister, the Minister of Natural Resources, saying on Twitter last Thursday that of course there were foreign workers coming from South Korea.

We've had the company in the space of a week give out three or four different numbers about what's coming. Is it 900, is it 600, or is it 1,600? Every day they seem to give out a different number.

This has become so bad, and our motion mentions the four contracts—the Volkswagen contract; the NextStar one, which is the Stellantis contract; the Ford contract in the Bloc Québécois leader's riding, with a Swedish company. Guess what they said on the weekend when they were asked what was going on? They said they're bringing in foreign workers, because, of course, that contract mirrors the Volkswagen contract, which I've seen, and the Stellantis contract, which clearly don't have a provision that prohibits foreign workers, and actually allows for it, and does not require Canadian workers as the only ones.

The government disputes this. I've asked questions in question period and the minister talks about the amount of money the companies are putting in, and some “fairy dust” thing about 300,000 jobs in Ontario from a report by Trillium. Trillium, if you search it.... I engage MP Sousa andMP Bains to come back and find the word “VW” in the Trillium contract. It doesn't appear. Find the word ”Stellantis” in the Trillium contract. It doesn't appear.

Yet the minister fancies himself as some guy who is creating 300,000 jobs in this industry if you sprinkle fairy dust here. In fact, when the Parliamentary Budget Officer was before the committee on his estimates, he said that the five-year payback, which the minister said in the House, would actually be 20 years.

I said that really, if you take the Volkswagen contract alone, or the Stellantis contract alone, and you take the number of jobs—if they were Canadian and if they were paying Canadian taxes at the average range of $100,000—it would actually take 150 years for that $15 billion to be paid back to taxpayers.

I don't think we'll be buying lithium batteries 150 years from now and I don't think we'll be buying EVs 10 years from now, as this government has decided to invest in the Betamax of batteries.

When you go forward on this and ask, what are they hiding, what the government is trying to hide, clearly, is transparency. If they believed that the contract meant Canadian jobs only, they'd be rushing that contract out publicly to say, you guys are wrong. See, we're telling you they're wrong because we've released it. For the jobs in the Bloc Québécois leader's riding, the jobs in the member for Windsor's riding, the jobs in St. Thomas, Ontario, they clearly are not required to hire Canadians only.

The government members say that we're going to get all the information. How? The only way to get all the information is to release the contract, and for anyone around here to assume that they know what's in the contract, I'll just ask for one line in the contract, the contract you haven't seen. You don't know all the provisions of every clause of a 20- or 30- or 40-page contract. Hopefully a $15 billion contract is more than 20 pages, but I can tell you, you'd be disappointed if you read the Volkswagen contract to see it much longer than that.

In the case of this, the IRA, the minister has made it public that this mirrors the IRA. The IRA, if you've read it on the provision part, says very clearly what the IRA does, which is that 100% of the cost of developing a battery between now and 2029 is covered by the taxpayer; 75% the year after; 50% the year after that; 25% the year after that. That's in the clause in the IRA. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, at committee, confirmed that the contracts mirror that provision.

We're talking about massive government subsidies that are paying 100% of what is 40% of the cost of an electronic vehicle so that batteries made with parts from China, where over 80% of the cathodes and anodes and the parts for EV batteries are made—they're not made in Canada—can get assembled, not manufactured, in Quebec and in Ontario, and shipped to the United States to be assembled in vehicles in the United States and sold in the United States. That is $15 billion in Stellantis and another $15 billion in Volkswagen of taxpayer money for foreign replacement workers to work in those plants, to pay taxes back home in South Korea so that batteries can be shipped to the United States and sold in the United States.

We're using Canadian taxpayer subsidies to subsidize the profits of global multinationals so that cars can be sold in the United States. If anyone is going to get the discount because of that—and I doubt Volkswagen and Stellantis will pass on a discount—it will be the Americans, not Canadians. Meanwhile all the employee taxes, or three-quarters of them, are going to go off to the foreign replacement workers who are being brought in by Stellantis and by the Swedish company that is partnering in this.

If you have confidence, which you espouse and project and say you have, then put your money where your mouth is and release the contracts. If you won't do that, you're clearly hiding something because you know what you're hiding is the fact that there aren't Canadian job guarantees in this contract, and that Stellantis is free to do exactly what it is they sent their South Korean Ambassador to Canada to do, which is to bring in 1,600 people from Korea to work in that plant, out of the 2,500 jobs—some bargain.

The minister said he hasn't even read the contract when I asked him less than an hour ago. He knows the elements of the contract. He is too busy getting his Aeroplan points around the world and doing his salesmanship and trying to generate his media for his leadership bid to actually read a contract. I thought the guy was a corporate lawyer and actually understood that you don't sign a contract without reading it, and certainly not a contract that spends $15 billion, the biggest subsidy ever to a single company, and it's not even a Canadian company.

If you think these things are working and you don't believe me, picture the opening of the CAMI plant last spring opened in Ingersoll. The Prime Minister was there, the Minister of Industry was there. Isn't that wonderful? We have the full, first EV car assembly plant in Canada. It's wonderful. It's a big deal, lots of press coverage, lots of great, local jobs.

Do you know how many jobs are at that plant right now? There are zero. It was shut down two months ago, after only six months of operation because they can't get any parts. Do you know where the parts come from? They come from China, and China won't send the parts.

This strategy is a failure, no matter what the minister says. He doesn't want it exposed. He doesn't want the contracts released because he is afraid. He's afraid to show the fact that he screwed up. He didn't put Canadian jobs first. He didn't put Canadian union jobs first. He said that this was to save the auto industry. The only jobs he's saving are for 1,600 people who are coming here from South Korea. They're not immigrants. They're not temporary foreign workers.

It's a load of you-know-what, for everyone who's watching—

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

Tell us what.

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

—to say that these guys believe in Canadian union jobs.

Any MP in this committee who fights the release of these public contracts is an accomplice in the cover-up of this LIberal government that is trying to cover up their failures in putting together a proper contract that protects Canadian jobs. That's what they're afraid of. If you vote to do anything other than release the entire contract, under the terms of that contract—there are commercial provisions in there—and let the contract dictate what can go out, then you are assisting this government in covering up the truth on the jobs.

Mark my words, when there are 1,600 South Koreans here; when there are 1,600 or 1,000 Swedish workers here in the Ford plant in Quebec; when Volkswagen....

By the way, I can tell you another thing that's not in the contract: any commitment that's required after the government subsidy ends in 2032. There is zero commitment after spending $15 billion. It's not in the contract. You would think it would be in there, but of course it's not in the contract because the minister didn't read the contract. Probably nobody in cabinet read the contract. I'm certain that none of the MPs opposite, with their speaking notes from the Department of Industry, read the contract.

I can tell you that putting it in this little secret chamber where you can't bring in a notepad, where you have to lock your phones outside, where you're allowed to read it.... Believe me, I spent six hours reading the Volkswagen contract. I read it many times.

By the way, in case you're wondering, there are two for each of these. There is an SIF contract. That's the industry SIF program, which spends billions of dollars. In the case of Volkswagen, $778 million is going to build the plant with taxpayer money and in the Stellantis case, it's $500 million out of the SIF contract.

Then, there is the production subsidy contract. That's the one where they are subsidizing 100% of the cost of the battery. That is what this Liberal government thinks is a great deal: an industry that can only survive if Canadian taxpayers pay 100% of the cost of the battery.

No wonder they don't want the contracts public. They'll be too embarrassed that they were taken to the cleaners by these foreign multinationals for not doing their homework.

It's time that members of Parliament who have had enough of the story from NextStar that changes every day about how many foreign workers they're bringing in, the story that changes from this government, the minister from Edmonton who said that there's only one coming....

He said it in the House. Then, the Minister of Industry said that there are only a couple. Then, the Minister of Natural Resources tweeted that actually there are lots coming, and it's all Harper's fault.

Yes, it's a terrible thing that we signed free trade deals, and it's Harper's fault that this government doesn't know how to negotiate a contract and doesn't know how to protect Canadian jobs in a contract.

The time has come for all of those who care about transparency and care about ensuring that all the jobs in Windsor, St. Thomas and in the two plants in Quebec go to Canadians, go to Quebeckers, and don't go to foreign nationals who will take all that pay home. It's time for you to show some courage and ask for these contracts to be made public. Anything less than that is a failure by every member of Parliament here, who will be complicit in the cover-up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Perkins.

I have Mr. Masse, Mr. Sousa and then Mr. Kusmierczyk.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One important thing that put us in the situation that is missed is that our auto strategy has been basically defined by the United States and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those are the so-called free-market friends we have, and that exposes some of our trade dilemmas, and that shows the massive intervention that's done by the United States.

As New Democrats, for years we've been calling for a national auto strategy, one that is going to be planned and measured on the jobs and hours that we see from workers. This is the problem that we have with this situation right now. Quite frankly, when it came to light, there was one job that was applied for under the labour market adjustment program, but the reality that slipped through a lot of the different discussions at the time was that the contracts—we don't know, because as the member just outlined, we really don't know—didn't really provide the public with the proper information.

It's been a moving target ever since. On Monday, it was one. On Tuesday, it was 100. In the next few days, it changed from basically 1,500 to, I think, 900 now and maybe, potentially, could be up to 1,000. It's hard to know, because we don't know. That's a public expectation, where the dollars could go.

The industry itself has had a long history with regard to having government intervention. In fact, frankly, I want to touch a couple of things that took place. First of all, back in 1985, it was Chrysler that was rescued then with Lee Iacocca and others who saved the plant. There was massive public input into that. When we held onto the shares, it turned a return profit to the taxpayers.

Most recently, we went through a tough time with regard to General Motors and Ford. If you remember, the late Jim Flaherty said that we can't pick winners or losers. To his credit—this is not to his detriment—he switched his position later on and did an investment into General Motors. Unfortunately, the government of the day under Harper did sell the shares and shortchanged us in terms of that investment; otherwise, it would have paid bigger dividends. The ending there was that there was an intervention into the market at that time, and, again, this is not to denigrate Mr. Flaherty; it's to congratulate him for changing his position, which was very public at that time.

I'm a little bit concerned with some of the stuff on proprietary information, but I'm more concerned with the fact that we still have a moving target here when it comes to the contracts themselves. I don't support and didn't support an industry committee going into the secret chamber to get the information for that deal, because I know that uncertainty and question marks remain the biggest inhibitor when it comes to investment and confidence of the public.

There is some legitimate concern about the investment and some of these things that the Canadian builders trade unions have raised. That's where a lot of this came from, that there was some expectation that perhaps there would be some intervention.

I don't think we've ever seen this intervention with foreign labour coming in to retool a plant. Usually this happens in the tool and die mould-making industry, where workers go back and forth across the border. In fact, we've had trouble over the past number of years getting access to fixed machinery and so forth, so some of this stuff does take place.

I'm more worried with regard to the contractual elements when it comes to suppliers and so forth, and that's led to some of the challenges that we have.

When it comes to the motion here, I don't support the prelude to the motion and, similar to industry, I'm hoping that we take that out. I don't want to see us spend all night with the replacement by the Liberals with other types of hyperbole with regard to it. I hope that we get to the essence of it.

I'd like to hear more discussion in terms of how we ensure proprietary information. I think that the commercial provisions that are in the contracts do provide some protection, as the member has outlined.

My concern really resides in understanding the number of jobs and foreign workers who are coming into the plant, those who are training and then those who are staying in the community.

What is important for my community in terms of how it plays out to the rest of the country is how communities plan. We don't even know these targets. We have right now a housing shortage like many communities across Canada. There is some activity going on to take care of that, but there's no social planning when it comes to making sure that these investments include perhaps even long-term investments that provide social housing once the workers return home.

I know for a fact that I've been contacted by our local downtown businesses, and they have no hotel rooms whatsoever. We have people coming into our country and, if they are going to be provided and intend to come, we don't want conditions that are also going to create social strife and conflict.

I worry about the terminology that has been used in this discussion, because the reality is this: If some people are coming to take advantage of the situation or a job opportunity that exists, through no fault of their own, they come into an environment that's already polarized. My intent in all of this is to make sure the rest of the communities that face this, subsequently, can use this to their advantage. Perhaps there is still time in this equation, after 18 months of doing nothing to train workers. Perhaps there's a way to train some of the workers in the Windsor-Essex region, and in some of the other regions. They could come down and provide some of those job skill sets that would be valuable for the other places, later on. This is what I'm trying to do.

Do these things and restore public confidence. I am not complicit. Listen, we don't normally, in this place, release contracts on government deals. I've been here for 21 years. This is not the normal procedure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

[Inaudible—Editor]