Government Operations Committee on Nov. 27th, 2023

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Yes. There is a lot being said here. I just want to mention that Mr. Genuis is saying that we don't want to bring this information forward, the Liberal members don't want to bring this forward. Mr. Perkins also mentioned already that these documents are available, translated, and everything and are being studied in another committee already.

Just for the record, I want to make sure it's being said that the other committee requested that the contract with Stellantis regarding the electric vehicle battery manufacturing facility in Windsor, Ontario, with job numbers, unredacted and in both official languages be available at the clerk's office for viewing by committee members for a minimum of 48 hours before the meeting, under the supervision of the clerk, and that no personal mobile, electronic, or recording device of any kind be permitted in the room that week, and that no notes be taken out of the room, to protect the security of this contract, that the committee meet with ISED officials in camera following the viewing of the contract, etc., and that a number of members be invited to that committee along with the ambassador of South Korea, including the Minister of Innovation and Science for two hours and the Minister of Finance.

The information will come forward, so I think we should get on with what's being proposed here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Kusmierczyk, go ahead on the amendment. Then we have Mr. Berthold, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Johns and Mr. Scheer.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's on your original amendment.

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

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to state that I disagree with what my colleague, Mr. Genuis, stated and the way he characterized our position.

We have shared the information and the contracts with the INDU committee. That information is being shared as we speak. There are six committee meetings dedicated to studying these very contracts.

What we oppose, Mr. Chair, is what the president of Unifor characterized as a mill of misinformation that is working overtime. That is what we object to.

Because of the sensitivity of this investment and how important it is to my community and to communities across Canada, we speak in facts and we do everything possible to refrain as much as possible from misinformation and disinformation. We speak in facts. That's the part that we oppose.

Again, I want to emphasize that we have already voted in support of other committees looking at the documents, looking at the contracts and studying them.

I want this information to be shared with Canadians because they will be proud that we have a Liberal government that has delivered $30 billion of investments in the automotive sector in just the last three years that will be creating tens of thousands of jobs across Canada. These include the 2,500 permanent jobs at Stellantis in Windsor, the 5,000 permanent jobs in St. Thomas because of Volkswagen, the 3,000 jobs at Northvolt in Quebec and the hundreds of jobs being created in Maple Ridge, B.C. All of those investments were delivered by the Liberal government for Canada.

I want Canadians to get the information, because they will see that these are agreements they will be proud of, which are creating thousands of jobs in communities across Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I have Mr. Berthold on the amendment.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm glad to know that my colleague also wants Canadians to be able to see the contracts. I hope this will be reflected when we vote on the motion. This will give him the opportunity to withdraw his amendment. If he really wants Canadians to see the contracts, the way to do it is as described in the motion. It sets out a very clear and precise process to ensure that these documents are disclosed first and foremost here, to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. Then, if the documents are not produced in accordance with the motion, it provides that we will have recourse to the House to ensure that the Liberals do not once again shirk accountability.

The Liberals have accustomed us to this, since they do it regularly. I need only recall the famous saga of the National Microbiology Laboratory documents in Winnipeg. I can also mention the McKinsey documents. The Liberals take advantage of every loophole, no matter how small, to avoid making documents public and accountable to Canadians for their mismanagement and incompetence in awarding contracts. They'll do anything to avoid making contracts public.

My colleague talked about misinformation, but in the case of the issues we're currently dealing with, the misinformation came first and foremost from the Liberals. There's no doubt about that, and I can give some blatant examples. This is why we absolutely must defeat this amendment and adopt the motion as we have presented it.

I want to remind you of two things. First of all, two weeks ago, in Windsor, we learned that foreign replacement workers were going to be brought in, paid for by taxpayers. Who told us this? It was the chief of police, who was warned that 1,600 South Korean workers were coming to fill jobs that had been promised to Canadian workers.

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

Mr. Chair, can we deal with the subamendment? We're doing another [Inaudible—Editor] here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Is this a point of order, Mr. Sousa?

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

Yes, it's a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you. I allowed a bit of leeway for Mr. Bains, I'll allow a bit of leeway this way, thanks.

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

All right, thank you.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'm speaking specifically on the proposed amendment before us. It's very important because we've been talking about disinformation.

The Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages first told us that there was only one foreign worker. Later, there was talk of a small number of foreign workers. We now have confirmation from the company hiring the workers that at least 900 taxpayer-funded replacement workers will be brought in to work at this plant.

We recently learned that the Northvolt project in Quebec will benefit from a $7‑billion public subsidy. CBC/Radio-Canada revealed that hundreds of workers—we don't know how many—would be brought to work in Quebec to fill jobs that would normally be filled by Canadians, and particularly Quebeckers.

As I mentioned at the outset, the Liberals have accustomed us to the fact that, if there's no pressure, if there's no timetable, if there's no way to access the contracts, they'll find a way not to respond to this committee's request.

Let me remind you of paragraphs (g) and (h) of Ms. Block's notice of motion that the Liberals want to abolish.

I'll start with paragraph (g):

the chair be instructed to present a report to the House forthwith advising it that it has adopted this motion, and

This motion calls for the production of documents. These documents are contracts. They are contracts that will give four international companies billions of dollars of Canadian money to create jobs that were thought to be Canadian jobs.

If $50 billion in funding isn't enough for us to have a three-hour debate in the House about the appropriateness of these contracts and the appropriateness of producing documents, I don't know what could possibly justify a three-hour debate in the House of Commons.

I'm talking about $50 billion, which represents $3,000 per family, when right now, as we know, there are endless lines at food banks.

People are suffering, people are hungry, and all the while, the government is willing to take taxpayers' money. If it was to create wealth and if he's so proud of these contracts, let him show them to the public. He shouldn't be afraid to make them public. He could explain why he's taking $3,000 per family to create these plans. If it's to create wealth and help all of Canada, we want to see it. Canadians have a right to know, because it's their money.

Paragraph (h) of Ms. Block's notice of motion is precisely the point that is absolutely necessary, and my message is particularly addressed to our NDP colleague Mr. Johns because I know that my Bloc Québécois colleague Ms. Vignola has already announced that she agrees with paragraphs (g) and (h).

I'm going to read paragraph (h) that the amendment seeks to eliminate. We haven't had a chance to talk much about it yet in French.

Here's what paragraph (h) says:

(h) in the event the documents have not been produced as ordered by the committee, to the chair’s satisfaction, the chair shall be instructed to present as soon as possible a further report to the House recommending that an Order of the House do issue for the foregoing documents, provided that they shall be laid upon the Table, in both official languages and without redaction, within one sitting day of the adoption of the Order and thereupon be deemed permanently referred to this committee.

What does this mean?

If, for any reason, the Liberals prevent or deny this committee access to the documents, we will notify the House, and by extension all Canadians, that the Liberals refuse to do so. We will ask the House to issue an order of reference so that the documents can be produced and sent back to this committee so that we can study them.

It seems to me that this is the basis, that this is simple and that this is the way to proceed with committee review, given the Liberal past, which we know well, when it comes to the production of documents.

Mr. Chair, you will understand that I will be voting against the amendment proposed by my Liberal colleague.

I hope that all the opposition parties who are here to hold this government to account will also vote against this amendment. These points are an insurance policy to ensure that documents are produced for the committee. It's an insurance policy so that we can have access to them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

I have Mr. Perkins and then it will be over to you, Mr. Johns, on the amendment.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I spoke at the beginning when I introduced this motion, and now we have this amendment. I'd like to address the second part of the amendment, which concerns paragraph (h).

Actually, before I do that, perhaps I could address this issue in relation to the industry committee, as I believe I'm the only member of the industry committee who's here.

On the Volkswagen contract, our original request last year was for it to be released publicly, and the government amended it to make it secret so that we could only view it under in camera conditions. Our proposal last week for all of these contracts was to make it public, and the government amended the motion to keep them secret, to keep them behind. Contrary to the impression that was left that these documents will be made public, they will not be made public under what's going on at the industry committee, and they will not be made public to provide the clarity that the Liberal MP for Windsor—Tecumseh mentioned that he thinks all Canadians should have access to.

Of course, they should have access to it. The only way to have access and to clear up the confusion here is to deal with this and make them public. It was the Hon. François-Philippe Champagne who said at the start that all the jobs in construction and all the jobs that are permanent would be Canadian union jobs, which turns out not to be the case. How do we know that? It's because the ambassador for South Korea went to the community and met with officials and said they needed housing for 1,600 South Koreans who are coming here to work at the plant.

Paragraph (h), the document request that the Liberals are trying to remove, reads:

in the event the documents have not been produced as ordered by the Committee, to the Chair’s satisfaction, the Chair shall be instructed to present as soon as possible a further report to the House recommending that an Order of the House do issue for the foregoing documents, provided that they shall be laid upon the Table, in both official languages and without redaction, within one sitting day of the adoption of the Order and thereupon be deemed permanently referred to this committee.

So what the heck would that mean for everybody if the paragraph were removed? It would mean that the government would not produce these documents in spite of an order from this committee that this has to go to the House. That's in the event that the documents aren't produced. I don't see what the risk is of having this in the motion because if the government produces a document, then this is not necessary. But it's absolutely necessary in the case that the government does not produce the documents, because we know that the government was given eight weeks to produce the McKinsey documents for this committee and refused to do so on committee order.

Where did this committee end up? It had no ability to report back to the House given the way the government reacted. The government already has a history of ignoring document production requests. The member from Windsor—Tecumseh, as I understand it, was at the forefront of refusing and arguing that those documents not be produced. So, yes, there's a history of ensuring that we don't have transparency about the expenditure of taxpayer dollars. If he's so proud of these jobs and this initiative in his riding, he should be proud of the contract. He should be proud that the contract requires Canadian workers, which apparently it doesn't.

The question before us is, why would you want to hide this? The company, presumably, has the ability in the contract to take out the few bits of it they might think are commercially sensitive, but large parts of these contracts are not commercially sensitive because the Minister has talked in generalities about them before. But he's been very confused, because at the beginning he said that these would all be Canadian jobs, and then as recently as this weekend, the Hon. François-Philippe Champagne admitted that he didn't guarantee that the jobs would be for Canadians when he signed this $15 billion deal with Stellantis. Now he's saying he wants to sit down. That's the implication. Why would the minister need to sit down with Stellantis and NextStar to figure out what the job situation is of foreign workers if foreign workers were not allowed in this contract in such massive numbers—1,600 out of 2,500 workers.

He's contradicting himself. At the beginning, these were Canadian workers. Now he says that obviously he needs to sit down and clarify the contract that he signed—that perhaps he didn't read—and whether or not it allows us—

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

I have a point of order.

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

So this is the transparency—

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Excuse me—

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

We're going through a diatribe again. Let's just stick to the subamendment and then move on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Excuse me for a second, Mr. Perkins. We're on the amendment, but I hear Mr. Sousa,

I think Mr. Perkins is addressing some of these issues.

Please continue, Mr. Perkins.

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

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the point of order.

However, that is the issue. The heart of the issue is transparency. The government has a history in this committee, and quite frankly with the Winnipeg labs as well, of ignoring production of documents motions.

So yes, we're skeptical that the government will actually comply with a nice motion that doesn't include these things. “Trust us. Don't worry. We've made sure that they're secret in the industry committee, but we don't want them to go public here. We're going to maybe ignore this, using the excuse from government members that it's already in another committee and nobody will be able to talk about it publicly. Let's just sit down to see how that goes and ignore what this committee does.”

They have the out here, of course, with the French translation. I'm sure it will take them an awful long time, with the 100,000 new bureaucrats since they were elected, to actually translate these documents.

The issue is that they will use every trick in the book to not produce these documents. They did not vote to have these public at the industry committee; in fact, they voted the opposite, to keep them secret. That's what the members of the government, the Liberal side, are trying to do here today, to make them secret.

For everybody, for all Canadian taxpayers, it's important to know whether what the minister said when he announced this deal in the spring or what he said this weekend...which version of the truth it is that the contract supports.

There's only one way to do it, which is to produce them. The problem is that we don't trust that the government is going to do that because of their history.

In paragraph (g), which says that the chair will be instructed “to present a report to the House...advising that it has adopted this motion”, it's important, obviously, that the House be aware, through the work of this committee, that these documents have been requested. It's important, given the track record of this government, that all 338 members of the House of Commons are aware that this committee has asked for these documents to be made public, and that if they're not made public, there will be a report back to those same elected members of Parliament that they have refused, once again, to produce documents as compelled by a House of Commons committee and have ignored the will of Parliament.

Mr. Chair, I'll leave it there on this amendment for now. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

We'll hear from Mr. Johns on the amendment, please, and then Mr. Scheer and Ms. Vignola.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I'm going to pass.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Scheer is next, and then Ms. Vignola.