Evidence of meeting #88 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contract.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I would mention that there is much repetition, and I'd appreciate if we could get back to the point of the motion.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I think, Mr. Chair, you can appreciate how important this debate is to me and to my community in Windsor—Tecumseh.
The truth of the matter is, the reason why we're here is that the success of electric vehicles and the success of EV battery plants are a direct threat to Conservatives, a direct threat. They don't believe in climate change. Conservatives don't believe in electric vehicles. They never supported from day one the Stellantis—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I would ask that we stay away from the more insulting stuff and just stick to the motion, please, Mr. Kusmierczyk.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Mr. Kusmierczyk, I'm going to interrupt you again. Could you please just stick to the motion.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
The truth of the matter is the battery plant demonstrates that when you have an environmental policy you have an economic policy and you have jobs, and that's what the battery plant represents. Again, the facts are: two and a half thousand full-time Canadian, local workers building battery plants for generations; 2,300 construction workers building the battery plant, local Canadian workers. Yes, we are partnering with our Korean partners at LG to install the machinery and the equipment. There will be 900 Korean workers who will come in and help us, share their knowledge and install the machinery and equipment and get it up and running as soon as possible. But there will be 700 Canadian trades helping with that installation at its peak. We know that. Those are the facts. That's been known for months.
That's the fact. Those are the facts. We are partnering with our Korean partners because we've never built a battery plant in Canada before. We are starting an industry from absolute scratch. We don't have the expertise so we're leaning on our partners in Korea, LG, because they are the world leaders. They have been building batteries for 30 years; they have over 24,000 patents on the construction of batteries; they are the experts and they are coming here to help us get the battery plant up and running as quickly as possible and to share their knowledge and expertise with us. They are temporary and they will leave and what will remain are two and a half thousand Canadian local workers building batteries.
Mr. Chair, I do have an amendment that I would like to put forward to this motion. I wanted to emphasize, again, this is the most important investment in the history of my community. This is why, again, I ask and I beseech my colleagues around the table to speak with facts about it, to keep the politics and the games and the misinformation out of it. I do have a motion.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Go ahead, please. Because you're not in person, the clerk is going to jot it down so don't go too fast but please start, Mr. Kusmierczyk.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I would like to start by striking (g) and (h) from the original motion.
Conservative
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
We can vote on that first and then actually vote on a subsequent subamendment as well. I will just put that amendment forward, please.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Okay, we'll start a speaking list on that amendment.
Mr. Genuis.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Sorry, Ms. Vignola, I see your hand up. Is that for the amendment, or is that for...?
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I wanted to talk about the amendment to the original motion. It's an amendment to what Mr. Gord Johns said earlier. So it's the same comment as a few minutes ago.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Mr. Johns has withdrawn his, but you're on the speaking order of the original amendment after Mr. Kusmierczyk.
Go ahead, Mr. Genuis.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Kusmierczyk said he would start with an amendment to strike paragraphs (g) and (h). I suppose his next proposed amendment will be to strike paragraphs (a) through (f), which would achieve the objective that he has made clear he wants, which is that he does not want taxpayers to be able to see what's in this contract. If he takes matters seriously, as he purports to, I think he would take seriously the role of taxpayers in looking at these documents.
Look, Chair, Conservatives put forward this motion. We believe the motion is good as is and should be supported as is. I do think it's important to make a distinction between (g) and (h), in that (g) is to provide an immediate report to the House on these matters, which is something that we think is worthwhile, and (h) is to say that in the event the documents are not produced there would be a follow-up from the committee.
In our view, these are both important, but (h) is substantially more important, because (h) provides a safety valve if the government doesn't provide the documents. By proposing to remove (g) and (h), Mr. Kusmierczyk has made it clear that the government's intention is to not provide these documents even if the committee orders them, because he doesn't want there to be any safety valve. I think it was evident in his comments that he doesn't think these documents should be provided, and he has proposed the removal of any kind of safety valve mechanism that would allow that.
I want to propose a subamendment—that is, to undelete (h)—which I think, though not rendering it perfect, substantially improves the amendment.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you, Mr. Genuis.
We'll start a speaking list on the subamendment to the amendment.
Mr. Kusmierczyk, did you want to respond?
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
No, not at all. My subamendment is quite clear and I'm not sure why Mr. Genuis wants to waste the committee's time.
Conservative
