Government Operations Committee on Nov. 29th, 2023

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

He's saying the same thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I know, Mr. Perkins. Let him get to it.

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

That is the fundamental point.

Let me provide some facts here. I want to talk about patents and how important they are.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Actually, I am going to interrupt.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, you will need to get to the amendment. The amendment has nothing to do with patents.

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

It absolutely does.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I understand if you're able to loop it in a minute or something, that's wonderful, but please get to the amendment or we can move to the next speaker. We have a lot of interested people.

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

Mr. Chair, again, this is it. This is exactly why we are trying to steer a middle road that protects confidential and sensitive information. What do you think the words “sensitive information” mean?

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

On a point of order, this is repetition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Continue, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Mr. Perkins, allow him to go, and I will interrupt him if I believe he's repeating.

Continue, Mr. Kusmierczyk, but please get to the point.

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

This is the point. I want to highlight how important confidentiality is to some of the countries here. China issued 1.58 million patents last year. The U.S. was second on the list with 503,000; Japan had 405,000.

Number four was the Republic of Korea with 272,315 patents. I would suggest, Mr. Chair, that our Korean partner LG cares about confidentiality and about keeping certain strategic information confidential. This is a country that is ranked number four in terms of patents. I already mentioned that, on batteries alone, LG has 24,000 patents. It is important to them, when they do business in a jurisdiction, that it's a jurisdiction that takes confidentiality seriously—and we do.

There are other considerations that we have to look at as well. What else is inside those contracts? It could be intellectual property. It could also be industrial design, industrial plans or blueprints. We don't know. It could be partners—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

It is my understanding that in testimony at this committee it was confirmed that this contract very much mirrors the contract of the deal with Volkswagen that this government agreed to. There are no designs. There is no intellectual property. There's no patent information. None of this is relevant to this contract.

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

I appreciate that, Ms. Findlay, but I don't feel—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, please.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, if you could, just continue, please.

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

With all due respect, my honourable colleague does not know the contents of that contract. I am not willing to risk a $5 billion investment in my community because of that.

Yes, there are certain things—safeguards—that I would put in place because I would like to make sure that we are not putting at risk 2,500 jobs and a $5 billion battery plant in my community. That's why I take this seriously.

I talked about partners and suppliers and business operations. These are all important pieces of information that companies want to keep close to their vests. This is important.

Not only do companies want to keep their strategies close to their vest, but so does the federal government.

Why is that important?

It's important because when the federal government is negotiating with businesses and trying to bring them here, it also has a strategy. Providing our strategy, revealing our strategy to the world completely weakens our negotiating powers. It weakens significantly our negotiating power.

Why does showing our hand do that?

Other jurisdictions can then adapt. I'll give you an example. We succeeded in landing the Stellantis battery plant. There are things in there that talk about what our strategy is. What are some of the incentives, what are some of the things that we used, strategies to bring that company to Windsor. It could have located in any jurisdiction in the world. They chose Windsor. Other jurisdictions lost out on that investment. Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Mexico, other jurisdictions that fought hard to get this investment lost out.

Do you not think that they are looking at every possible angle and advantage to see what adjustments they need to make in order to be able to lure that same battery plant away and also lure other investments away as well?

As I've said before, if we publish all that information, we might as well hand the keys to that battery plant to Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Alabama and Tennessee.

Those living in manufacturing communities have been paying very close attention over those last two decades to where those investments have been going. South of the border, they have advantages. They have advantages there. The American states and the federal U.S. government have unlimited resources. They go hard after every investment, and we're willing to give them the playbook? We're willing to give them our signals?

Is that what you're saying?

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

The IRA will throw you a copy. It's not a secret.

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

This isn't funny, Mr. Perkins. This is not funny, sir. No one in my community is laughing about this. This is serious.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Sorry, let me interrupt you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Please make your point of order quick, Mr. Perkins.

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

No one is laughing at the need for jobs. What we're laughing at are the weak, subjective arguments that you're making about the United States, which has nothing to do with the motion before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Perkins.

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

This is everything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

If you could resume, I will note that you are starting to get into some repetition with the discussion of the States.

If we could, please, let's get to the amendment.

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

It is important. It's not just the auto industry.

Do you not think that there are shipyards in Quebec that receive federal funding and are looking to get—

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

I have a point of order.