Government Operations Committee on Dec. 4th, 2023

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

We need to see the text of the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

He is mostly correct on that.

I am just going to chime in. I will let Mr. Masse continue, but we're going to go no further. We're going to suspend afterwards because I do believe that, procedurally, it might be out of order.

I will let you just read it in, and then we are going to suspend immediately after. We will not continue with other points of order or anything else.

Go ahead, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's fair enough, Mr. Chair.

I was on section (b):

(b) the Volkswagen Group, Volkswagen AG, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. or PowerCo SE, related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery facility in St. Thomas, Ontario;

(c) Northvolt AB, Northvolt North America, Northvolt Batteries North America Inc. or Cubery, Inc., related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery facility in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, Quebec;

(d) Ford Motor Company, Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited, EcoProBM Co., Ltd., EcoPro Innovation Co., Ltd., EcoPro Global, EcoPro Co., Ltd., ECOPRO, Eco CAM Canada Inc., EcoPro CAM Canada General Partner Inc., SK On Co., SK ie technology Co., Ltd., SK Inc., SK Innovation Co., Ltd., SK Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd., Sunlake Co., Ltd. or EcoPro CAM Canada, LP, related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery materials production plant in Bécancour, Quebec; and

(e) Umicore Rechargeable Battery Materials Canada Inc., Umicore SA/NV or Umicore Canada Inc., related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery materials production plan in Loyalist Township, Ontario; and an order do issue for copies of all Labour Market Impact Assessments, including the applications for them, prepared in relation to the construction of an electric vehicle battery facility in Windsor, Ontario, provided that when these documents are received by the clerk:

This is a new section (f). It's section (f) right now, but it's replacing the old section (f). It says:

(f) that the departments and agencies tasked with gathering these documents—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

There is no old section (f). This is not an amendment. This member voted against the previous motion. There is no old section (f). He seems to be reading parts of a new motion without reading the whole motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I realize that, and as I mentioned, it may very well be—and I've been discussing this with our clerk—completely out of order. I'm just going to let him finish reading it. Then we will suspend, and the clerk and I will come back with a ruling.

You may very well be right, Mr. Genuis, but we're just going to let him finish speaking.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I won't reference those elements. I was just doing that out of courtesy for members so that they could follow along.

It continues:

(f) that the departments and agencies tasked with gathering these documents be redacted according to the Access to Information Act with the exception that all companies must fully disclose and make publicly available to correct any misinformation the following:

1. the number of foreign workers who will be building the plants, involved in equipment installation, technology transfer, training, and operations;

2. the number of Canadian temporary/construction jobs to be created and how many permanent production positions are to be create as part of the contract guarantees;

3. the steps that will be taken to prioritize the employment of Canadians for building the plants and equipment installation;

4. that redacted versions of these documents shall be deposited with the Clerk of the Committee within three weeks, in both official languages;

5. that information related to the above specific areas not available in the contract be provided by the above mentioned companies to the committee in writing—

Then there are some more sections:

(g) that the committee invite the CEOs of Stellantis N.V., LG Energy Solutions, Ltd., NextStar Energy Inc. to answer questions;

(h) that the committee call on the government to immediately continue to work with all the companies mentioned in the motion to develop training and job opportunities for Canadian workers for construction, to equipment installation/operation, technology transfer, production; and

(i) that the committee submit an access to information request to ask the Information Commissioner to complete a third party review of the redactions to ensure a complete process and report back to the Committee for an in camera meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

As I mentioned, we are going to suspend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, thank you for your patience. I know you want to get at this before the vote starts.

After much discussion, yes, sir, we will rule the new motion in order.

Mr. Masse, it is in order. You have the floor. I see Mr. Genuis and Mr. Perkins.

Go ahead, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the indulgence of the committee and for the opportunity to speak to the motion here.

It's a very important issue, and what I've realized over the last number of days and actually weeks is how this issue is not helping anyone, whether you're in the auto industry, whether you're actually investing in the projects or whether you're here on Parliament Hill. We have become entrenched in a spot that I think is not going to be helpful for any particular party or organization, and more importantly for Canadians, so I've been trying to work at finding a compromise.

There are things that you do in politics where you can compromise without compromising your principles. That's what my motion, to me, is about. Coming from an auto town, I've seen how every job matters and I've witnessed, also, jobs being taken and lost to other people in other countries because they have gone forward with competitive practices or are blatantly buying some of those jobs, whether it be Alabama, other parts of the United States or Mexico. I've seen the travesty that has taken place when generations of families lose their incomes and their opportunity to have a chance to better their lives and, more importantly, to contribute to their communities and have gainful employment.

That is something that we are recovering with these agreements. There is a lot of debate about the value of the agreements and there's a lot of debate about the industry in itself, but the reality here is that you are either in the game or you're not. There are one or two things.

In Canada, for those who aren't aware, we used to have a national auto policy, the Auto Pact. The Auto Pact was drafted and created and led to our being number two in the world in auto assembly.

The Auto Pact, when we signed the NAFTA agreement, was challenged by Japan. Japan then took us to the WTO and we lost that. The Auto Pact was about getting us guaranteed market access into the United States. We lost that competitive element. We went from number two in the world to 10, and we've recovered a little bit from that for automotive assembly. In fact, we used to have national corporate head offices in Canada. We don't have those anymore at all.

The motion here is to deal with the investment strategies that are going on. I have long called for an auto policy that was more predictable and is really born of CAW, now Unifor—Jim Stanford and others—which actually had a component element that sought to use employment hours and investment as the primary indicators of why an investment would be worthwhile and also to deal with the United States. Often people talk about the United States as being the capitalist-centric part of the world, but I witnessed them, over the years, throwing money from the state level, from the federal level, from the municipal level, to basically decimate our industry.

With these projects there have been a number of different issues that have come out and a lot of different numbers that have flown around, and that's not helpful. What I'm asking for in this motion is to go through a process that would be the normal process for when there is going to be an access to information request, a redaction of documents and so forth, but with a caveat to have some extra accountability by Parliament. Also some new information would be provided that is not in those documents. Some of those numbers that have been floated around from the companies and from others will not be in the documents that we would procure, whether they be redacted or not redacted.

This motion is going to address that because, really, what people care about right now and what municipalities and others have to focus on is how many foreign workers are going to come to Canada. There are two different forms or sets that are taking place. There are those who are building the facilities that we have and creating those facilities. Those are the building trades jobs that are very important. Second to that, there are also the operations and the development of those jobs, which is a process where you will actually have foreign workers. Sometimes they're Americans. Sometimes they're Mexicans. In this case, in my community, it's going to be South Koreans who will be coming over to help us set up operations. That's because we don't have some of that capacity.

Do I think we could have done a better job of training and upgrading for those things? Yes. Have we done it? No. Canada does not have a national strategy anymore when it comes to employment. We used to have Human Resources Development Canada in the old days. Then it became Service Canada, and now it's up to each province to determine how their training takes place.

That's a bigger debate for another time, but the reality is that I do not want people coming to my community feeling that they're not welcome. That is not helpful for the community. It is not helpful for those individuals and those families. If we're going to get long-term employment out of that, then we need to make sure that there's a trusted process and that people know what they're in for. That includes taxpayers from all across Canada, and it includes the local people. We want this to be as successful as possible at this point in time.

The reality is that some of these deals are happening. They're being constructed right now. Do we make it worse or better at this point? I believe transparency should be out there, for both the number of workers who will be there and the expectations about that number. This will build public confidence to do things better.

I even mentioned the fact that we could have been dealing with this earlier. We could turn, perhaps, some of these advantages even more to our favour if we make investments, for example, in housing and make sure that, later on, it's not-for-profit housing. There are other creative things that can take place if we move forward.

Other parts of this motion talks about getting specifics from the companies—things that were not provided or mentioned in writing. These will come to the committee. That's another part of the plan that will be tabled here. It will also provide, again, more documentation than either redacted or unredacted documents will. We will then have an opportunity to have the CEOs come to this committee to explain and talk about the investments they're making, and what these mean to our communities. That will be a positive environment to be part of. There will be an opportunity for members of all political parties to ask the tough questions they believe are necessary for Canadians. I think it's also an opportunity for the companies to talk about, specifically, how they view their investments as a partnership with regard to this issue.

We will also talk about another issue that I am a little disappointed in. It's that the committee call on the government to continue, with the companies, to put some better benchmarks out there for creating jobs, training and opportunities.

What happens, perhaps, out of this.... If we get in front of this now and get a motion or at least a process in this committee and not continue to stall here for different reasons.... I'm not going to cast negative elements on it. If workers in Windsor, at the first plant, and those in other parts of the country—other people in other communities that may eventually get battery plants and such facilities—get that training and experience.... What if they also come to Windsor, learn some of these skills and have opportunities? Perhaps we can get out in front of this more and reduce the need for foreign trade workers, because they're also going to be needed. There's a short supply for everybody. If we can do more of that training, perhaps we can reduce or reverse some of those potential things.

Lastly, I want to mention—and I know it's not a perfect solution—that I would ask the Information Commissioner. We can either do it through an ATIP.... I don't know. The question somebody raised with me was whether we can do that through the committee here, or whether we have to do it as individuals. I'm open to learning about that element. The point is that we would come back to an in camera meeting. We'd have a third party look at what the company redactions would be. Then we would see the normal government process for redactions. We'd be able to go in camera and find out whether or not there are problems with it, whether there was accountability and whether there will be some challenges to it.

For those reasons, I've put together this motion. I'm hoping it has enough elements to give the public some more confidence, at least, in where we need to go.

I'll conclude with this, Mr. Chair. I'm very appreciative of the fact that I'm a guest of this committee. I appreciate the fact that we've already put a lot of time into this. What I'm worried about—I think it's the worst of all solutions—is us sitting here, until the holiday season and beyond, filibustering. Meanwhile, we're not showing any type of movement towards finding a solution. The investment opportunities in our country will not only be seized to some degree but also under further scrutiny. There'll be no clarity at all about the terms and conditions for the jobs, leading to more confusion and public debate.

The jobs here are significant. The country's auto investment is significant, because it also leads to transferable technology and other types of innovation.

With that, I'll say thank you for your indulgence regarding some of the confusion around what's taken place to try to find a solution. I appreciate this opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Mr. Genuis.

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

Chair, there's not a lot that surprises me in this place, but I am quite shocked, frankly, by the approach the NDP has taken.

Here's where we are.

The federal government is planning on spending over $40 billion on these various subsidies. Information has come out that these subsidies are in many cases going to fund foreign replacement workers—not creating paycheques for Canadians but supporting foreign replacement workers.

As a result of a lack of transparency around these contracts and concerns about how this spending of Canadian tax dollars is going to bring in foreign replacement workers instead of creating good jobs here in Canada, Conservatives have sought transparency from the government. We've tried to get copies of the contracts. We believe the shareholders, the taxpayers, who are the people who are paying these subsidies, and the workers who are affected by them deserve to see the contracts.

We signed the required letter and brought this committee together. At the time, we had the support of the other opposition parties, saying that these contracts should be made public. That is a principled position that, I think, is widely supported by Canadians and especially supported by workers. We stand with workers. We believe that creating good jobs for Canadian workers is critical. The government has an obligation to be transparent in these cases about a public subsidy and about what the impact of that subsidy is going to be in terms of workers and jobs.

After Liberal filibustering to block that motion, we just had the NDP fold at this committee. After grand statements by Mr. Masse on transparency and supporting workers, the NDP folded like a cheap suit and voted against our motion. We just had a vote on our motion to require the disclosure of these contracts. The Liberals have been filibustering, and they ended their filibuster. Our motion came to a vote, and the NDP, despite saying it supported the motion and despite the fact that we had incorporated a number of its amendments refining the language, voted against it.

So much for transparency, and so much for workers. A bit of pressure from the Trudeau Liberals in the form of a filibuster leads the NDP to change its position, abandoning all other stated principles.

What do we have before us? We have this motion from Mr. Masse that says a parliamentary committee should file an ATIP.

Mr. Chair, as news for anybody watching, any member of the public has a right to file an ATIP. Parliamentary committees have a constitutionally protected unfettered right to send for documents and to set their own timelines in the process. We don't have to go through the long-drawn-out and, frankly, as a result of this government's actions, increasingly troubled and broken ATIP process. We can send for an order for the production of documents, and this committee has an unfettered right to request those documents.

After a bit of pressure from the Liberals, the NDP position is, “We're not going to order the production of these documents. We're not going to make them public. We're going to have a parliamentary committee file an ATIP request.”

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

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

What a debasement of the rights and roles of parliamentary committees. What a disgrace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I was on the procedure and House affairs committee when we studied the effects of yelling into microphones on interpreters, and I just feel for them. They get acoustic shock. There have been many reports of that. The member is clearly animated at the moment. I understand he's totally capable of making his arguments.

That's all fine and dandy, but I would just ask—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm going to interrupt you. We would be advised—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Perhaps you could remind the member—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Turnbull, I have the floor. We would be advised by our translators if there was a volume issue. I appreciate your concern, but we would be advised and we're fine.

Go ahead, Mr. Genuis.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to have utmost respect for the interpreters, but I will take my lead from you in terms of that, as opposed to a member across the way. If there's anything I should do to moderate my approach, I will adjust accordingly.

In the meantime, we have a Conservative motion ordering the production of these documents to provide workers with the transparency they need. That motion was defeated on an NDP flip-flop, and then they put up this fig leaf to defend their flip-flop by saying, “Maybe the committee should file an ATIP request.”

Consistently, we've seen that the NDP, despite saying they stand for workers, will give in to any kind of pressure from the Trudeau Liberals. I don't know if we should be, as a result of this, sending for the unredacted versions of the NDP-Liberal coalition deal to find out what exactly the nature of the leverage that they have is, but I am surprised and I am disgusted that the NDP would fold up so quickly.

It was not as if we were in the midst of some intractable filibuster situation. The debate on the main motion that the Conservatives had proposed had collapsed. We were into a vote and all that had to happen was that the opposition members had to stand behind their stated positions. All of the opposition parties had spoken and had said they supported the main motion that was on the floor from the Conservatives, which already included amendments from the Bloc and the NDP.

If they had all simply stuck to their positions, we would have ordered the production of these contracts. The NDP, however, have abandoned their stated principles, abandoned transparency and abandoned workers, but we're going to give them one more chance.

We're going to give them one more chance by moving an amendment to this motion that actually sets it back on the right track. I hope that the NDP will hear from Canadians, will hear from the workers whom they pretend to represent and will reconsider the importance of honouring the principle of transparency.

I want to add, in the first line, the words, “and upon receipt immediately post on its website copies” so that the first sentence would now read, “That, an order do issue for the production of and upon receipt immediately post on its website copies” and so on and so forth.

In the section titled “new (f)”, I will strike the words “and agencies tasked with gathering these documents be redacted according to the Access to Information Act with the exception that all companies must” and also strike the words “to correct any misinformation”, so it would simply read, “that the departments fully disclose—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I remember the member chastising me for using “new (f)”, and I just want to remind him that he probably shouldn't refer to “new (f)” again.

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

It literally is written in the text of the motion that was distributed. It doesn't make any sense to me, but the member moved a motion which has the term “new (f)”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Why don't you go ahead, Mr. Genuis.

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

Maybe that could be corrected in a subsequent amendment.

The revised section which says “new (f)” on the page—but likely was supposed to say (f)—should now read, “that the departments fully disclose and make publicly available the following:” Also I would also strike, in 4, “that redacted versions of”, and then strike (i) regarding submitting the access to information request.

I believe that these changes give effect to the principled Conservative position that we believe that when taxpayers' money is involved in these contracts.... It's tens of billions of dollars. We're talking about thousands of dollars per Canadian family going into these subsidies. Canadians who are paying this money deserve access to this information. They deserve to know what the impact is on them and what the impact is on workers.

This amendment gives the NDP a chance to flip-flop back to the right position.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Genuis, can I interrupt very quickly?

I understand you've provided both languages for the amendment. Are you fine if we distribute it right now?

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

Yes.