Government Operations Committee on Dec. 14th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 96 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, also known as the mighty OGGO.

If you're watching at home, I hope you will tune in later for our annual Christmas special, “An OGGO Christmas Carol”, in which the estimates of Christmas past, present and future come back to haunt Scrooge.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This committee is meeting to consider matters related to committee business.

As a reminder, please do not put earpieces next to the microphones as it causes feedback and potential injury.

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

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

Since we're in committee business, I'd like to move a motion, which reads as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a):

the Government of Canada be ordered to produce unredacted copies of:

(a) any contract, memorandum of understanding, or other agreement between any minister, department, agency or Crown corporation of the government and:

(i) related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery facility in Windsor, Ontario:

aa) Stellantis N.V., LG Energy Solutions, Ltd.,

bb) NextStar Energy Inc.

cc) or Volta Energy Solutions Canada Inc.;

(ii) related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery facility in St. Thomas, Ontario:

aa) Volkswagen Group,

bb) Volkswagen AG,

cc) Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. or PowerCo SE;

(iii) related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery facility in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, Quebec:

aa) Northvolt AB,

bb) Northvolt North America,

cc) Northvolt Batteries North America Inc. or Cubery, Inc.,

(iv) related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery materials production plant in Bécancour, Quebec:

aa) Ford Motor Company,

bb) Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited,

cc) EcoProBM Co., Ltd.,

dd) EcoPro Innovation Co., Ltd.,

ee) EcoPro Global,

ff) EcoPro Co., Ltd.,

gg) ECOPRO,

hh) Eco CAM Canada Inc.,

ii) EcoPro CAM Canada General Partner Inc.,

jj) SK On Co.,

kk) SK ie technology Co., Ltd.,

ll) SK Inc.,

mm) SK Innovation Co., Ltd.,

nn) SK Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd.,

oo) Sunlake Co., Ltd. or

pp) EcoPro CAM Canada, LP;

(v) related to the construction of an electric vehicle battery materials production plant in Loyalist Township, Ontario:

aa) Umicore Rechargeable Battery Materials Canada Inc.,

bb) Umicore SA/NV or

cc) Umicore Canada Inc.,

(b) 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;

And that all documents:

a) include all provisions related to the hiring or use of foreign workers and concerning language requirements and language of work, and that these clauses be released unconditionally;

b) shall be deposited unredacted with the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel within three weeks of the adoption of this motion;

c) be submitted with proposed redactions for commercially sensitive information;

d) following the review by the Parliamentary Law Clerk, all contracts, redacted for commercially sensitive information, shall be published on the committee’s website.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think all members have the motion. If I can take a few moments to explain the motion, we've had a few variations.

I know of various attempts by the committee to come to an agreement from our original motion, which was to release all the unredacted contracts, to—I think—a compromise motion that MP Masse tried to put forward during the last couple of meetings, to have those reviewed by a third party prior to being released to the committee. Having the third party review is in order to ensure, I believe, that only commercially sensitive things were being redacted, and other things for other political reasons perhaps weren't being redacted by either the government or the co-signer for these contracts. Then it would be reviewed in secret in committee as to whether or not these contracts said the things that people in public have said they said, such as seeking to have anywhere from 900 to 1,600 foreign replacement workers, for an example, in the Stellantis plant.

We've basically used and taken most of Mr. Masse's motion from the last time and agreed with him as a compromise, as a condition of trying to break the logjam on behalf of Conservatives, to have a third party review these contracts. We would trust, in our case, the law clerk, but I think we're open to other independent parliamentary officers if that would make people feel more comfortable—the access to information clerk was suggested, I think, in Mr. Masse's last version—and that it be reviewed, but I guess where we differ is on the issue of what happens then.

I trust whoever the independent body is to make the right decision about what should be redacted and what shouldn't.

I don't think it should be subject to a political review after that and a second-guessing after that by this committee. First of all, as I understand it, that would be done in secret in an in camera session, which would allow a very political discussion about redacting other parts of contracts. Ultimately, this committee would have veto to add in other thoughts about why they might redact certain clauses outside of commercial sensitivity.

Of course, this is what the Liberal members have talked about extensively over this number of meetings. Their concern is that releasing the unredacted contracts would somehow compromise either the companies involved or some mythical future contracts.

As we know, most companies that do business with the Government of Canada expect that a level of transparency is required when receiving taxpayers' dollars. That might not be the case if it were between two private parties, but it's different when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars, as it should be.

In an effort to reach a compromise, I've put forward a motion that takes Mr. Masse's motion pretty much word for word, with a cleanup of some of the language. It does give the blessing to having a version of a redacted contract released, but that contract is redacted only on commercially sensitive reasons. This would be judged solely by the parliamentary law clerk, who is an officer of Parliament and a neutral third party, not by this committee and the individuals in this committee.

For some strange reason, politicians may have other agendas that may force them or make them want to redact certain parts of contracts for political expediency that are not in the public interest of transparency in the expenditure—in this case with Stellantis—of $15 billion of taxpayer money, which is $1000 per household. If you take the three main contracts together—the Ford contract, the Stellantis contract and the VW contract—they represent over $40 billion in six years of taxpayer subsidies to large foreign multinationals, a number of which have already indicated they're bringing in foreign replacement workers and not using Canadian workers.

The best way to shed light on that is to have the contracts released publicly, but we acknowledge that there may be some commercially sensitive things in the contract. I've read the Volkswagen contract. There isn't a lot that's commercially sensitive, from what I saw in it. Nonetheless, let's put that in the hands of somebody without a political agenda as an officer of Parliament, like the parliamentary law clerk.

Mr. Chair, I'll leave it there for now. I might reserve the right to speak on this a little later.

I would appreciate any thoughts and input from our colleagues around the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

I had started a speaking list. I had Mr. Masse.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, was it something on this motion or on something else?

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

It was on something else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay.

I have Mr. Masse, Ms. Vignola, and Mr.—

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

It's on this motion. Pardon me; I didn't know what you meant.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay, I'll go to Mr. Masse, Mr. Kusmierczyk, Ms. Vignola and then Mr. Genuis.

Go ahead, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Perkins for bringing forth a motion to try to bridge to where we're going.

I've reviewed it. There's certainly a lot of reflection of some of the things that we've tried to do here. I think he has done so with the interest of trying to move this forward.

However, I believe that the motion that I have submitted provides more information to the public and has more details. My preference is to continue the course to work on my motion.

I do appreciate it. I think it's a sincere attempt to try to get something done here. At the same time, I think it leaves it short from where we were going with my motion, which was prepared beforehand and has been cleaned up quite a bit since I submitted it.

I would be hopeful to move to that debate sooner rather than later, because this is affecting a number of different things taking place with regard to the auto industry and investment. Certainly I am hopeful that we can move on from a stalemate here and try to get to something at the end of the day.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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

I have a quick point of order.

In order for us to understand that, is there an actual other motion that we can see?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

There was Mr. Masse's motion.

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

Yes, but it sounded like he had a new one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You were referring to your other one. Is that right, Mr. Masse?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, I am. I'd like to proceed to debate on my previous motion at some point. I do appreciate the effort, but at the same time, I'd like to conclude that first before considering anything else. I think it has a few other characteristics that are important. I don't have anything new, just what I've had tabled before.

Thank you.

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

On a similar point of order, Chair, Mr. Masse did say he'd cleaned it up substantially since it was initially tabled, so I'm a bit confused by that as well. Maybe we're having a misunderstanding here, but—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I think we can get back.... From what I understand, Mr. Masse would like to get back to his motion eventually, but we're still debating Mr. Perkins'.

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

He implied that he'd made some changes to it by cleaning it up. The motion that's on the table is the one he proposed, not a cleaned-up version of it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No, we're discussing Mr. Perkins's motion right now.

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

Yes, exactly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll move to Mr. Kusmierczyk.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair,

Mr. Chair, I move that the committee proceed to debate on Mr. Masse's Stellantis motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay, we will take a vote on Mr. Kusmierczyk's motion. It will take us to Mr. Masse's motion with Mr. Genuis's amendments, if it passes.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

We'll move on, then, to Mr. Masse's motion with Mr. Genuis's amendment.

Mr. Kusmierczyk has indicated that you all have copies of where we're at. Is that correct for you, Mr. Sousa and Mr. Powlowski?

[A voice]

Can we have it sent around again to make sure?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Sure. Let's suspend for about 30 seconds just to send it around again. I'll start a speaking list again, with Mr. Genuis, Mr. Sousa and Mr. Masse, I am assuming.