Evidence of meeting #17 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 45th 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
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Yet you took the entire schedule of work fully out.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
—while also protecting what is purely confidential.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
You took the entire schedule of work fully out. It's a core accountability mechanism. If you want to be transparent, why wouldn't you have asked them to include that?
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
There is information in programs of work that actually can tip the hand to competitors in terms of what they're—
November 25th, 2025 / 11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Every word in that part, every word in that section is completely private?
That's how you've blacked it out. There's nothing left.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
As I said, in our discussions with Stellantis, that is what, in their assessment, needs to be protected—
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
You do understand that redacting that schedule creates an appearance of a deliberate cover-up.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
In our discussions with Stellantis, we're comfortable with the redactions that they brought to this document. In our assessment, what's being released to this committee, which is supposed to be in camera, is more than would normally be released and certainly well above what an ATIP request would release.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That is your time.
We're going to Mr. Gasparro.
I'm receiving somewhat positive news on the IT front, so I'll let you chat with Mr. Gasparro.
The floor is yours, sir.
Liberal
Vince Gasparro Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the members who are there in person.
I am incredibly annoyed that Stellantis has not been able to join us. I understand that they're working through the IT issues, but this is incredibly frustrating. I just want to reiterate for the record that, at this point, it's unacceptable.
I want to drill down just a little bit on—and I've spoken about this at committee before—the release of commercially sensitive information and the strategic value of our being able to honour our commitments as a government, not only this current government but also future governments.
Maybe we can just jump into it.
How does our approach to the protection of proprietary and commercially sensitive information compare to that of other countries within the G7 more broadly? Do we have a line of sight there?
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
I'll pass it to Benoit, who would have a better, more comprehensive answer than I would on this.
Benoit Tessier Director General, Industry Sector, Department of Industry
I think the deputy minister mentioned at the beginning, as well, that there's not only sectoral commercially sensitive information in terms of sectoral competition that is at play here, but there are also foreign direct investments and other countries that are also trying to attract the same kinds of investments we are trying to attract in Canada and that are trying to sign contracts with those companies.
Quite frankly, they would have a very similar approach to Canada in terms of protecting the commercially sensitive information in those contracts.
Liberal
Vince Gasparro Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Okay.
This is a competitive advantage in terms of large—for lack of a better term—foreign direct investors into our country in terms of investing capital in our country versus other jurisdictions around the world. Is that correct?
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
I think the way to answer that is by saying this. You are correct that there are certainly many countries.... It depends on the sector, but let's say for the automotive sector, the U.S. and Canada would generally be competing in terms of trying to attract those investments. There is an advantage, ultimately, to making sure that some terms of those contracts are not in the public domain, to not actually tip our hand in terms of the approaches we take. Also, from a commercially confidential perspective, in different instances there are some commitments that companies are making which they feel it would be a disadvantage to them in terms of being in the public domain, either for investment discussions they're having in the U.S. or for a competitive advantage with other automotive companies that they're competing against.
Liberal
Vince Gasparro Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Basically, what you're saying is that the public release of these contracts would create an uneven playing field between us and some of our friends who are also competitors.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
It certainly would be a risk that, at the end of the day, the tools we have would be less effective in terms of attracting investments if all of ours were public and that were not the case with our competitors.
Liberal
Vince Gasparro Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Can you name a single advanced economy where releasing confidential commercial contracts has led to more jobs or foreign direct investment or both?
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
I wouldn't be able to come up with an example of a country.
Liberal
Vince Gasparro Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
That's correct. I did the math on that one.
Is it safe to assume that disclosing commercially sensitive information would weaken Canada's ability to attract further large-scale investments from—to use your term—knowledge-based industries?
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
It's fair to say that the element of protecting commercial information always comes up in all our contract discussions with all of these companies. At the end of the day, they recognize that we need that information to be able to do proper due diligence if we're able to make positive decisions in terms of supporting important investments that we want to attract to Canada. They share it under the understanding that we protect that information and seek their guidance when there is a request for information, such as this committee wants in terms of what we can actually redact or not redact in terms of being able to share that information for Parliament's review.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That is our time.
We'll now go to Mr. Seeback for five minutes.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
SIF agreement 810-819553, which is not the one we're talking about today, was produced through an access to information request and it's now in the public domain. It's on the CBC website in a PDF with limited redactions. I was able to print it.
You're suggesting that this SIF agreement 813-816251 can only be reviewed by parliamentarians in camera. We have to wait until someone makes an access to information request to see it. Is that your argument? Does an access to information request trump Parliament's right to review the documents?
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
Just to be clear, I never suggested that.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
That's what you are suggesting. You're saying we can only review this document in camera with your redactions. However, the CBC obtained a copy of another SIF agreement in the same format. I'm looking at it. It's almost identical clause for clause, and it's now publicly available. Anyone in the entire world can review it.
You're saying this one is so special that we can't review it, except in camera with your redactions. That's basically the argument you're making to Parliament right now. I'm sorry but it's not making a lot of sense to me.
Do we have to wait for an access to information request or is Parliament supreme?