Industry Committee on Feb. 1st, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are resuming our meeting now. We have gone out of camera into public and we're now considering Mr. Lake's motion regarding scheduling of our future meetings.

Mr. Lake, could you just read the motion before we go ahead to a recorded vote?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I'll just quickly clarify that it is in line with what the Honourable Jack Layton has had to say, that the Government of Canada should take immediate steps to amend the Investment Canada Act, and what Chris Charlton said, that it is a debate that is long overdue in this country. Brian Masse has said we could have committee hearings and there needs to be light shed on the process.

So I move that we immediately have five meetings to study the Investment Canada Act as per the motion passed by this committee, that we would take the next five meetings to study that, followed by four meetings to study the Bloc motion on the CRTC. That would be March 1, March 3, March 8, and March 10, I believe. Following that we would discuss Bill C-568, the Liberal member's motion that would impose $500 fines for people who don't want to tell the government how much housework they did last week or what their religion is.

That's my suggestion, that we immediately move to the Investment Canada Act, which I think has been largely supported by members of all parties through statements they've made that they'd like to see a study of this done. I think it should be the priority for this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

Now we'll move to a vote on Mr. Lake's motion.

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I want to speak to the motion. I just want to make sure it's clear that we can and will study the Investment Canada Act.

In fact, actually we'll do a better study the way I'm going to propose it after this. I'm going to propose that we actually look at the CRTC's recent decisions for three meetings. Following that, we can then work concurrently at the Investment Canada Act, as well as on the census bill that has come forward. I think that could be done very well, and we can probably have more and better meetings for that. I think they're very serious issues that Canadians do want to hear more about.

I don't see a downside on the CRTC decisions right now. I want to make sure we get the best witnesses possible, and I'm not sure we can do that by rushing through in the next couple of days to try to get people. On the Investment Canada Act, we might want some international witnesses to come forward too. For me, that gives us a chance to get our witness lists up and going, and we certainly can do concurrent meetings and we can actually review that at some point in time.

I also have a notation here that at some point, when Bill C-501 becomes clearer, we ought to spend one meeting to finish that bill too.

So I will be immediately proposing that, followed by Mr. Lake's motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Following this impending vote.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure we all understand that once the mover of Bill C-501 gets an indication from the House what they can do, we will be going to Bill C-501 in a meeting shortly thereafter. Is everyone in the room of that understanding?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I think no matter what motion is passed by the agenda, there is a consensus by everyone regarding that.

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Just a clarification from Brian regarding the Investment Canada Act. We talked about the witnesses and the number of meetings. Now I think we're talking about four meetings, because one of those meetings might be precluded by a discussion of Bill C-501. Is that enough meetings to schedule for the Investment Canada Act study, do we think, or is that reasonable?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I think we can revisit that. I think what we do is start those studies and see how many witnesses come forth and see how long we need. I don't think we need to pigeonhole ourselves into the five meetings. I think what we can do is start those studies, because there will probably be a great public interest, and then not set an end date. We can actually go back into either a subcommittee or the general committee to address that if we don't have a witness list, if it dries up or whatever.

So my proposal is that we just start to get at these things, and then we can address that, depending upon the interest level we're receiving.

I've been here before with the Investment Canada Act. It has been studied by this committee in recent years, and it was very much.... We did an issue on national security. You can get the research back on that. I brought that back in 2003, I think, because it was about the Investment Canada Act, how non-state democratic governments could buy Canadian companies. We were opposed to that. We had a lot of witnesses at that time.

I think we might find that five meetings wouldn't be enough anyway, so my motion will keep it open-ended, and then the committee can be the master of its own deliberations.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Concerning the study of the CRTC that was proposed, of course the minister has said he's carefully studying the decisions. Might it be a little more prudent for us--as a committee trying to take a look at what our priorities are in the limited amount of time we have to study the issues--to wait to see what comes out of that before we undertake a study that might start on Thursday? Might it make more sense for us to pursue the Investment Canada Act study that has been so important to so many members of Parliament? It has been raised time and time again in the House of Commons over months and months.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

On a point of order, a lot of this was discussed in camera. We didn't come out into a public audience so that Mr. Lake can do his commercials and ads for an upcoming election he wants to have. If he can maybe stick to the facts and stop the propaganda, we would all appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Rota.

It's not the chair's responsibility to limit debate--quite the contrary; I'm supposed to encourage debate. Mr. Lake feels this is germane, and it appears to be germane to me.

Mr. Lake, go ahead.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I didn't think that was really over the top. I'm talking about what the committee business is going to be, what our approach at committee is going to be. Yes, it makes sense to have this discussion in public, because we are discussing priorities for what the committee is going to discuss. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to do.

We proposed that we study the Investment Canada Act first, because over the long term that is a subject that members of all parties have said has some urgency behind it. The minister has requested that the committee study that issue as well. So I think members of all parties...in the interest of working together to try to find something that is important for all of us to work together on and to study, this is a good thing. I think this is the subject that is of critical importance to the country, and we can all agree on that.

Before we undertake a study of the CRTC decision, it's prudent to see what the minister has to say after his careful study of that decision. That seems to make sense.

We have private member's Bill C-568 before us. We may disagree on the merits of that bill, but it's important that we study it. We have a timeline of May 12, so we can abide by that timeframe by studying that bill once these other two issues are studied by the committee. I think we can all agree that they are important issues, and we've already come to an agreement that we want to study these things. Now we're just trying to determine the order in a way that makes sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

Now the speakers list is built again. It will be Mr. Wallace, Mr. Masse, and Mr. Cardin, in that order.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak to this motion. The motion deals with the Investment Canada Act and to begin with it in our next set of meetings, excluding the meeting set aside for Bill C-501, whenever it comes.

To be frank with you, this is interesting, being from Burlington, across the bay from Stelco and Dofasco, both now foreign-owned, one having difficulty, the other not. In fact, one announced an expansion, an increase in staff, and more investment. So I'm very interested in finding out why one investment in the exact same industry on the same street is successful and one is not. I am looking forward to it. I think it's an important discussion.

I can tell you, Mr. Chair, that of all the calls I get—there are lots of calls on individual problems, of course, and those are case issues and on broader policy—the vast majority have to do with either CRA or Investment Canada, to be honest with you, and what's happening with investment.

People will ask me, “How can your government allow for foreigners to come in and buy this?” My response, Mr. Chair, to be perfectly frank with you, is very polite, but I do ask them about what needs to happen for Canadians to be investing in Canadian companies. Why are Canadians, seeing what's happening in the world...? Why didn't Dofasco, for example, know that there were going to be amalgamations in the steel business? Why? They're a very big player, a very good player, with a quality product. How does their saying go, that steel is their business, but people are number one, or whatever that saying was? So why do Canadian companies wait to be sold?

Let's be frank about the Investment Canada Act. This government is the only government that ever turned down an investment. It's happened twice now. The potash one was the recent one, and a few years ago the Canadarm manufacturer--I forget the name of the company--was under threat of being sold to a foreign entity.

I watched a show last night on the CBC, or whatever. They had a roving reporter in Winnipeg and they were asking people why they weren't paying any attention to federal politics. I think today is an example of why people aren't paying attention to federal politics. There were lots of comments about how we should be working together, and so on and so forth.

At the end of the day, I think what the parliamentary secretary has proposed in terms of a priority for Canadians...it's a look at what we're doing in the Investment Canada Act. We came to a conclusion among all of us that we should study the Investment Canada Act. The parliamentary secretary indicated that people have talked about it in the past. He's quoted them. I don't have those quotes, but he's quoted other members of Parliament from other parties. It's a reasonable request.

The part to deal with the CRTC decision comes next in his proposal, and it's still in front of the length of time that's allowed for that decision, which is coming out at the beginning of March. So there is time for this committee to deal with those issues.

Is anybody paying attention? It's unbelievable. Are you paying attention to me? Oh, that's very good.

There is time to deal with the issues. Then, again, we talk about Bill C-568--

[A voice]

You have 21 more minutes.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I can't do 20 more minutes, my friend.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Just for the record, they are filibustering.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

No, Mr. Rota, listen, this is the exact same thing I said in our session prior to us going public in terms of what I think our priority should be. I'm saying Bill C-568--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

A point of order, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I would like to have the opportunity, before 5:30 p.m., to move a motion to extend time and ask for that unanimous consent. If the intent here is to filibuster, or not, I don't know.... I'm not going to play that game. But I want to make sure that I get the chance to move a motion that we extend the debate until necessary to complete our schedule.

We'll need unanimous consent, which was granted to move out of camera by every member here. If people aren't serious about having this vote right away, and then followed by another vote if it doesn't pass, I'm hoping that we sit here and finish it. If we do not, that means nothing gets studied, not the CRTC decision, not the Investment Canada Act, and not Stats Canada--nothing gets done for another day here in Ottawa.

So my hope is that, at least procedurally, I have the opportunity before 5:30 p.m. today to extend indefinitely until we finish our schedule. I think it's reasonable that for two hours the committee could actually write a schedule, and apparently we're getting dangerously close to not doing that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Masse, I understand your concern. Sometimes debate seems onerous, but that's what our DNA is here.