Industry Committee on Sept. 26th, 2024

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

Yes.

I can do a quick reminder, because it's been a little while since we did this amendment, CPC-9, which is in regard to the powers of the Privacy Commissioner.

In essence, we are not supporters of the tribunal. We think it's an added layer of bureaucracy that's ineffective in some ways, like the Competition Tribunal is.

The amendment essentially transfers the powers proposed in here from the tribunal to the Privacy Commissioner, which we believe will lead to a more robust examination of privacy breaches by the Privacy Commissioner than he has the ability to do now. It would mean there were more legal ramifications for what the Privacy Commissioner does and enable proponents to go straight to court after that, I believe, if this were to go through.

Is that not the case? Appeals from a Privacy Commissioner ruling would enable those who are involved and who disagree with that ruling to go straight to court, rather than going to the tribunal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Before I let the officials answer, Mr. Masse, you have the floor.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm just wondering if maybe we could hear from Mr. Turnbull.

I know we're committed to having the government come back with more of a nuanced position on this, so I'm wondering whether we should consider suspending at this point in time or work through these things. If they're all connected, I'd hate to continue to go in circles here and lose momentum where there seems to be some kind of joint agreement—well, there is, because we passed it unanimously—to hear back from the government on this. From what I understand, these things are intertwined.

I know we all came in here early and everything, but we had a good result in the last moments. I'm just wondering whether or not we're going to go through.... I know some of my concerns and amendments are also connected with the government...and might be reproposing some alterations. I'm wondering why we'd try to hash out the myths as opposed to the facts at this point.

I'll just throw that out to the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

We can have that discussion.

I see that Mr. Perkins has something to say on that.

Mr. Perkins, the floor is yours.

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

I don't disagree, because there have been discussions, and next week—I guess not Monday, but a week today—we are moving on to the credit card study, but I'd hate to lose the opportunity, since everyone's here and has had a little breakfast, to propose another motion that's on notice.

Thank you, Mr. Masse. I'll take the opportunity.

I put this on notice last week:

That, given that the Government of Canada has invested upward of $50 billion towards the creation of an EV battery ecosystem in Canada and has mandated that all automobile sales in Canada be zero-emitting by 2035, and given that:

(i) Northvolt's $7-billion EV battery plant in Montreal, QC, has delayed construction for upward of a year while it undergoes a “strategic review” of its future operations, despite receiving 7.2 billion dollars' worth of taxpayer money;

(ii) Unicore's $2.7-billion EV battery component plant in Kingston, ON, has halted construction, despite receiving 1 billion dollars' worth of taxpayer subsidies; and

(iii) Ford's $1.8-billion EV expansion in Oakville, ON, has been scrapped and retooled to make gasoline pickups, despite receiving 590 million dollars' worth of taxpayer subsidies;

the committee therefore agree to conduct a four-meeting study, beginning in the first week of November, to review the feasibility of the government's EV strategy, given the significant amount of taxpayer support amid a global slowdown in EV sales, and that the committee agree to hear from witnesses submitted by members of the committee proportional to their representation in the House, report its findings to the House and request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

I put this on notice last week. In the media over the last number of months, we've seen that a number of the companies involved in this space are scaling back their production of EVs, including plans in Canada. As I said in the motion, after a strategic review, Northvolt has already announced 1,600 layoffs in Sweden, and they're not proceeding with certain plant construction in Sweden. Volkswagen has scaled back its plans for EV and part production in Europe. Ford lost $1 billion on its EV sales last year and has scaled back.

The only place where we seem to be continuing with this thing that consumers and the markets aren't buying is where we have a massive government subsidy. In this case, when it comes to the Stellantis EV plants and Volkswagen plants, what we have is a 100% assembly subsidy from the taxpayer of Canada through 2029, as we know, and then it's 75% the year after, 50% the year after that and 25% the year after that. The result of all of that is perhaps it's not surprising that where these global companies are getting 100% taxpayer subsidies, they haven't changed some of their plans, but where they're not getting the 100% subsidies, such as Northvolt on the production subsidies, they're scaling back.

The free market is saying there isn't the capacity for this, yet the government is plowing ahead with what appears to be a fairly failed strategy of industrial engineering and selection in picking a particular technology that the market is not accepting and trying to put Canadian taxpayers on the hook. As a result, because over $50 billion has been committed to basically the three or four plants here, if you bring the provincial money into it, we should have a study on it before the government starts doling out more taxpayer money on the production subsidy side of it and on the construction side of it. We should get an update on the construction of all these plants and whether or not, at this stage, it's a good thing to do.

I will leave it there for now. I'm sure others will have a few thoughts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

You have moved your motion. Thank you, too, for the short intermission on Bill C-27. You broke the ice this session, so it's appreciated.

There's a motion on the table.

I have MP Arya, Brian Masse and Ryan Turnbull.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Chair, before I speak, should the witnesses still be here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I'll give it a few more minutes to see how this motion goes, because I got scared by Mr. Perkins with the intermission on Bill C-27. We'll see how it goes, but we'll liberate the witnesses earlier if need be.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The transformation to a clean economy across the world has just begun. It may have started a few years back, but in the bigger scheme of things, this is a multidecade thing that has now started. There will be small hiccups, small changes, small adjustments, tactical adjustments, strategic adjustments, etc. that affect it.

Canada is at the right spot at the right time to make maximum use of this opportunity that is there and to make us a global leader in all things from mines to mobility. We have started supporting the exploration and development of critical minerals, which, I have to say, the United States is fully supporting, not just with words. The United States defence department is actually investing in Canadian mining companies. The Pentagon is investing. That is how important the critical minerals are, from there up to electric vehicles.

If you look back at the 20th century, that was the era of oil and automobiles, especially cars and trucks. Now, we are moving from that to electric vehicles, and the government has rightly put its money where its mouth is in trying to support this entire industry through our mainstream mobility strategy.

Northvolt is a big player in Europe, and the small changes it is making in Europe are not going to affect it here, as it has clearly said. It is time for us to encourage as many global players as possible to come to Canada and set up their plants. We should not interfere in their day-to-day operations, in their short-term strategic objectives or in the tactics they use.

In fact, this particular move by the government has attracted, and has resulted in, Canada being the second- or third-biggest recipient of foreign direct investment in the OECD countries, including the highest per capita foreign direct investments in any of the G7 countries. Therefore, it is yielding results.

In addition to the EV plants, the battery plants and the mining companies, we also need to focus on the processing of minerals, which is the sort of thing I think this committee should look into. We should check where we are in that part of the chain, from mines to mobility. We are being very active. We see a lot of projects in the critical minerals mining projects. We see a lot of battery plants. We see a lot of EV manufacturing plants.

In that chain, we are not seeing many stories about the processing of these minerals here. I think, if anything, the committee has to look into this segment or this sector. It is that sweet spot that we have to focus our limited time and limited resources on.

I suggest that, instead of this motion.... I don't think this motion is relevant at this time. Anytime there are small changes in corporate sector strategies, etc., we're going to see a lot of changes, a lot of positive things. Sometimes we may feel that some of the actions are not exactly very positive, but we have to give due credit to the corporate sector to do what is best in its interest, in its business, which does affect the overall benefit of this transformation to electric vehicles and the transformation to a clean economy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, MP Arya.

In the meantime, I consulted with the opposition. We can liberate the witnesses we have with us today at this point. Thank you very much for your presence this morning, and to our legislative clerks as well.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Masse, you have the floor.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That was my question and intervention.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Next, we have Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I want to make a few points on the record about this. Hopefully, we can deal with this fairly quickly. There are many things to say about this, but there are some factual inaccuracies in the actual motion that concern me. Mr. Arya made some really good comments about this.

The green industrial revolution is not stopping because the Conservatives deny that climate change is a reality or deny that there's any need for that industrial transition. It's kind of shocking to see how they can't see the global trends that are going on around the world and that Canada is actually doing really well in terms of building out and attracting investment.

Canada is competing in the North American market for the EV battery supply chain. The fact is that we're number one in the world when it comes to.... BloombergNEF rates Canada as number one for the EV supply chain, which is fantastic. We've seen billions of dollars of investment that would not have come into our market.

We also see this as a really large transition that's global. Companies are going to have some challenges along the way. They're going to adjust their schedules. Some of that is to be expected.

The one factual inaccuracy that really strikes me here is that this motion.... I'm not sure who wrote it. I know Mr. Perkins moved it, but I don't know who wrote it. Maybe he didn't have a chance to read up on this.

The new numbers on ZEV sales in Canada show that there's a 30% increase, quarter over quarter, as of the last quarter. There were 65,733 new EVs registered in Canada in quarter two of 2024. Sales saw a rise and jump to 12.9% of market share, with Manitoba and Quebec actually leading the way. There was a 30% increase, quarter over quarter. That's significant. We want that to continue to rise. I think Canadians, rightfully, are showing interest in wanting to drive more EVs.

Globally, there are other trends that we could cite. There's an acknowledgement that this movement to electric vehicles is happening, whether the Conservatives like it or not. It's going to happen.

The question is, will Canada be competitive in that space? Will Canada actually be able to leverage all of its strengths and natural resources to truly be a global player and to be a player in the North American market, in the integrated supply chains that we have?

Obviously, we know that the United States and its Inflation Reduction Act changed the conditions in terms of Canada's being competitive. The things that the Canadian government has done have made us competitive and have drawn in investment.

The other factual inaccuracy is very small, but “Unicore's” is not “Unicore's”, it's “Umicore's”.

The other thing that we've heard, very quickly, is that Northvolt has said publicly that its Sweden restructuring doesn't impact the work here in Canada. Its production schedule and construction schedule haven't been impacted. We also know that no federal funding—the minister has been clear about this—has actually gone to Northvolt yet.

The structure of these deals is done in such a way that a lot of the subsidy portions are related to production. It's related to the sales of EVs. If these companies don't follow through and don't sell EVs, they don't get the subsidies that were promised. If the Inflation Reduction Act doesn't continue or somehow is repealed in the United States, those production subsidies are no longer in place. This makes Canada competitive with the United States. It makes Canada competitive globally. It really is the reason we've seen this amount of massive investment come in.

All of that is to say that the motion is flawed in multiple ways. In terms of what our committee has said, we all agreed on a schedule, which includes hearing from the minister, having four meetings on the credit card study, which Mr. Masse put forward and we all agreed to, and then getting back to Bill C-27.

If we have other considerations for studies, they should be after Bill C-27. This is just not the right time for this particular study.

I also worry about putting the industry on trial here. It needs flexibility in order to manage its operations and make these very large investments. If it needs to slightly reschedule things, I think that's perfectly reasonable.

I don't agree with this motion. I think it's deeply flawed in terms of how it's been written.

I think there's a great story to tell about the auto industry in Canada and the supply chains that we're building here. The frame of this motion is not one I can support. I think we should move past this and get on with our committee work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

I now give the floor to Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is somewhat unfortunate. Once again, we're seeing the Conservatives put politics before business and people. They're really not ensuring that we move forward with what we're supposed to be doing up here in Ottawa, which is putting business before politics and, with that, being a mechanism and a partner with vision.

The bottom line, Mr. Chair, is that Canada is the front door to a new and emerging market in the EV sector, and we're doing that with partners, relationships and vision. Vision comes from the private sector working with the resources it has available to it from all levels of government.

In Niagara, we just announced a $1.6-billion investment from the Japanese company Asahi Kasei, which is going to be a major supply chain partner with Honda. That was just announced in Alliston. We're looking at about 1,500 jobs and a lot of residual benefits when it comes to assessment growth, trade and the workforce. The list goes on, but I don't want to get into that, because I would be here for an hour and a half talking about those benefits.

I also want to mention that there's a reason that, for example, 94% of all manufacturing jobs in Canada are contained within Ontario. Quite frankly, in comparison to all 50 states combined, Ontario is performing well because of this vision and these investments. Once again, it's an “all hands on deck” approach, with all levels of government participating with the private sector to ensure that level of comfort and confidence investing in Canada.

Let me go a bit more granular, because there are many more benefits than just the obvious ones we see on the surface. Yes, there are big dollars. There's $1.6 billion in Port Colborne, for example, from Asahi Kasei. There will be 1,500 jobs. It's really strengthening the trades and the workforce, but let's take the next layer and the residual benefits it applies to.

We recognize that in Canada, there is an urgent need for supply chain and logistics relationships. With that, and in today's interconnected world, a resilient and adaptive supply chain is no longer a luxury; it's a necessity. Unpredictable global disruptions and shifts in demand have highlighted the vulnerabilities existing in somewhat out-of-date systems that, sometimes, the government and even the private sector become content with and complacent about.

With this new, emerging market coming here to Canada, and Canada being the front door to this new, emerging market, it gives a lot more investor confidence that Canada is in the game, regardless of whether it's the EV sector or other sectors. We are leading by example when it comes to investing in Canada. To safeguard economic growth and ensure the timely delivery of essential goods within our supply chains, we're establishing comprehensive relationships that prioritize sustainability, innovation and efficiency. This is part of that. The EV sector is part of that. Once again, in leading by example as a country with our partner provinces, territories and municipalities, we're showing off Canada and strengthening Canada with respect to our international trade performance and the partners within that stronger international trade performance.

To meet current and future capacity needs, strategic investments must be made in these sectors, which leads me to my third point. Investments are needed in the capacity of our supply chains to create fluidity within themselves. While the government invests in these companies coming into the country, the residual benefits of those investments are the capacity and the infrastructure investments in water, sewer, roads, parks, sidewalks, recreation trails, policing, fire, public health and community services. The list goes on.

All of those growth-related costs, because of that one investment, are now being looked after because of the investments coming out of the federal, provincial and municipal governments. It lends itself to other investments that are going to accrue over time.

Don't let that be lost upon us with respect to the technology and the workforce development we'll also build and strengthen because of that one investment based on the vision of this country.

By securing the funding for critical supply chain logistics improvements through investments like this, in terms of this sector, the EV sector, we will reduce, for example—and this is my next point—the bottlenecks within our supply chains in those economic corridors. We'll optimize transportation networks. We'll better support industries dependent on timely and reliable delivery. That's all part of this.

We really, really have to ensure that we recognize what these investments are attaching to. To have a motion like this come up just discourages the entire concept of economic development and, therefore, in no way will I be supporting it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, MP Badawey.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't have as much patience as my colleague Mr. Badaway to explain the green transition to the Conservatives. Everyone in the Bloc knows I'm a very patient man, but I no longer have enough patience to do that.

Furthermore, this motion seeks to put an entire industry on trial. This motion could have been drafted more in more productive light, but it sounds self-serving instead. I'm quite surprised, because two weeks ago, our Conservative colleagues and the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes were prepared to hand over the keys to our IT infrastructure to Elon Musk. If Elon Musk is now the Conservatives' guru, they might want to give him a call to talk about electric vehicles. The glass can't be half empty and half full at the same time. We can't get our heads around that.

Let's talk about China. They put tariffs on Chinese EVs. About half the new cars sold in China are electric, and yet the motion is founded on the premise that the EV market is collapsing. If they think the Earth is flat, they might as well go ahead and write that into the motion too. We can discuss that. The truth is, the EV market is growing. All industrialized nations have electric vehicle regulations. It's growing in the United States. So this motion is looking to put an entire industry on trial.

First of all, I don't feel the list of projects as presented is the right way to go. Northvolt is certainly of interest to us. If the National Assembly of Quebec wants to look at the part of the Northvolt project that falls under Quebec jurisdiction, it's free to do so. However, as my colleague Mr. Turnbull said, federal subsidies are done differently. There are provincial matters—we call them national matters in Quebec—in this motion that are the National Assembly's responsibility and we shouldn't be studying them here.

If the Conservatives want to put the industry on trial, first they have to acknowledge that the transition is happening. Plus, just because their constituents like putting edible oil products in their morning coffee, they can't decide to put an industry on trial for political reasons after one rough quarter. If they want to put the industry on trial, they have to look at all prospects in the battery and clean technology sector. It's a growth industry in Quebec, here, and for our partners and competitors. It's one thing not to believe in global warming. That's their prerogative. However, they can't deny that export markets are out there for technologies with high added value and that we'll be able to enjoy well-paying jobs and substantially ramp up productivity in Quebec and the rest of Canada. No matter what they think about global warming, and even how much Canadian emissions affect global warming, the market is real and we must allow it to develop.

It's as if the Conservatives were looking at the S&P 500, the 500 top companies in the United States, taking the 10 companies that are underperforming this quarter, putting them on trial and shutting them down. There's no way anyone would ever think that makes any sense. Do you want to know what's most dishonest about this? It's not even what they put in the motion—it's what they decided to leave out. You can take any sector of the economy and find a company that's struggling, having trouble raising venture capital or has just had a rough quarter. The Conservatives think it should all be shut down.

I understand that the Conservatives are touchy about this. I understand that there are subsidy programs. I understand that the government's way of doing things may not be their preferred route. It may not be mine either, in some cases. However, they are relentlessly looking to put this industry on trial, and it's an industry of the future that Quebeckers believe in. I don't see how the Bloc Québécois could ever support a motion like this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Garon.

Mr. Patzer, the floor is yours.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Well, I think part of what we can do here, too, is to take a look at where these subsidies are going. We know that Volkswagen got subsidies. We know that Stellantis got subsidies. Let's take a look at what's happening within those companies.

Volkswagen, over in Germany, is going through a restructuring, with 4.4 billion dollars' worth of capacity cuts. While Volkswagen is cutting good-paying union jobs—not here in Canada, but around the world—this government is making sure that the executives are getting big handouts yet again.

For Stellantis, what's happening south of the border? Again, we have to take a look around the world to see what the context is. The United Auto Workers are filing unfair labour practice charges against Stellantis because of their desire to move their vehicle production into Mexico and out of the United States, which again would impact good-paying union jobs.

When you start to look at what some of the companies within the industry are doing, these companies are actually benefiting from Canadian subsidies. Meanwhile, they're doing all these things around the world that are having a negative impact on jobs, with layoffs while the corporate elites are getting paid big money. I think that is something that should be alarming for everybody around this table, regardless of which party they represent.

I don't know, there are a lot of.... There are a few other worrying trends. On China, for example, everyone's talking about how there are these great EVs being made in China. Well, what else is China doing? At one point, they approved 214 gigawatts of new coal-powered generation to stabilize their grid. Now, they're not bringing that much online. They've lowered that number a bit, but the fact remains that in one quarter alone they brought in 10 gigawatts of coal power to fuel their industrialized complex that they're building over there.

I think we have to take a look at the whole picture here when we talk about what's happening. In looking at some of these other examples around the world, I think there's a very compelling case for this committee to take a look at what's happening with the EV industry, particularly here in Canada. When you see the companies that we're subsidizing and you see what they are doing in other parts of the world, that should be worrying for Canadian workers and Canadian jobs, particularly if we're going to try to build out any kind of industry in this country, whether it's EV or not. We should look at what some of these trends are, and I think it's important that we look at what's happening with these companies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Our colleague Mr. Garon from the Bloc Québécois put on a great show for us. He's running out of patience, and so am I.

We're tabling a motion to basically substantiate our point of view on certain matters. We've never said we don't agree on climate change. We've never said we don't agree technology is changing. We've never said we're against electric vehicles. We've never said that we're against the development of a new industry in Canada, or in Quebec. It's completely ridiculous to say all that about the Conservatives.

We learned that the boards of directors of certain organizations had made certain expenditures or that funding had been granted to companies that were in a direct conflict of interest.

We're talking about at least $50 billion the Canadian government will invest in this sector over the next few years. The Bloc Québécois's cousin in Quebec City, the Parti Québécois, is currently asking perfectly legitimate questions about the Northvolt project in Quebec. So I don't see why we shouldn't be free to ask perfectly legitimate questions of the government and experts here in Ottawa to find out whether that money started out being invested in a fair and just manner.

I hear that it takes 20 years to develop mines to a point where they can supply factories in Canada. We've just levied a 106% tax on Chinese vehicles, and we may eventually have to tax manufacturing inputs for batteries that will be assembled in Canada. These inputs will further drive up the price of batteries. The public still won't be able to afford them.

I think this motion is very simple. It seeks only to monitor what's happening right now with money we're investing in Canada.

The Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois clearly couldn't care less how the money is being spent here. In 10 years or so, we'll have to go back to see how it was spent, why those decisions were made and why no one was monitoring expenditures. Once again, we're seeing this kind of thing happen with spending. We're talking about billions of dollars, and then further hundreds of millions for the greening government fund.

Here we are once again questioning things we shouldn't have to question. We don't have a problem with that money being spent, but someone needs to verify how it gets spent. I think that's the simplest and most logical thing to do. Anyway, wouldn't any party in power want to make sure it checks what the industry or the economy is getting out of that money in terms of economic benefits?

Where in the motion does it say that the Conservatives don't believe in climate change, don't want to invest, don't support electric vehicles and don't believe in the transition? It's completely ridiculous to say that.

I will stop here because I could say a lot more. I sincerely believe that this motion is simple, concrete and direct. As parliamentarians, it's in our interest to ensure that such significant investments follow the rules, and that they are being certified and verified along the way. We can't wait 10 years only to realize that certain investments were a mistake.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Généreux.

We'll now give the floor to Mr. Masse and then to Mr. Garon.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The timing of the motion is difficult to deal with. There's no doubt about that. I see it as a direct threat to the credit card study that I have. It requires a specific date that we have to break off on, and it also shifts us into a different direction. It's probably going to be shopped around to other committees, too, given the behaviour of the Conservative Party here, so we have to deal with that as well. That's something that I think is important.

As for the Conservatives, and with regard to Ottawa, I was here when Jim Flaherty said that we don't pick winners or losers. We had to fight like hell to get investment to save General Motors and Chrysler at that time. That had been done before. In fact, the Canadian government made money over it. The first time it actually came to support Chrysler during the economic recession of the 1980s, we made money on it. In fact, when we were done with the General Motors investment, the government, under Harper, sold the shares short, and we lost money because of that. Had we held on to the shares, we would have actually made more money.

I've long been after an auto policy in this place—since I started here—and we've gotten a bit closer, because some of the incentives that we're talking about here today are tied to actually manufacturing the products. It's not going to the companies without actually having product deliverables. That has been a shift that's changed.

I also remember programs that the Conservatives put in place, such as the ecoAuto “feebate”. People probably don't remember that one too much, but that was $110 million that they provided to the auto industry. Get this: It was an incentive for cars to have greater fuel efficiency.

What they did—and we warned them of this and they didn't believe us—was that they decided they would allow the industry to do whatever it wanted with the car to increase the mileage. What happened was that Toyota, with the Yaris, ended up getting about $96 million of $110 million, because they took out the rear airbags to make the car able to go farther as it had less weight.

That was the Conservatives' auto policy at that time. They basically gave a direct subsidy to Toyota, which later on went on to a number of different things that they didn't address, including the emissions issues, and also the Prius, with regard to the policies around not making them accountable for the braking system, which was actually due to software all along. Canadians had to live through all the excuses they provided, with no follow-up from the government, about Canadian mats that were put in the cars being responsible for the deaths of people and for the crashes.

I'm surprised that we don't have an Ontario Conservative here, because I also see this as a part of their internal problems with regard to attacks on Doug Ford and his government. Doug Ford and his government are contributing $500 million to the Oakville plant, the Stellantis plant. They're at $500 million. For the General Motors plant, they're at $259 million. For the Honda plant, they're in for $131.6 million. For the Umicore plant, there's money into that as well.

That's the summary of the Ontario commitment. I'm surprised that we wouldn't have an Ontario MP from the Conservative Party raise this, because I know that some have toured some of the battery plants they've actually been criticizing. They've actually been at the announcements sometimes. Also, they went and toured over the summer. I was there when a Conservative member was touring a plant with me, which was good. That's been helpful in discussing some of the challenges here. Why there is an attack on Doug Ford, I don't know. I'll let the Conservatives sort that out. We already know that they have sore spots.

I can tell you that I'm not happy with Doug Ford, because, as Mr. Badawey would know, I'm fighting hazardous material waste getting into my community. For me to come to the defence of Doug Ford in terms of their investments here is not what I would want to do, as I'm at the same time trying to stop hazardous material coming across on the Ambassador Bridge in the province that's going to shirk that responsibility. I'm trying to get the feds to deal with it and the province to deal with it. That tells you where I am with this.

Here's what I am concerned about. Mr. Patzer did raise an interesting thing that's taking place at the Stellantis plant. Here's what they're doing. They're actually contesting the agreement on the investment in Windsor, Ontario. If you look at the history, it was Bob White who broke away from the UAW. We actually broke away. We were part of a United Auto Workers alliance across North America, but because Canadian interests were always subverted, we broke away from that.

Bob White formed the CAW at that time. The CAW is now Unifor. We have had to fight tooth and nail for these investments, including a product in Windsor, which is now being contested by the UAW, because they have their own agenda for American workers. We actually have Unifor for Canadian workers, and when we start to open up these things here and have all kinds of testimony on that in front of us, that's going to get highly complicated as well. We need to support our workers, not drag them under the undertow by accident, which is going to happen in this.

Again, that's why we specifically.... If you're not familiar with Bob White, he's one of the biggest union representatives that Canada has ever had. Breaking away from an American union that was so powerful was very difficult to do. It also came from the fact that we actually lost the Auto Pact, which I don't want to get into here today, Mr. Chair. I don't think it's fair to run down the Auto Pact, but the whole thing with the Auto Pact is that it was a privileged trade agreement that was created and worked really well. We compromised on other things that we lost because we signed the free trade agreement.

I want to conclude by saying that the issue over Quebec in this is important, too, and is not to be underestimated. We've finally got Quebec back into being a major player in the future of automotive. That's huge. My father was an executive for Chrysler who worked under Yves Landry, and when we lost the Sainte-Thérèse plant and other plants across Quebec, it was a huge hit to manufacturing industrialization, not only in Quebec but also in Ontario. Getting Quebec back in the game on this is huge.

I would not want to compromise that right now, because we have witnessed decade after decade of Quebec not having its share in where it really is very influential because of its automotive past and the aerospace issues, which actually complement each other. That's a huge issue for this.

For many different reasons, I can't support this motion at this time. I think I have outlined some of them right here. We could go on for more, but I won't do that. If in the future we want to do something on auto once we finish the business and the agenda that we have, I'm totally open to doing that, but, hopefully, it would be something that would be more sensitive than just a hit-and-run attempt on certain different projects.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Mr. Garon, the floor is yours.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

What was said earlier requires a response. I question the intent of the motion.

Mr. Généreux is basically saying that we're putting on a show here. I agree, but I'm obviously not the only one. When you read the motion, you see that it's about validating all kinds of things. Mr. Généreux is a “chief validator”. These are all validation points. We want to look at the entire government strategy. That's quite a validation!

How is it that here, the government strategies that gave Canadians' money to the oil companies have never been validated? The Standing Committee on Natural Resources will probably do it, but we're not exactly duplicating the committee. In any case, when this kind of issue is raised there, there's a filibuster. How is it that these subsidies to oil companies aren't being validated, just to see if everything is going well?

I'll get to the motion shortly.

Mr. Poilievre is opposed to industrial subsidies of any kind. That's quite a validation! We really want to make sure that all is well when it comes to industrial subsidies and government strategy. I'm putting on quite a show, aren't I? The implication is that I was being dishonest. It may have been colourful—we are what we are—but it was certainly not dishonest.

Let's talk about climate change. I'm going to have the kindness, decorum and class not to name him, but I remember walking on Parliament Hill with a Conservative who told me that in his province it was already snowing in September; he then turned to me to say, in English, of course, that some people claim that the planet is warming. Do you want me to give you more anecdotes like that? Western Conservatives were interviewed. Of course, the Conservative Party of Canada has the Quebec wing, but it's almost capable of holding its caucuses in a photo booth. The reality is that the west calls the shots, and Quebec shouts. That's how it works.

Yes, the Conservatives are opposed to industrial subsidies. They're not just opposed to the government's strategy. The Conservative leader said that they were opposed to any government subsidy and industrial development strategy, whereas the United States has one, and we agree that they're not communists. China is something else, but European countries have one too.

So what's this business about only wanting to validate things? We have the right to question the intent of a motion and to point out what's missing. They tell us that Quebec wants to do it, and they're talking about the Parti Québécois. I don't know why, but they've been very interested in the PQ in recent weeks. Maybe they're afraid, and they certainly have reason to be. They say the PQ wants to study this. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary can confirm this, but so far, I think Ottawa has invested a total of zero dollars, taxes included, in Northvolt, because it's a production subsidy.

I'm not announcing my personal position or that of the Bloc Québécois on the form of this agreement between Quebec City and Ottawa, but one thing is certain: Just because the Quebec National Assembly is asking to study an issue doesn't mean that we in the federal Parliament should take the time we should be devoting to the issue of privacy and AI to study the issue, when the federal government hasn't yet invested a single cent in this project. That logic is completely lofty. Are we going to meddle in Quebec City's affairs because the National Assembly is studying a health or education issue? How many times has the Bloc Québécois said this?

I repeat that this is not a show, that the Conservatives' position is clear and that the wording of the motion isn't even subtle. I don't see under what circumstances we could make intelligent use of our time by doing this in the first place.

I would remind you that Bill 25 was passed in Quebec. We're waiting for some alignment on privacy issues. The National Assembly is also very concerned about this.

Right now, we're completely stuck, because we're moving from one motion to the next. We know what the Conservatives are up to. Since they figure they'll be in power in who knows how many weeks, they decide to block everything in the hope that they will be able to do whatever they want.

The reality is that everyone here is paid from the public purse. We have resources, and we receive competent witnesses and officials. We invite them to testify, but we send them home. We don't care about them and their schedules when we could be working. It isn't the content of the motion that's important, it's the use of our time.

Don't tell me I'm putting on a show. If the tone I use, the way I speak and, of course, the coffee can help members wake up—the meeting starts early—all the better.

That said, it's anything but a show.