Thank you.
It is a fact that the CBC has reported that the Northvolt plant will be delayed by up to 18 months.
Point two says that “Umicore's $7.2-billion EV component plant in Kingston, ON, has halted construction, despite receiving $1 billion dollars' worth of taxpayer subsidy.” That is also a fact.
“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.” These points are also facts. The framing is that these are statements of fact. There is nothing torqued in here. These are statements of fact that we should all be concerned with.
The operative cause of what this is asking to do is a four-meeting study to review the government's EV strategy, given the significant amount of taxpayer support amid a global slowdown in EV production and sales. There has been a global slowdown in EV production and sales; it's not just Canada. That is a fact. The committee agreed to hear from witnesses submitted by members of the committee.
My colleague suggests that an hour with the minister, when we have a litany of other issues, is sufficient to address this issue. That is not correct, number one; it's just not. That's a preposterous assertion. It's preposterous.
The second thing is that we need to hear from some of the executives and not just executives. If this passes, I would put on the witness list, hopefully, someone with a background in emissions modelling to look at what the delay in these plants means for the government's forward projections on emissions reductions, given the level of subsidies that they've directly committed to this. How have these changes changed the government's forward modelling on greenhouse gas emissions? Canadians are being asked to pay a lot. If we're not getting that reduction and certainly not getting the jobs in the period of time that they said, then what is the government doing to reverse course?
My colleague opposite has brought up the concept of politics a lot here. If I were going to make an assertion on why the Liberals don't want to do this, it is that the Minister of Industry is setting up for a leadership bid—that is public knowledge—and I think that his hallmark project, knowing that there are arguably some issues with it that might come under public scrutiny, would be problematic for people who might be seeking his favour in a leadership race. If we're going to ascribe motive, that's my gut feeling here.
I do not understand why anybody on this committee who cares about job creation in the auto sector, good, wise stewardship of tax dollars and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions wouldn't agree to a forward move study.
The operative clause here on the purpose of this study is to review the government's EV strategy. There's no motive that's given. It's just saying that there have been massive changes and that we should be reviewing the government's EV strategy.
You guys all know that there are problems here. There are structural problems with these deals now, and the wheels are going to come off the bus of these deals. At that point in time, we are going to look back to these meetings and the arguments that have been made here, where we are having members of the House of Commons saying, “No, we shouldn't look at that. We shouldn't look at billions of dollars of subsidies.” I know I will be. There are a lot of things that were said here today that I'm taking furious notes on, like, “Yes, they said that. Okay, not a problem,” and, “Turnbull at 9:10 on the thing,” because it's preposterous.
I hear in the House of Commons all the time about rich corporate executives. You guys are literally letting rich corporate executives off the hook. When a company like Northvolt announces that they're going to delay a plant by 18 months after basically shuttering their operations and their parent company, we're like, “Oh, no, it's okay. It's fine. We don't need to scrutinize this.” Even in January.... It's a sad state of affairs.
Anyway, I am now proposing that the amendment on the table seeks to address the concerns of my colleagues on the opposition side on timing, which is reasonable. I also want to get to the credit card study. I hope that you will accept the amendment and that my colleagues will think carefully about not supporting this.