Industry Committee on Nov. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

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

Thank you for the question. It's a good question.

This wasn't research and development. We began the credit card study with Mastercard and Visa here at the committee. When we questioned the executives of Mastercard, we asked them about the basics of their business.

One of the basics of their business is making sure that credit cardholder information is safe using cybersecurity. In fact, this is a company that had $26 billion U.S. in revenue last year, and they announced a cybersecurity centre. This centre was basically to do the security that's required as part of this, in Vancouver. The government then threw them $50 million to help do it, so they could be at the announcement. They didn't do anything; they were required to do this anyway as part of offering their services. When asked if they had been offered money from any other country, they said no, and they were just going to locate it here anyway due to education, the quality of the workforce and all of those things.

When Visa was asked—and they were sitting right next to them—whether they had ever taken government money to ante up at the poker game, which is securing and providing cybersecurity for customers, Visa said they would never take government money for that.

I haven't seen an adequate rationale from anywhere, from the government, any of the papers or from Mastercard, as to why a company with $26 billion U.S. in revenue, a company with $11 billion U.S. in gross income last year, a company that has to provide security to its customers or no one would carry its credit card, needs $50 million from the taxpayer to do what it is supposed to do as part of its business.

There was no adequate answer from the executive, other than to say that he was proud of the centre. There's been no adequate explanation, in the two or three years since this was announced by the government, of why they were doing it, other than getting to be at the announcement of the centre opening up. Here's a cheque for $50 million so Minister Champagne can stand at the announcement and say, “Look what I did. I did something that was going to happen anyway but, in order to make you think that it wouldn't happen without me, I'll give them $50 million,” when it's one of the richest companies in the world and doesn't need Canadian taxpayer money.

In fact, at the meeting, I asked if he would pay it back, since it's not going to anything other than what they already do in their business. He mumbled and bumbled and, of course, it's sort of like when Loblaws took $18 million for fridges. Aren't fridges sort of a requirement if you're going to sell milk? I know they are at a convenience store, so I'm sure they are at the largest grocer in Canada, yet the richest company in Canada with over $40 billion a year of revenue thought it was appropriate to take $18 million from Canadian taxpayers to pay for something they have to have anyway, fridges. I'm not buying Loblaws milk if it's not sitting in a fridge.

Why would I subscribe to Mastercard if they're not protecting my security with the latest cybersecurity? There's absolutely no requirement whatsoever for Mastercard to take taxpayers' money to do what they have to do in order to operate their business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

Do you have any further questions on that, Mr. Savard‑Tremblay?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

None right now, but I expect there will be a discussion if another question is asked.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

There has already been one that included Mr. Garon, who had certain concerns about the motion.

Esteemed colleagues, debate on this motion was some time ago now. Parliamentary life being what it is, sometimes we forget things. So let me just remind you that we adopted an amendment to remove the words “libéral“ and “Trudeau Liberal government”.

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

That's what I referred to earlier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Yes, that's right. When you read the motion in front of you, bear in mind the amendment that was adopted.

Mr. Van Bynen, you have the floor.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As an amendment, I would propose that we remove “that the committee report to the House to express its concern regarding the value for money for taxpayers”. I believe it's premature. We haven't seen these documents. We haven't had a chance to review them.

We also need to think about the fact that we are in a global marketplace. There was a $510-million investment made by Mastercard to establish the centre. This is a corporation that can go anywhere. In terms of providing an incentive to create the jobs.... I don't recall the number of jobs that were created as a result. I see here now it's around 270 jobs by 2029.

There are times when we need to be competitive. There are times when we need to create incentives in order to have these global corporations, which have liquid capital and can move anywhere around the world, establish themselves in Canada. They can create employment in the areas they've located to in Vancouver. Let's make sure we get all the facts before we, again, jump to conclusions, as we did with the other recommendations.

I would move that we delete the second portion of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Colleagues, you've all heard the amendment proposed by MP Van Bynen. The motion would end after “regarding the grant”. The rest would be removed.

On my list, I have MP Badawey, MP Masse and MP Patzer, but I'm going to start a new list on the amendment proposed by Mr. Van Bynen.

Mr. Patzer.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think it would be good to keep that in. Otherwise, it's just a ubiquitous motion at that point. Much like we heard earlier with Rogers, it's good to have a little something else at the end of it to provide a bit of extra motivation for the government to produce these documents.

At last week's meeting, there was a dump of documents that came that had literally been copied and pasted off the government website and sent in. There was a code of conduct thing that was sent in that was unrelated. We were told they were the documents. Well, no, they were not the briefing documents that were prepared. There's a lot more information that is needed on this.

Let's just look at the witness testimony that Mastercard officials gave when they were at the committee, to address one of your other points. You're making it sound as if this money was needed to secure the data centre in Vancouver. Mastercard officials said, no, they selected Vancouver for a very specific and strategic reason. They were going to build it regardless.

They were a bit cagey about whether they asked for the money or the government approached them and gave them the money. They were more focused on saying this was a job-creating avenue. That was it. They didn't want to say one way or the other.

They said they were building it regardless. When they were asked if anybody else offered them money to build it in their country instead, they said, no, nobody else did. They picked solely Vancouver to be the location to build this data centre.

They also said they had other places around the world that they had built on their own, without government money, in other countries. Why on earth did the minister decide to just randomly chuck $50 million at Mastercard? We need to get the information here to understand it. Was there a request? Was there a specific rationale behind it?

If there wasn't, of course we want to express concern to the House about the value for money that taxpayers got for over $50 million that wasn't needed. Mr. Perkins said one of the richest companies in North America had no need for it because it was building it regardless. It wanted to do it because it knew it needed to do it. It definitely has the wherewithal to be able to build this without taking taxpayers' money.

I think we should keep the wording in there as it is. Based on the witness testimony that we received, there's enough to go on there as well.

We just want to see from the government what the back-and-forth communication was. Whose idea was it to do the $50 million? What was the rationale from the government to do it? We heard from Mastercard that it didn't need it. Why did the government give it $50 million? That's why we need these documents.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

Let's move on now to the amendment proposed by Mr. Van Bynen, which would amend the motion to remove the requirement to report to the House.

Mr. Arya, the floor is yours.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, when it comes to technology companies, Mastercard may be a credit card company, but it's also a technology company. Most of the technology companies are big today. Take Ericsson. Take companies like Google. There are a lot of companies.... For example, Ford is an automobile manufacturing company, but its technological development centre is in Ottawa. We need to invite, to ensure that these companies that are leading in technological development are located in Ottawa. It is in the interest of Canada. It's in the interest of Canadians that this technological advancement take place here.

As a developed country, we have to take measures to ensure that Canada is at the forefront of new technologies. New technologies come most of the time from big companies like Google. It is very important for us, I think. To use layman' terms, we need to chase these companies, to go after them and convince them to set up operations here.

When they do that, the knowledge that a lot of the experts, the engineers and the technologists who work in these companies generate here will be available to Canadian society as a whole. I think that should be the approach. That should be the tone taken. It should not be: “You know what? Let them go to Seattle, not Vancouver.” That should not be the approach.

I think we have to treat the companies with respect. We may have differences, obviously. We will have differences when it comes to Mastercard or any other credit card company charging undue amounts to Canadian consumers, and I think we should call them out. We should take necessary actions, but when it comes to technological development, I think we should treat them with due respect.

I support the subamendment proposed by my colleague Mr. Van Bynen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Arya.

Would anyone else like to speak to the amendment proposed by Mr. Van Bynen?

It is essentially just removing the part that's “report to the House”.

Mr. Savard‑Tremblay, we will soon be voting on the amendment proposed by Mr. Van Bynen. The purpose is to remove the requirement to report to the House and so forth. That is the only part of the motion that would be removed.

Mr. Patzer, I think you have something to say.

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

Yes. Thank you very much.

I really wanted to speak again here, because being able to speak in the House of Commons on the $50 million that was given, I think, is important. We work on accountability here in committee, but something like this is well suited to being in the chamber as well. I think we need to make sure we have the ability to get this to the House of Commons.

I do think it's urgent and relevant for Canadian taxpayers, especially when we look at just the general cost of living crisis that people are going through, when they see the government wasting money on projects that were going to be built regardless. I do think it's relevant to the House of Commons. I would love to see that last bit stay in this motion. I will be voting no to this as well.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

Would anyone else like to comment on the amendment?

Please go ahead, Mr. Van Bynen.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You know, if we're curious about what the government's rationale was, we could invite members of the officials to appear before this committee and indicate to us why they made that decision. That's number one.

Number two, again, getting back to how we expressed concern over the investment without even looking at the facts of the investment, it's like saying you'll have the benefit of due process and fair consideration, after which you'll be found guilty.

With me, the rationale doesn't fit, and that's why I think we should remove that. We'll have plenty of time to take other steps if the information we're seeking leads us to conclude that's an appropriate step, but to go to that step now is, I think, totally inappropriate, and it defeats the whole purpose of due process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Van Bynen.

Go ahead, Mr. Patzer.

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

Yes, I'm sorry, just one more time here, briefly: We did have the officials at committee, and they did not answer our questions around some of these things. That's what the impetus for this motion was in the first place, because we did have officials at committee testifying to this. Based on the feedback they gave and then based on the testimony we received from Mastercard, there was still a void there.

We have now asked for the production of documentation because of that. Had officials been more direct in answering questions, then maybe we wouldn't have to do this, but they weren't, so now we need to ask for the production of documents, and yes, any time the government wastes $50 million on a project that was going to be built regardless.... There was no threat of relocating or cancelling the project, but maybe there was and Mastercard denied telling us that.

That's why we want to see these documents and, even if they did, then it would be great to bring this to the House of Commons and talk about that, but the officials came to committee. They weren't clear. Mastercard did not have a great showing either, so now we need to have this production of documents. Of course we should report to the House our concern over the government's handling of 50 million dollars' worth of taxpayer money.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Savard‑Tremblay, the floor is yours.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

To be honest, I am still thinking about the main motion regarding the production of documents. For that reason, I think reporting to the House right away would be premature. That being said, if there was something appalling in the documents in question, I would be the first to want to report that to the House. We could even be tougher than simply saying that the committee is concerned about value for taxpayers' money. We need to have a look first before we can make a judgment though. So I am in favour of the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Savard‑Tremblay.

Mr. Van Bynen, I think the parties' positions on your amendment are becoming clear.

Please go ahead, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair; the translation wasn't coming through. It was lagging.

I understand where Mr. Savard-Tremblay is coming from, but just going back to the history that you noted, Mr. Chair, the reason I won't support the subamendment but I do want to support what was proposed before that is that, if memory serves me correctly, I took out the language that was really kind of a poke in the eye for the Liberals, and that passed to get us to the point where we could deal with this in this way. Had there been other concerns about other parts of this motion, I would think they would have been raised at that point in time.

To be fair, I can't remember if Mr. Van Bynen was there or not, so I'm not trying to be negative about his attempt on this, either. It's just that going back to where we were and where we are now, it is a good point that Mr. Savard-Tremblay is making with regard to why we're picking this particular one out. It really came from the testimony that we got back from the officials and from Mastercard, and I've seen enough of this to say that it's a big concern, and there have been some questions in the House and so forth.

For those reasons, I can't support the subamendment, because I have already come to the conclusion I need to from seeing all the information that we have already received in the testimony of this committee and elsewhere, and then second to that are the original “how we got here” reasons.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Just to refresh members' memories with regard to where we were when we ended the debate on this motion and after the amendment that was passed by the committee, which you've just mentioned, MP Masse, the motion read:

That the committee order the production of all documents, emails, memos and materials related to the government's $50-million commitment—

That's instead of “handout”.

—to Mastercard, including all communications between ISED, PCO or PMO and Mastercard regarding the grant, and that the committee report to the House.

That was the motion. The amendment proposed by MP Van Bynen is to remove “and that the committee report to the House”. This is so we're clear on what's being proposed.

Go ahead on the amendment, MP Van Bynen.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I'll pass.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

At this point, I have no more speakers on my list, so I will put the amendment to a vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)