Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Chair.
I would first like to acknowledge the work done by our colleague Brian Masse.
I would like to congratulate him on the passing at third reading of the Ojibway national urban park act. I think it's a huge achievement by a colleague. We should all be proud that a private member's bill gets that recognition. It's all thanks to him. I wanted to say that on the record, even though I know most of his questions might not be about the Ojibway national park today.
I also want to thank Andy Fillmore, my parliamentary secretary, for all his work, and thank you for the work of all members of the committee.
Dear colleagues, I'm very pleased to see you, and even more so for this opportunity to speak to you about Bill C‑34, An Act to amend the Investment Canada Act.
Our colleagues, as well as businesses and various other stakeholders, have shown a great deal of interest in the modernization of this act. The last time it was revised was 2009. I believe my colleagues would agree with me that the world has greatly changed since then.
As you know, the Investment Canada Act performs an important role in Canada's economy. Its primary role is to encourage economic growth, and it intervenes only in instances where an investment would be harmful to Canada's national security.
The purpose of modernizing the act is to strengthen our capacity to protect Canada's national security and intellectual property. It would also improve transparency for investors and give them certainty, while strengthening our capacity to take rapid and firm action to reduce national security risks.
I welcome the comments made by the many members of the House who came to see me in person. Quite a few of my colleagues rightly underscored the fact that national security was not and ought never to be, a partisan issue. We are all united in our desire to protect the interests of Canadians.
Before continuing, I'd like to clarify something about which there appears to be some confusion—the trigger thresholds.
Bill C‑34 mainly addresses the Canada Investment Act's national security review, not the net benefit reviews.
Net benefit reviews are triggered by a number of financial thresholds. These thresholds are of course published and updated every year. The amounts vary, depending on whether the investor is a state-owned or state-controlled enterprise, a member country of the World Trade Organization, or country with which Canada has a trade treaty.
On the other hand, there is no triggering financial threshold for a national security review. Allow me to repeat: there is no triggering financial threshold. All investments, irrespective of value, are subject to the national security review, with no exceptions.
In this context, I want to take a few minutes to discuss three themes that I think came up through debate and that would be relevant for colleagues around this table.
First is the ability to protect Canada's interests. One thing I was pleased to hear was the agreement around ensuring the government has the right tools to protect Canada's interests. Today, it's all about the tool box. There's a lot of ambition, I would say, around this table, but I think they would find that the Minister of Industry today has a very limited tool box to address the security threats we're facing.
The amendments we're proposing to the ICA will strengthen our ability to respond to the evolving threat environment and, I would say, to the geopolitical situation we're facing today. Things like undertakings will make sure that we are more nimble and allow companies to make binding commitments to mitigate any national security concerns that are associated with proposed investments.
Previously, imposing conditions on a transaction to mitigate risk could occur only through a Governor in Council order. These GIC orders typically cannot be amended. Allowing undertakings at the ministerial level means these conditions could be imposed and amended, giving us greater flexibility to adapt to the conditions in order to protect our national security.
Colleagues, we have seen that in a cyberworld and a world where we've seen more people interested in IP and our critical resources, we need to be nimble to be able to answer the threat. This bill will allow us to make the review process more efficient by providing the Minister of Industry, in consultation with the Minister of Public Safety, with the authority to order further reviews, rather than seeking an order in council from cabinet. This is about doing business at the speed of business.
Removing the step of getting an order from cabinet at this specific stage will give more time to our security and intelligence partners to complete a thorough assessment of the national security risk. We should all be happy about that, because we want to have the best intelligence for any minister to make a decision.
However, I want to emphasize that cabinet will still remain the authority to make the decision on any final order related to blocking an investment. That authority to make a final order is not changing, but we need to accelerate the process before the final step, to move at the speed of business.
The second thing I've heard about from colleagues, Mr. Chair, is protecting IP and intangible assets. We all know that companies now sit on a lot of intangible assets, and we need to make sure we protect that. Another thing we heard about was the importance of protecting, like I said, intellectual property and intangible assets that Canadian companies own.
Our government recognizes the value of the intangible economy as it's growing, and the relevant opportunities for all Canadians. This bill will help protect the intangible assets of Canadian business through the introduction of a new pre-implementation filing requirement and a new authority for the Minister of Industry to impose interim conditions on an investment, so it's about pre-filing requirements and also having interim conditions during the period that you're going to review that.
Colleagues will understand that's what matters, because before you give a final approval or not, you want to make sure that companies will not be disclosing IP to the other side. That way, the government can ensure that such harm does not occur. I think this is something that the committee has been asking for. Believe it or not, today, the Minister of Industry doesn't have the authority to impose interim conditions, meaning that you freeze the situation for the time of the review. We know that, with intangible assets, it's not something that you can give back. Once people have had access, they have the knowledge. We need to prevent that.
The new authority will impose conditions and will prevent the transfer of Canadian intellectual property, trade secrets and technical know-how to non-Canadian entities prior to the conclusion of the national security review. The ICA already allows us to take a look at asset sales. We will now have the tools to manage those cases much more efficiently and, I would say, in the interest of Canadians.
The third thing I've heard from colleagues is around transparency.
The bill adds certainty and transparency for enterprises and investors by specifying the improvements we are going to make to the national security review process.
There will also be robust protection of any information supplied to my department, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, in connection with both national security and net benefit reviews.
Such protection is required to protect the bond of trust between the department, potential investors and Canadian enterprises involved in a transaction. For that reason, we will never publicly disclose such information, or specific circumstances, involved in current or past reviews. Although there are restrictions on what can be disclosed, we have already been publishing our decisions and directives to clarify how the Investment Canada Act is being applied.
Bill C‑34 also adds new provisions for the protection of information In the judicial review of decisions. This amendment will enable the government to defend its national security decisions on the basis of sensitive information, while protecting such information from disclosure. These new provisions will also enable applicants to participate more fully in judicial proceedings.
To conclude, I'd like to thank the committee for the work it has done over the past few years, including its studies on the Investment Canada Act. Colleagues around this table have all contributed to the outcome we are presenting today. We took your comments and the recommendations of our colleagues into consideration, and they are reflected in Bill C‑34.
I would even go so far as to say that action is urgently needed, because colleagues on both sides of the House frequently asked me to intervene. I explained to them how the shortage of tools in our tool box was impeding our capacity to do a better job of defending Canadian interests.
We also gave consideration to recommendations made with respect to other recently announced policies, such as those pertaining to the protection of critical minerals. As you may have noticed, I've already announced four policies that will provide better protection for Canadian interests.
I am enthusiastically looking forward to further work with you on this bill. As I mentioned previously, I acknowledge that we all agree on the fact that Canada's national security is not a partisan matter and that we need to be united in our determination to work together for Canada's protection.
I'd like to thank the committee for its excellent work.
I will of, course, be happy to answer any questions that members of the committee may have in order to achieve the best possible results on behalf of Canadians.
Thank you.
