Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.
I'll refer you back to the motion. I don't mean to prolong it, because I know we're getting a little short on time.
With Bill C-34, while the current legislative framework already enables the federal government to examine strategic industries, witnesses like Professor Patrick Leblond from the University of Ottawa have argued that letting the federal government choose to systematically review investments creates an issue in which investments are reviewed individually, rather than through a sector-wide approach. According to testimony from Professor Leblond in the 2021 INDU report on the Investment Canada Act, not listing specific industries necessary for national security would prevent the review system from:
...devolving into an entirely political exercise in which stakeholders representing different regions and sectors of activity evoke national security concerns to protect their own economic interest. This would include stakeholders perhaps testifying (perhaps wrongly) that an asset or sector is not critical to Canada's national security in order to attract and facilitate foreign investments.
The summary of our change is that the amendment seeks to rectify this issue by responding to recommendation 4 of the 2021 INDU report—which I believe was unanimous, and many of the members here were on that committee—on the Investment Canada Act by listing specific sectors necessary to preserve Canada's national security, rather than applying the systematic approach. We've listed in that amendment “high-technology, health care, pharmaceutical, agri-food, natural resources and energy industries”.
Obviously, if there are other committee members who feel that some industries should be specifically listed under these terms, we'd be open to that.