Mr. Speaker, back in the 1970s, the Liberal government of the day created the Foreign Investment Review Agency, ominously known as FIRA. The agency was supposed to screen foreign investment to ensure that our sovereignty was not put a risk by big bad American companies buying up Canadian companies.
Fast forward to 1999 and we see something quite different. Today, the Liberal Minister of Finance and Prime Minister have effectively put Canadian business on the auction block at fire sale prices through their bizarre low dollar policy. Witness the Weyerhauser purchase of Canadian forestry giant McMillan Bloedel. Meanwhile, those that are not sold to foreigners join the thousands of other economic refugees who flee Canada's repressive taxes for the U.S. and other low tax jurisdiction, just like the executives at Nova Corp who now call Pittsburgh home.
The Liberals trumpet their balanced approach, but it is looking more and more like the Liberal balanced approach has come to mean “if we don't drive them out, we'll drive them under”.