Mr. Speaker, I rise to follow-up on a question with regard to the sale of Nortel industries to Ericsson. At the time we advocated that Nortel be examined under the Investment Canada Act and that the Investment Canada Act should be triggered for a couple of reasons. One of those was the national security clause that is now part of the Investment Canada Act.
It is important that I note that the Investment Canada Act was recently changed in a government budget bill. What that meant is it did not have the full due diligence normal legislation has when it is updated in the House of Commons. It did not go to committee. We did not have witnesses. It was part of a budgetary allocation. Hence, the new model is exposed in many ways. It is weakened and has actually caused part of the problems.
The Investment Canada Act has a new provision called the national security clause, as I have noted. It is important in this case because the type of information and the type of department that was sold by Nortel to Ericsson was sold for over $1 billion. Then shortly thereafter, the argument came from the company, because of the way that the new legislation is written, that it could write it off as being less that $300 million, and hence not subject to the financial arm of the Investment Canada Act. However, that does not take it away from being under the national security clause.
There was good solid testimony provided at the committee hearings by the military and also the security aspects of Nortel in this LTE technology, which is fourth generation streaming capability for the service provision of communications.
I am going to read a submission from RIM which is an expert with regard to this type of technology and its applications, and where it believes the security aspect is involved. It states:
Military: Communications, mapping, GPS, telematics and advanced applications such a military commanders viewing real-time video of military and peacekeeping operations across Canada (including the strategic Canadian Arctic) and internationally.
Security (Police/Fire/Ambulance): Tracking, police/fire/medical vehicles and assisting with real-time route-planning to avoid high traffic flow areas and emergencies. Real-time downloading of suspect details (pictures, evidence on file, etc.) to assist with police investigations. Assisting with controlling points of entry (airports) and security critical facilities. In the U.S. many homeland security programs, including counterterrorism and border security initiatives, rely heavily on wireless infrastructure.
That is why we believe that this review should have taken place by the minister under national security clauses. Even in the United States, it has greater scrutiny than we do.
I would point to the really interesting situation of Certicom which was purchased by RIM. This was a Canadian company that was purchased by another Canadian firm, but that actual transaction had to have hearings in the United States, a foreign government, before the actual sale went across.
That is what is ironic. The due diligence is done in the United States related to its national security even for companies that are not even national companies in the United States and do not even have facilities in the United States, but here in Canada we just wash our hands from it and see it go out the door.