moved:
That, in the opinion of the House, since the recent takeover bid for Potash Corporation raises concerns about the adequacy of the foreign investment review process under the Investment Canada Act (ICA), the Government of Canada should take immediate steps to amend the Investment Canada Act to ensure the views of those most directly affected by any takeover are considered, and any decision on whether a takeover delivers a “net benefit” to Canada is transparent by: (a) making public hearings a mandatory part of foreign investment review; (b) ensuring those hearings are open to all directly affected and expert witnesses they choose to call on their behalf; (c) ensuring all conditions attached to approval of a takeover be made public and be accompanied by equally transparent commitments to monitoring corporate performance on those conditions and appropriate and enforceable penalties for failure to live up to those conditions; (d) clarifying that a goal of the Act is to encourage foreign investment that brings new capital, creates new jobs, transfers new technology to this country, increases Canadian-based research and development, contributes to sustainable economic development and improves the lives of Canadian workers and their communities, and not foreign investment motivated simply by a desire to gain control of a strategic Canadian resource; and that the House express its opposition to the takeover of Potash Corporation by BHP.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate this important topic. I will be sharing my time with the member for Windsor West.
New Democrats believe it is time here in Canada that we took strong stands on the issue of foreign investment and, in particular, that it is the Prime Minister's job to make sure Canada benefits from foreign investment. The litany where this has not been the case is a tragic one: Inco, Alcan, Falconbridge, Stelco, Nortel. These Conservative fire sales have not benefited community. Instead they have left workers out in the cold, having been thrown off the job despite promises made by both the government and the companies involved.
Think of the communities of Sudbury, Timmins, Hamilton, Miramichi, Kenora, Thunder Bay and Vancouver Island, whether it is mining or whether it is the wood sector. In many others, workers have been left without an income for their families. That has been the consequence of the government's unwillingness to stand up to these multinational corporations, which come in here and want our resources, want to make a play in the global market and want to put our jobs offshore. They have any kind of nefarious plan up their sleeves, and the government has gone for it hook, line and sinker. That is until the people of Saskatchewan rose up and joined in a chorus to say no, and we are thankful that they did so because the government has left local economies deflated, people without their jobs, pensions attacked and collective agreements shredded by these companies.
The NDP is not opposed to foreign investment, but it wants to ensure that it is good investment, investment that creates jobs in innovative areas, that promotes sustainable practices and that produces other benefits that Canadians are looking for.
When it comes to selling major Canadian companies, we believe that Canadians need to know how the sale will benefit them. But that will not happen as long as the Investment Canada Act is not amended.
Right now, decisions are made behind closed doors. Government does not have to tell us. We are just supposed to take its word for it when it approves these takeovers, and frankly, Canadians are left in the dark when it comes to the future of their natural resources, their jobs and key industries in our economy.
Ottawa does not have a good track record on this, when it comes to the question of trust. In the last 25 years, between the two governing parties, they managed to reject only one bid while they rubber-stamped 13,500 takeovers and investments.
The conditions that the government claims it is putting in place clearly are not enough. They are just as quickly ignored as they are put down on paper. The government's signature, it turns out, does not really mean much when it comes to defending Canadians' interests.
That has to change.
The chairman of Sherritt International, Ian Delaney, said, and I quote, "Canada has squandered its title as the centre of global mining finance.”
Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives would intervene when Inco and Falconbridge were in trouble. They made no effort to help them, to work together or to ensure that the companies would be successful and jobs would be protected.
They simply left it to the foreign investor to come walking in with every kind of siren call and every kind of promise, and they signed off on it. We have to wonder if they even looked at the paper they signed.
However, I will tell members one thing. When the pink slips went out and people saw that signature and had to go home to their families and tell them they had lost their jobs after they had been offered hope by the government, which said it was approving this foreign investment so that we would have a better economy, that was a tragic day and each of those families has suffered as a result. We are talking about thousands of people who are facing a very cold winter as a result.
We have to fix this. If we just think about the thousand workers who have been laid off at Stelco, in Hamilton, I think members will know what I am talking about.
We have an act dealing with foreign investment that is not working. Let us be crystal clear about this. It is not working. Of course when we raised these complaints, the government just simply railed on with its ideological phraseology instead of taking to heart the kinds of implications that are meted out to people in this country by these decisions.
That is why, as a result of all this, the people of Saskatchewan said no. If they had not been able to watch what happened in Sudbury, in Timmins and in the forestry communities across this country when takeovers took place, they would not have been so concerned. However, they saw the record of the current government and they said we cannot let that happen here with potash. That is what they said.
Dwain Lingenfelter, our NDP leader in Saskatchewan, raised these issues forcefully in the legislative assembly. I have to say that the government there, at the time, ridiculed the idea that there should be any concerns about a foreign takeover. That is just exactly what we saw here, in fact, when we raised questions. The Prime Minister sloughed it off by saying, “Oh, well. It's just an Australian company taking over an American company. Who cares?” That is virtually what he said. Who cares? It turns out that the people of Saskatchewan care and the people of Canada care. That is why we need to take action here today. That is what this is all about.
Several provincial premiers from all parties have come out firmly against it. Members of Canada's business community have publicly warned the Prime Minister, and this is not the first time they have done so.
Dick Haskayne, the University of Calgary board chair emeritus, for whom its business school is named, also a Potash Corporation shareholder, says he is absolutely opposed to this takeover. He says it is an issue of giving up a large inventory of our strategic natural resources. Once those resources slip through our fingers, they are gone for good. We are not going to get them back.
Today we are moving a motion that would help Canadians believe that their government is acting in their best interests and that would give a little political common sense to a government that blindly upholds free market values.
We can amend the Investment Canada Act, make the process more public, more transparent, more accountable and demand that governments prove that there is in fact a net benefit at the end of the day.
How do we do this?
First, our motion says to make the process more public. Second, commit to transparency so that Canadians can see the full reasoning. We are still completely in the dark as to the reasoning behind the decision of the government on potash so far. Finally, be clear about what that net benefit is: jobs, technology, research and development, sustainable economy. Let us make sure that the list with the specifics is public and available to Canadians, because if the government is not going to police these companies, Canadians will be able to police these companies and make sure the benefits are there.
It is good discipline, and there are some very good managers in some of these companies here in Canada. They are trying to do the right thing, but often their head office somewhere far away, motivated by shareholders who want to squeeze every dollar out of the global operation, end up saying to the Canadian manager, “Sorry, we are shutting you down”. If he or she is able to point to the agreement with the people of Canada, which is public and the Canadians are watching, this can have an impact. It is moral suasion backed up by law, and that is what we need.
We are calling on this government to prove that there is a net benefit, first by making the process public and second, by committing to transparency so that Canadians can see the reasoning behind any decision. Lastly, we are clearly defining what we mean by “net benefit”: job creation, technology, research and development, a sustainable economy and so on.
Multinational bids on our natural resources are not about to stop anytime soon.
The NDP believes it is time the Conservatives understood the difference between hostile foreign takeovers that are nothing more than an attempt to control our natural resources and foreign investments that create jobs, innovation and sustainable practices for our country.
I will close with this, as the motion does.
Our motion calls for the House to reject the proposed takeover of the Potash Corporation as proposed by BHP. We think governments should be obligated to clearly demonstrate that the foreign investments will benefit Canadians and that the sanctions are there if they do not.
That is the import and content of our motion. We hope all members of this House will join in supporting it, because that way we can move forward with good foreign investments and reject the bad ones.