Mr. Speaker, it has been little more than three years since the Conservative government rubber-stamped the sell-off of Canada's two great mining companies, Falconbridge and Inco. The petitioners today are coming forward with issues that have to be addressed by the government to learn lessons.
Xstrata, the corporate raider from Switzerland, has taken over the Falconbridge operation, shut mines, hydrated deposits. Now it is shutting down the copper and zinc capacity of Ontario and shipping ore out. There has not been any net benefit to Canadian citizens. We see the same with Inco, now eight months into a brutal strike by Vale.
The petitioners are trying to raise issues on the difference between foreign investment and foreign takeovers where our assets are basically taken and stripped by foreign companies.
The petitioners call on the government to amend section 36 of the Investment Canada Act in order to make the details of these secret deals, between these companies and the Conservative government, public so we can have some accountability when we know that our main assets are being sold off like this at some kind of cheap fire sale.