Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the chance to take part in this important debate in the House this evening.
I would also like to thank the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie, who gave a very good speech. He covered a number of important topics that affect all Canadians.
My Liberal colleagues and I firmly believe in the principle behind this motion, that the Investment Canada Act must be reviewed to give Canadians more transparency and accountability.
The Conservative government could have shown leadership in bringing Nortel and RIM together to create a new Canadian innovative giant, but it did not. The Conservative government should have fought every day in every U.S. congressman's, senator's and governor's office to fight buy America and prevent the closure of U.S. steel plants in Hamilton and Nanticoke, but it did not.
The Conservative government should have shown leadership in bringing Inco and Falconbridge together to create a new globally competitive Canadian giant, but it did not. Any country around the world would review these sales and hold those companies accountable, but the Conservative government did not.
Canadians want their government to stand up for Canada and help build Canadian champions. The Prime Minister and his Conservative government are abandoning our future, plain and simple.
Canadians want a government that offers a plan, a government that offers a vision: a vision of where we want Canada to be in 5, 10, 20, 30 years from now; a vision that looks to protect our jobs, our children's jobs and our grandchildren's jobs; a government that does not allow indiscriminate selling off of our resources, leaving us as serfs on our own home soil.
The Conservative government does nothing more than react to the latest crisis, selling off whatever comes up so that it can get it out of the way, hoping that it does not stick to them. Is it doing what is best for Canadians in the long term or simply doing what is expedient in order to get it through the next quarter? We know this is not a way to build a corporation. We have seen what happens when people take a short-term outlook into a corporation. Everything falls apart. It is certainly not a way to build a strong country.
On this side of the House, the Liberal Party supports foreign investment and encourages Canadian companies investing abroad. Unlike the Conservatives, the Liberal Party believes in the positive role of government to lead, to create networks and to find solutions to strengthen the Canadian economy.
In order to understand the significance of the motion that has been put forward today, we should outline some of the history and background that has led to this point.
Inco, once a leading nickel and copper mining company in northern Ontario, was bought out in 2006 by Brazilian CVRD, or Vale. They merged, and Vale Inco is now the second largest producer of nickel in the world with sales of approximately $8 billion in 2009.
Workers at Vale Inco in Sudbury and in Voisey's Bay have been on strike for over 10 months, deadlocked over the issue of nickel price bonuses and pension reform. Local workers, as well as Liberals and the NDP, have pushed hard for the federal government to reveal the agreement and conditions for jobs and investment made under the Investment Canada Act when Vale purchased Inco. The Conservative government gave us nothing.
Falconbridge, also once a leading Canadian nickel and copper mining company in northern Ontario, was bought out by Xstrata of Switzerland in 2006. Xstrata most recently came under scrutiny when it was announced that Xstrata was eliminating 700 jobs from its Timmins facility. The Conservative government did nothing.
Stelco, once a major producer of steel in the Hamilton region, was purchased by U.S. Steel for $2 billion in August 2007. In early 2009, Stelco-U.S. Steel announced it would close its Hamilton and Lake Erie plants, laying off some 700 employees. Citing cost concerns, Stelco-U.S. Steel claimed at the time that it would be closing the two plants and transferring the production south of the border. This has been linked to the U.S. buy American clause, requiring stimulus funds to be used for only U.S.-produced steel.
On May 7, 2009, the industry minister actually did something this time. He sent Stelco-U.S. Steel a demand letter to reopen two plants, claiming the closure violated U.S. Steel's commitment when it took over Stelco. On June 13, Stelco-U.S. Steel reopened its Hamilton plant, but no change was made to the Lake Erie plant. He should have kept going. He did not go after it. He did nothing.
Nortel, after years of turmoil, entered bankruptcy protection in 2009. Since that time, Nortel has sold many of its constituent parts from its wireless enterprise and optics division to foreign companies. In the sell-off of its wireless technology division, the federal government was presented an opportunity to bring together Nortel and RIM of Waterloo to create a newly merged wireless company with RIM and Nortel cutting-edge technology. The Conservative government chose not to do so and refused to review the sale of Nortel's wireless division to Sweden's Ericsson, despite the fact that the Investment Canada Act clearly defined that a review was required. Once again, the Conservative government did nothing. The result was significant.
Expertise and intellectual property with regard to the next generation, as mentioned earlier by my colleague, the long-term evolution, LTE, technology was transferred to Ericsson. LTE is without a doubt the key to technology worth billions of dollars. Significant European and U.S. companies with more than 50% of all global mobile subscribers have declared they are moving to LTE. Among them are Verizon Wireless and AT&T in the U.S., NTT DoCoMo in Japan, China Mobile, Chunghwa in Taiwan, TeliaSonera in Sweden, Telenor in Norway and Sweden, and Bell, Telus, Vodafone, Nokia and Ericsson.
The motion we are debating today specifically challenges whether the Investment Canada Act, which I will refer to as the ICA, empowers the federal government with sufficient tools to ensure Canada's best interests of strengthening the economy and protecting jobs and valuable intellectual property.
A more recent example in the riding north of mine, Timmins—James Bay, the member for which spoke earlier, affects my riding directly because many of the people who used to work at Grant Forest Products live in my riding. Grant Forest Products is in the process of being taken over by Georgia Pacific. Is this a good idea? I do not know. Will it work out well? Is there a net benefit? I would like to think so, but the minister looked at things from a distance and what did he do? He did nothing. He did not check it out. He did not review it.
My NDP colleagues and I agree with the motion before us today that the Investment Canada Act must be reviewed to ensure greater accountability and transparency. We may differ on a few specific changes, but overall we believe it has to be reviewed.
One of the areas that really perturbs me is that every time we bring something up, it is mentioned that we have the Red Wilson report and the Conservatives say that all the economists will tell us that foreign investment is the way to go. Economists have different views and they will tell us what they believe in, but being an economist is one of the few professions where, if an economist is right just once, the economist becomes a genius and a guru in the field. The reality we have to look at is, what is it doing for our communities? What is it doing for Canadians?
Unfortunately, the Conservative government is not taking the Investment Canada Act seriously and is going by ideology as opposed to following the rules on what they should do, making sure there is a net benefit to Canadians. In short, the Conservatives have proven inept in their ability to keep foreign companies accountable for job commitments.
While my Liberal colleagues and I support foreign investment, we do not support takeovers that cut jobs indiscriminately. Unfortunately, the Conservative government fails to recognize the fundamental difference between foreign investment and foreign takeover.
I am out of time and will not be able to say everything I wanted to say. I just want to reiterate how important it is that we have an Investment Canada Act that allows Canada to protect what we have when it comes to natural resources, jobs and what we can offer to Canadians so that our standard of living does not fall to the lowest common denominator on a global basis.