Mr. Speaker, that last exchange was interesting to listen to. We heard the NDP member talk about how the former Liberal government rubber-stamped every foreign investment transaction that came before it in its 13 very long years in office. On the other extreme end of the spectrum, we have the NDP members who oppose every foreign investment transaction that is ever discussed in the House.
We have these two extremes represented within the opposition parties and then we have the government's position that it will evaluate each and every proposed transaction according to the criteria laid out in the Investment Canada Act to ensure that it is to the net benefit of Canadians.
We have approved some transactions. We have had a few transactions that have not been approved because they were deemed not to be to the net benefit of Canadians. However, the consistent thing this government has always done is evaluate according to the criteria that is laid out very clearly in section 20 of the Investment Canada Act.
It was also interesting to hear the hon. member talk about the industry committee. I have sat on the industry committee since 2008. Now that hon. member was not in the House during the previous Parliament but if he had been maybe he would have known that at that time in committee the government side was outnumbered by the opposition side. We would often see circumstances where the government would propose to move in a certain direction but the NDP and Liberal members would huddle together with members of the Bloc and then decide on a joint strategy as they moved forward. That was the case as we went through our industry committee hearings prior to the election of 2011.
Members might remember that the industry minister at the time had asked the committee to study the Investment Canada Act. The Conservative members moved that but the opposition parties banded together to block it. They decided that they would rather study something that we had already studied for hours and hours, the census, at a time when the census was already rolling out and it was too late to actually do anything about it. However, they decided that was more important to study, as we approached a potential election, than the Investment Canada Act at the time. The Conservative side lost that vote because we did not have the number of members we needed to win it. Those are the facts of what actually happened.
I will now like to focus on the net benefit criteria.
Time and again we hear members of the New Democratic Party stand up and say that there is absolutely no clear criteria to determine net benefit. Well, Canadians can Google the Investment Canada Act.
Interestingly, it is called the Investment Canada Act, but when NDP members put forward a press release about this issue they referred to it as the Canadian investment act. They were in such a hurry to get out there and play the political games on this issue that they could not even get the name of the act right.
In section 20 of the Investment Canada Act, we lay out clearly the criteria for net benefit. It says right here that in determining whether an investment is of net benefit the minister will consider the following factors:
(a) the effect...on the level...of economic activity in Canada...on employment, on resource processing, on the utilization of parts...and services produced in Canada and on exports from Canada;
That is the first of six factors. It continues with:
(b) the degree and significance of participation by Canadians in the Canadian business or new Canadian business and in any industry or industries in Canada...;
(c) the effect of the investment on productivity, industrial efficiency, technological development, product innovation and product variety in Canada;
(d) the effect of the investment on competition within any industry...in Canada;
e) the compatibility of the investment with national industrial, economic and cultural policies...;
(f) the contribution of the investment to Canada’s ability to compete in world markets.
When opposition members stand up and say that there is no criteria for which to evaluate net benefit to Canadians, that is simply false. It is clearly enumerated in section 20 of the Investment Canada Act.
We have also heard opposition members complain about the national security provisions, about transparency and about all sorts of things. The fact is that the government did bring forward changes to the Investment Canada Act to include national security measures through a national security provision. However, when we did that, members of the opposition parties, the NDP in particular, opposed that measure. When we introduced measures to increase transparency and flexibility within the act, the opposition parties consistently opposed those measures every time.
It is somewhat hypocritical for those members to stand up now and complain that the government is not doing enough to change it when the government has taken steps to improve the act time and time again and the opposition parties have time and time again opposed those measures.
At the end of the day, what the debate is about is ideology. We have one extreme end of the spectrum represented by the Liberal Party where it would just rubber-stamp every investment that came before it, which it actually did when it was in power for 13 years. We have another party that simply opposes every foreign investment transaction that comes before it because that is its ideological position on foreign investment.
Our government has actually taken a balanced approach on the issue. We have taken an approach where the minister considers the net benefit to Canada as he considers every individual transaction. I believe that is what Canadians expect of their government and that is what this government will continue to do.