Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to enter this debate on the NDP's opposition day motion.
We should say at the outset, in case people are just tuning in now, that the terms of this motion are simply to insist on public consultation to examine in a fulsome way the takeover deal of Nexen. This is not a debate about whether we should or should not allow the deal to go through. I have my own personal views on that, but we should be clear that we are calling for the inclusion of the public and a full examination and full due diligence of this takeover deal. That is all this debate is about.
If there is one thing we want to make clear in the context of this debate, it is that Canada is open for business but that Canada is not for sale. That must be driven home. Believe me, if there were a full and true examination and consultation, the Conservative Party would have a heck of a job convincing Canadians that it is in their best interest to have a foreign nation state buy our birthright from under our feet and pay cash on the barrelhead for our future in the energy field.
The Chinese are on a global acquisition frenzy. That is not overstating things. It is predicted that over a trillion dollars will be disgorged from China to acquire natural resources, pulp and paper mills, and whatever energy and resources they possibly can.
Believe me, it is the high profile companies like the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, CNOOC, that are interested in buying Nexen. However, it is simply one of hundreds of Chinese corporate arms of China Inc. The audacity of China Inc. in this global acquisition frenzy is astounding. Other ones include Sinopec, Chinmetals, PetroChina, the China Investment Corporation, and thousands more unknown Chinese corporations owned by lower levels of the Chinese government, which are beginning to venture abroad, gobbling up assets.
We would be naive, irresponsible and crazy not to examine this motion in a full, comprehensive way and put in place guidelines and rules to respond to this global acquisition frenzy.
We are blessed in this country with an abundance of natural resources. It is our children's future, and how it is managed and developed is critical. Therefore, it is not audacious on the part of the NDP to be calling upon the government to open the door to a public debate and consultation. Let us hear from the best minds in the country, for and against this idea. Let us put it all out there and have a national conversation on whether we do or do not approve of this particular takeover.
We have to keep in mind that this is not any ordinary foreign takeover. Here I would point out as an aside the contradiction in the Conservative Party's speaking points today. I am the critic for the Canadian Wheat Board, and the prairie members of the Conservative caucus were insistent that the Canadian Wheat Board had to be abolished because we could not have that kind of communism on the prairies in our grain marketing. That is the word they used. Behind closed doors, the Conservative prairie members referred to the Canadian Wheat Board as communism. A bunch of prairie farmers, banding together to act in their own best interests to get the best price for their grain was communism and it had to stop.
Yet the conservatives see no problem with selling our birthright in the Canadian oil sands to true communists, in fact communists with a terrible human rights record. If the Conservatives cannot see a ridiculous contradictions in their own talking points on that, then they are even thicker than I thought.
Petro-Canada had to be sold because it smacked of socialism. Even if we had the temerity to keep some control over a tiny portion of the oil industry so that we would at least know if we are being gouged by big oil, no, that had to go because it smacked of socialism if the nation state of Canada actually owned a piece of the oil industry below its feet.
Yet the Conservatives speakers I have heard today apparently see no problem with China Inc. gobbling up our children's birthright in the oil sands. I am against the deal, but I am only one voice. We should be consulting all Canadians. There should be a referendum on this kind of question.
The Conservatives laugh but they will not be laughing for long. They are talking about putting limits on foreign ownership by state owned enterprises. What is to stop 20% being owned by CNOOC and another 20% being owned by one of China Inc.'s other hundreds and hundreds of subsidiaries? These are not democratically elected boards of directors. They are appointed by dictatorships to act in their own best interests. I wish them good luck in trying to instill the best interests of Canadians into the board of directors of a Communist Chinese company. I do not know how they can live with the glaring contradiction in their own arguments and talking points. It drives me crazy.
We have lost virtually all of our manufacturing jobs to China. I used to have 43 garment manufacturers in my riding. I have only been an MP for 15 years. When I was first elected, there were 43 garment manufacturers in my riding and some of them had 1,500 employees. It was a huge burgeoning industry. Do members know how many there are left? There are three and only one of them actually produces any clothing. The rest of the work is now in China.
We comforted ourselves by saying that our kids will not want to work in those industries anyway, so we will let the Chinese have the garment industry. We have natural resources that we will develop and our high tech industry. However, guess what? China also learned high tech pretty good and has those jobs too. What does that leave us with? It leave us with the oil patch, our natural resources. Now we are going to let the nation state of China come in and buy up our natural resources as well? I call it economic treason. I accuse anybody who considers allowing this deal of economic treason.