Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on this motion, which just like yesterday's motion on employment insurance, is quite reasonable. I certainly believe MPs from all sides of the House should be able to stand up in their place and support it. It is not going against government policy. It is, in fact, doing reasonable things for Canadians and doing the proper study.
We all know that the government has failed, as has been mentioned by many speakers, in its commitment to lay out the rules on foreign investment in Canada, which it committed to do following the attempted takeover of Saskatchewan potash some two years ago. There is no question that the Conservative government has completely botched up the Nexen situation by completely failing to outline the concept of net benefit within the Investment Canada Act. This particular proposal goes far beyond just an ordinary investment because, in this case, we are talking about Canadian resources. Because of that failure and the lack of leadership on the part of the government, ministries within the government now are trying to make rules on the fly, it seems to me. That is unacceptable.
As the motion states in (c), the government “must respect its 2010 promise to clarify in legislation the concept of 'net benefit' within the Investment Canada Act”. That is certainly not too much to ask and we all know the government has completely failed in that obligation. Yes, we know government members will rant on in their remarks about the net benefit test that is already there, but we all know that when we go through the six points, they are basically meaningless and vague, and they give government a wide-open door for what it may or may not want to do and, specifically on the Nexen-CNOOC proposal, they really are not the kind of criteria that are necessary.
This is not a straightforward commercial venture in which a company is buying a business that produces widgets. This is much beyond a commercial venture. This is about buying a company that may not have the capital flow that is required to expand into the future. Yes, that company is looking for capital investment, but it is a company that has control over and access to Canadian resources that we should be looking to enhance in terms of Canada's value-added industry, Canadian jobs and resourcing our own energy sector. This is really about control of our resources.
Premier Redford and a number of premiers have talked about a national energy strategy, and I certainly agree we need one. We need a national energy strategy in this country. I come from the east coast. However how do we utilize Canadian resources of all types? In this case, how do we utilize energy, which CNOOC might eventually control, to add value for Canadians, to be an energy resource for Canadians, to be a benefit to this country and to use our resources to fuel our own industrial plants where we would create Canadian jobs and production beyond our energy sector? In other words, how would we fit this proposal into a Canada-wide energy strategy?
The points I just made really relate to (a) and (b) of the motion. The motion states that we need to involve all Canadians, a public process and proper public consultations, so we can see what is at stake in the overall proposal. What do Canadians really want? How will my constituents in a riding in eastern Canada, far away from where this deal is taking place, impact it?
I will now turn to the heart of the issue as it relates to this specific takeover proposal. The $15.1 billion effort by China's state owned oil company, CNOOC, of Canadian Nexen has to be placed in the proper context, one that goes beyond the shareholders of Nexen itself.
I will quote from testimony at a United States-China review commission on January 26, 2012. It reads:
Beijing’s instinctive impulse for national control over key resources and energy in the face of chronically growing dependence on imported oil is what has driven its push for control over overseas oil and natural gas resources embodied in its “Go Out” strategy adopted after 2000. The go out strategy reflects the growing politicization of energy security in China but is symptomatic of the reaction to growing energy security anxieties across the region in Asia among the big oil importers.
The submission to the commission continued with the following:
First, Beijing has sponsored and supported the overseas acquisition of oil and gas resources by China’s three main national oil companies (NOC) with state bank funding, loans, and expanding state diplomacy in the key oil and gas exporting regions. The NOCs often pay significant premiums to other market bidders to acquire these assets.
I know that CNOOC has made clear that it is operating on a strictly commercial basis. That may be so, we do not know, but all the more reasons for proper consultations and investigation. However, it is a fact, as stated to that “before the commission”, it is paying high premiums on share prices in order to buy Nexen.
If the board of directors of Nexen, who certainly need capital, are getting this premium, then they do have an obligation to their shareholders to say that it is an opportunity and that it is for shareholders.
However, our job and the government's job is to decide on the criteria and on whether it would be a benefit to Canada. This motion goes right to that point.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, this motion is not all encompassing. It is a reasonable motion. The government backbenchers need not be afraid that the Prime Minister will come down on them if they vote for this motion. This is doing the reasonable thing for Canadians and holding proper consultations in order to have the right criteria on this kind of proposal. As I said, this is not an ordinary business acquisition. This is about our energy sector. It could affect how we implement a national energy strategy, if we ever do. As it could affect jobs in our industrial plant in Canada, we need to do it correctly.
The Conservative government has failed to make clear in any respect to any constituency what constitutes Canada's interest in this $15.1 billion purchase of Nexen by China's state owned enterprise, CNOOC, as demonstrated by the story in The Globe and Mail of September 25 headlined, “Protect Canadian ownership of oil sands firms, executives urge”.
When we have public declarations from leading oil executives in Canada with respect to concerns regarding increased foreign, in this case Chinese, investment, there is a reason for greater concern, and that goes to the point of the motion.
We Liberals, as my colleague from Halifax West said, are very much in favour of trade and of investment but at the end of the day they need to be in Canadians' interest. In this case, we are not talking just about a commercial venture. We are talking about an impact by a state owned company on our resources.