Debates of Nov. 19th, 2012

Foreign Affairs

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, there have been a number of comments made by members of the government, many in the international community, about these attacks by Hamas and that have triggered a reaction and certainly pose a threat to regional security. We have called for the end of these attacks and for calm throughout this very tense time.

As we have stated emphatically, Israel has the right to defend itself and its civilian population. It has the right to exist. We will not back away from that position.

Foreign Investment

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians learned about Petronas's modified takeover bid for Progress Energy Resources from The Malaysian Reserve.

The Conservatives are all over the map when it comes to foreign investment. Even Republican Senator John McCain has said that Canada should have public hearings on foreign takeovers such as the CNOOC takeover of Nexen.

Why are the Conservatives refusing to be transparent? When will they unveil the new evaluation criteria for foreign investment?

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Minister of Industry and Minister of State (Agriculture)]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the hon. member has asked enough questions in the House to know that the investor has 30 days, from the time the decision is rendered, to make additional representations.

From there, we will take the time needed to carefully examine the proposed transaction in order to determine whether it will provide a net benefit to Canada.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have more secretive midnight deals from the Conservatives.

Petronas submitted a modified deal last week but Canadians did not hear about it from their government. They had to hear about it from the Malaysian media. There was no transparency and no accountability from the Conservatives and people are noticing abroad. Even Senator John McCain said that Canada should have public hearings on foreign takeovers like the CNOOC takeover of Nexen.

The Conservatives are shutting out Canadians and refusing to listen. Why are they keeping Canadians in the dark?

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Minister of Industry and Minister of State (Agriculture)]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary. My colleague has asked a lot of questions in the House and I have said several times that a decision was rendered. As part of that decision, investors have 30 days to make additional representations.

After that, the required time will be taken to carefully examine the proposed transaction to determine if it is likely to be of net benefit to Canada.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, no answers, no transparency and no accountability means no respect for Canadians. Canadians deserve better than what they are getting from the government.

There are concerns about CNOOC's human rights record, the possible job losses at Nexen's head office in Calgary and concerns about CNOOC's description of itself as a foreign policy arm of the Chinese government. Even the Americans are saying that we should have public hearings on these serious concerns.

Will the Conservatives now agree to start respecting Canadians—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster has the floor and I am having great difficulty hearing him.

The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives can try to shut us down but they will never shut us up. They just will not do that. We will speak for Canadians.

Will the Conservatives now agree to start respecting Canadians and start consulting them on the CNOOC takeover of Nexen?

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Minister of Industry and Minister of State (Agriculture)]

Mr. Speaker, I did not need my earplug to hear the member across the floor but I hope he will hear me this time.

I said several times that we have improved the laws. We put guidelines in place in 2007 regarding state-owned enterprises. We put in provisions with respect to national security issues. We also put in new provisions under the act in terms of communications.

What we said is that we will take the time to fully scrutinize the proposed transaction to ensure that it is likely to provide a net benefit to Canada.

National Defence

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it would appear that the Conservatives are as transparent as their ministers are competent.

It seems to me that the Minister of National Defence knows as little about the CF-18 replacement as the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women. In an interview with CTV this weekend, the defence minister, like his colleague, was unable to identify a single fighter jet, other than the F-35, that could be used to replace the CF-18s.

Let us try this again: what fighter jets, other than the F-35, are being considered to replace the CF-18s?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, the member knows that we will not be purchasing any replacements for the CF-18s until this seven-point action plan has been completed, including an independent verification of the cost estimates for the F-35 and a full options analysis. That full options analysis will be a full evaluation of all of the choices and will not simply be a refresh of the work that has already been done. We look forward to that work being done.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of National Defence offered us an explanation for his repetitive non-answers to these questions. He said that it was the secretariat that was looking in detail at the military's needs. Perhaps the Minister of National Defence does not know the answers or perhaps he is having a tough time with the details, so I have a proposition.

The Danes, a JSF partner just like Canada, has resumed its competitive process for replacing its fighter jets. Why will the minister not do the same? That way, he will not have to worry himself with the details.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence's comments reflect a respect for the process that has been set up, a process that is about strengthening the process and about doing the proper due diligence that has been asked for by the Auditor General. We are following his recommendation, which was to bring updated cost estimates to Parliament on the F-35. Further to that, we are independently validating them, but we also will be looking at a full range of options to replace the CF-18.

41st General Election

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' script keeps changing as more information is revealed in the robocall scandal.

Even though Elections Canada told the Conservatives not to give out polling station addresses and even though they have been denying doing so for months, the Conservatives' communications director, Fred DeLorey, is now admitting that they made such calls.

Their answers are changing every day. Will they finally give us an honest answer and tell us, yes or no, whether they gave Elections Canada the list of the voters they misled?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I have already told him that, as a political party, we ran an ethical and clean election campaign. We followed all the rules.

We are working with Elections Canada to find out what happened in Guelph. What we can clearly say is that our party followed the rules, unlike the NDP, which accepted over $300,000 in illegal contributions from unions.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think it will take another RCMP visit to the Conservative Party offices to get any real answers to our questions.

Conservative employees in Saint-Boniface said that headquarters made the calls regarding the polling stations. That is not surprising: everything is centralized with the Conservatives. That is how it works here too. The Prime Minister's Office provides the talking points and the MPs from Beauce or wherever repeat them.

But back to the election fraud. It is becoming increasingly clear that the party itself is behind this massive fraud.

We want to prevent them from pulling another stunt like this during the next election. Will the Conservatives commit to supporting the NDP's bill to give the Chief Electoral Officer more authority?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said in the House before, a comprehensive package will be put forward in due course. I find it surprising that the hon. member is so concerned about election laws when it was his party that took hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations from the big union bosses.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that defence by the Conservatives is starting to crumble because now we have the access to information documents that reveal that Elections Canada was so concerned about voter fraud, it believed the Conservative Party was “running a scam” and its investigators traced the calls back to a 1-800 number that went to the Conservative Party headquarters.

Now that we have a direct link between the Conservative Party and illegal voter suppression, what steps will the government take to work with Elections Canada and make the key Conservative operatives come clean?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we already indicated to the member and to all of Parliament that the Conservative Party is working proactively with Elections Canada to ascertain what exactly happened in Guelph. We ran a clean and ethical campaign, as we always do.

By contrast, the New Democrats used $340,000 in illegal union money to fight the last election campaign. They managed to keep it covered up until the election was over. Despite the best efforts by the leader of the NDP, through a courageous whistleblower that information eventually became public. Why did they not come clean sooner?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Earth to the Tory backbench, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Conservative voter fraud here.

Speaking of Guelph, it is funny that the Conservatives have one key operative who has gone to ground in Kuwait and another key operative who has gone to ground in, wait for it, the office of the minister for Labrador. I guess he did not think he would have to deal with anything there because he still has not come clean about the money that he spent in his riding election. He still has not explained why his ministerial budget is being blown flying around his riding.

Will he at least stand up and explain what role his Guelph operative, Chris Crawford, has as his director of parliamentary affairs? Will he explain that to us?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that they target the hon. minister. They accuse him of not jet-setting across the country enough. According to the NDP, this minister spends too much time reaching out to his constituents in Labrador. This party understands we can never spend too much time with the good people of Labrador and that is precisely why he knows that the rural people of this country do not want a $1 billion long gun registry. Maybe if the member spent more time in his own riding, he would know that too.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, we have now learned that Elections Canada wrote Conservative Party lawyer, Arthur Hamilton, demanding answers about fraudulent calls that scammed thousands of Canadians three days before the election. Mr. Hamilton employed the three Conservative d's: delay, deny, deflect.

The Conservatives did that for years with the in and out, and the Conservative Party was finally convicted. Do we need to wait for another conviction before the government gets to the bottom of the election fraud scandal?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we have gotten to the bottom of the election fraud scandal. It was a Liberal MP who was caught having made thousands of phony phone calls with a false name and a false number, for which the CRTC has now been forced to fine that member. If the colleague across the way wants to know what happened with a phony election call, she should turn and look about three rows back and ask the man who did it.

Ethics

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Labrador refuses to say anything in the House about his election expenses. He then goes out of the House and says he will report everything and tell all when he goes back home. Then his office in Ottawa sends out a press release saying nothing. While the minister is out in Labrador, he tells his constituents at a meeting that this is not the place to discuss this. He will not answer questions in the House or out of the House.

Not in, not out; where is the member for Labrador?