Mr. Speaker, today I am following up on a question I asked last October. Things were heating up last fall, especially with the Investment Canada Act.
The biggest transaction ever made under this act took place. The Nexen-CNOOC deal was worth a total of $15.1 billion. I raised a number of questions in the House on this and other transactions, such as the Petronas deal.
I requested this adjournment debate because I was struck by the lack of depth and seriousness in the government's response on October 26, 2012.
I would remind the House that the Investment Canada Act was introduced quite a few years ago, and the NDP has called for overhauls on a number of occasions.
In the case of the transactions we were talking about last fall, the process lacked transparency, predictability and consultation of Canadians. That raised a lot of questions.
I asked others for their thoughts so the government could not claim this was my own opinion. Other people raised the fact that the process is not transparent, and they have been concerned about seeing our industrial leaders disappear over the past few years.
We are talking about companies like Dofasco, Stelco, Inco, Falconbridge, Alcan and other Canadian companies; the sale of the assets of the bankrupt Nortel to various non-Canadian buyers; and most recently, a bid for another.
This has led many to express heightened concern that the Investment Canada Act lacks the necessary tools to protect Canada from a hollowing out of its corporate boardrooms amid fears that we will become a branch-plant economy without control of our own resources and economic destiny.
This is from an article in the Canadian Competition Law Review. I have other accounts to share, including this from the School of Public Policy:
Investment Review In Canada — We can do better. More transparency and public disclosure will make foreign investors confident the system is fair...
When will the government review the rules governing the Investment Canada Act, either here in Parliament or in the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, to ensure that there is a net benefit to Canadians?