Mr. Speaker, as always, I am honoured to rise in the House to represent the people of Timmins—James Bay and to participate in debate on Bill C-396, an act to amend the Department of Industry Act with respect to loans that are given out, and to address the issue of transparency and accountability with respect to loans.
What I have learned in my many years of representing northern Ontario is that the government has an important role to play in working as a partner and ensuring that we can build a strong economic base across this country. Part of the role the government plays as a partner is making sure that if loans are being made, they are of net benefit to our regions and our country.
The issue that has been brought forward by my colleague about more transparency with respect to these loans is certainly something we should be looking at, because after a number of recent scandals, Canadians have asked themselves how these decisions could have been made.
For example, Export Development Canada loaned $41 million to the notorious Gupta brothers to buy a jet, who then absconded with the jet and defaulted on the payments. People back home ask themselves how it could possibly be in the interests of Canada and the hard-working taxpayers of our country to loan $41 million to a couple of brothers who were involved in all kinds of accusations of corruption in another continent to buy themselves the ultimate lifestyle trinket, that being a private jet. They would also wonder why Canadians would be surprised that they absconded with the jet.
That kind of transparency is worth having.
I would like to challenge my Conservative colleague. I do not think we have ever agreed on anything, other than the fact that this issue of transparency is important. However, under the previous Conservative government, when it came to the issue of net benefit to the Canadian people in deals with industry, it was very secretive. We saw that with the takeover of American Steel and Stelco. We saw it with the supposed net benefit to Canada when two of the greatest mining companies in the world, Falconbridge and Inco, were allowed to be taken over by the corporate bandits Xstrata and Vale. We were told that this was to be to be of net benefit to Canadians, yet when we asked what the terms of the agreements were that they had to live by, we were told it was a secret.
How is it possible that we can sell off major Canadian industries with a supposed investment agreement and then, when we ask if the terms of the agreement are being lived up to, we are told it is a secret? That is not in the best interests of the Canadian taxpayer.
What my hon. colleague is putting forward with respect to the obligation for industry is vital at this time, because we see a government that talks about moving forward with “clusters”. That is its big vision: to find a supercluster or a megacluster. I do not know what it will call it in the next budget—the “super-duper oodle cluster”?
The idea that it can find three or four places in the country and turn an economy around is a ridiculous notion, because an economy is like a strong ecosystem, in that there have to be values at every level that are actually sustainable. Contrary to the Liberals' vision of the supercluster, I think one of the important roles of government investment is in regional economic development, to make sure that we have solid local economies across this country. That is done by being a partner, and traditionally we have done it through the various economic development agencies.
There have been a lot of allegations over the years of pork-barrel politics and problems with that. This is why accountability and transparency are important. It is extremely important in my region of northern Ontario, which is a resource-based economy. The principle of resource-based economies, where there are non-renewable resources, is that the revenues should benefit the region. In the case of Alberta, the revenues go back to Alberta. In the case of Newfoundland, they go back to Newfoundland. However, in the case of Ontario, the entire resource-based region sends its money to Queen's Park in southern Ontario, and then we have to go down like beggars, cap in hand, and beg for what they consider to be gifts, loans, and charity to us poor northern communities when we do not have the benefit of our resources.
One of the agreements that was to offset this huge disparity in the economic system which exists in Ontario with a very powerful urban core and very isolated communities was to create a regional economic development agency, and that was FedNor. FedNor's job was to reinvest money in the regions working with local partners. However, what we have seen over the last number of years is that FedNor has been atrophied. It has been cut. We have lost 30% of the staff at FedNor. FedNor had a $1.76-million annual budget and it is down to about half that now.
In the latest budget, the government did not even mention FedNor. The Liberals talk about maybe moving it all into the minister's office. This is another concern because the minister, who is from Mississauga, is now taking the role of the regional development voice for every part of the country. That does not make sense, because regions of the country are dramatically different. I cannot believe that the minister from Mississauga understands the issues that people face in La Sarre and Abitibi, or understands the differences in having a local economy when there are communities that are sometimes five and six hours away from each other. That is the role of FedNor. FedNor gets this.
When the federal Liberals came into government in 2015, they shut all the broadband projects in northern Ontario that were under FedNor because they had a super-duper cluster plan, which took another two years to roll out. We lost two years of broadband development in a region that is isolated and where it is badly needed. The federal Liberals then decided they were going to have a consultation process. Another thing is that the Liberals love to talk. They had a national consultation process on rural broadband, and they found that northern Ontario had serious shortfalls in broadband. Why is this important? How do they attract business and how do they get start-up businesses if they do not have broadband?
The consultation process went on for two years and they consulted everybody. They consulted municipalities. They consulted NGOs. They consulted businesses. I am surprised they did not go door to door with surveys. They consulted everybody except the economic agency of the region, which is there for the federal government. Not only that, what is more surprising is that they consulted with the provincial economic development agency, but they ignored FedNor.
It tells me that this is the view of a government that does not understand the value of our regions and the importance of the distinct differences between rural, between northern, and between resource-based economies. They have to understand that if they are going to make economic transformations. The Liberals are now talking about their superclusters and their mega-clusters. They are now saying that they want to do regional development like that. That is not how it works. When we have communities that are spread out over such a vast region, they have to understand that they have to do it at the grassroots. They have to involve the people who know about it. We have some amazing people who do this work.
This year at the Prospectors & Developers Association convention, FedNor's booth was probably the largest single booth there—the European Union booth looked like penny ante stuff compared to FedNor—because the economic potential of the mining sector rebirth in northern Ontario is gathering international investors. FedNor is there, but FedNor's budget is so underfunded that 70% of its funds are spent before the year begins.
Imagine what we could do if we had a strong mandate for regional development, if we had the government investing in regional development, if it actually understood the importance of sectors like the mineral sector in the north and the potential for creating spinoff industries. That is how to build a sustainable economy for the long term.
We get back to the issue of transparency. The government is going to be giving out massive loans to companies like Bombardier. I have nothing against Bombardier, but holy smokes, it lost $900 million, borrowed $1 billion from the taxpayer, and of the $100 million, took a $30-million cut for its CEOs. That to me is not credible. We should claw back every dime from those CEO bonuses because it is taxpayer money. Bombardier can play such an important role. In Thunder Bay, Bombardier has the plant for the subways and the streetcars for most of Canada. That is important work, and yet Bombardier ships 80% of the jobs to Mexico. I have a problem giving a company $1 billion if it is going to ship 80% of the work to Mexico.
My belief is if a company gets money from the Canadian taxpayer, it invests in Canada. If it gets bonuses through the Canadian taxpayer, they go back to the Canadian taxpayer.
Our deal has to be that if a company is getting Canadian money, then it is not buying jets for corrupt businessmen in South Africa, or shipping the money to Mexico. It is going to create a sustainable, profitable economy for our region. That is why we need issues of accountability and transparency.