Madam Speaker, as my colleague probably recalls, Canada signed the FIPA trade agreement under the Stephen Harper Conservatives, which locked Canadians into a trade agreement for over 31 years that cannot be cancelled. Under this agreement, Chinese companies can seek redress against any laws passed by any level of government that threaten their profits. There is a secret tribunal they can use if there is a lawsuit with respect to their rights around this.
We saw Chinese state-owned companies get access to energy, and I will quote from a story by a reporter who wrote, “If Stephen Harper ever gets tired of being Canada’s Prime Minister, he might like to consider a second career in China—he’d fit right in.”
I would ask my colleague this. Does he believe this committee should first look at what the agreement did with respect to opening up threats to our Canadian security? Has the former prime minister benefited at all from the trade agreement he signed?