Debates of Feb. 17th, 2023

The House resumed from February 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-34, An Act to amend the Investment Canada Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this House to talk about a very important issue. Today we are talking about investment, national defence and security. The world is a far different place today than it was even a year ago, and there has been an concerted effort by hostile foreign powers to undermine western democracies, undermine our national security, undermine our economic interests and undermine democracy itself.

Before I continue, I want to mention that I am going to be splitting my time with the wonderful member for Langley—Aldergrove.

The west has basically been sleepwalking into the realignment of global power, and if we do not wake up, our lives and interests will be impaired, or worse, children across the world may not have the same freedoms that our children have in our democracies, like independence and the other freedoms we enjoy.

Not only have we allowed nefarious actions to occur right under our noses, but we have actually helped fund this global realignment. In 2018, Canada gave $250 million to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is largely viewed as expanding China’s influence and power in the world. We have been funding it. This is the context that we have to keep in mind when we think about Bill C-34 and this investment act.

These are largely viewed as some of the more significant amendments to this act in well over a decade. The bill provides new ministerial authorities and focuses on special business sectors of interest to the country. I give the government credit for bringing this forward as a stand-alone piece of legislation that will allow for proper scrutiny in this House, but I want to talk about a few issues.

The first is reciprocity. A fundamental principle in all trade or any real commercial relationship is that each party gets something and gives something in return. There is some exchange of equal value. This is not necessarily the case with what has been happening in global trade with Canada. Certainly it is not the case with how companies and entities invest in Canada.

Canadian companies want to invest in other countries or companies housed in other countries, but Canada does not have that opportunity. Canadian companies do not have that opportunity. It is always puzzling to understand why Canada allows companies and entities that have links to foreign governments to invest in and purchase Canadian assets when Canadian companies themselves are not allowed to make the same investments in those other countries.

The fundamental principle of reciprocity does not exist when Canadian firms cannot make the same investments that we allow companies from other countries to make here. Sometimes those companies are either owned or heavily influenced by a foreign power. Whether that foreign power is hostile or not, geopolitics changes. As we have seen in the last year, things have shifted significantly.

I submit that some of these companies and countries, frankly, are laughing at us all the way to the bank. I am beginning to think that they might think we are suckers. What I am worried about is that they are right. We do not have to look hard to find some examples of what I am talking about that make us scratch our heads.

In 2017, the government did not request a security review of Norsat when it was purchased by Hytera Communications, which is partially owned by the People’s Republic of China. Just recently, at the end of 2022, it was exposed that the government awarded a hardware contract for RCMP communications equipment to a Norsat subsidiary. The United States blacklisted Hytera because it “poses an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons”.

Where was Canada's review? Was Canada informed by the United States about its findings? Did Canada do the due diligence we would expect it would normally do before a contract like this is awarded, or maybe even before a transaction is approved?

There are more examples, but members can see that our approach can actually weaken our relationships with our partners. We are not holding up our end of the bargain when it comes to national security and defence, and I worry that some countries think we are not taking it very seriously anymore.

I want to talk a bit about the governance we see at some state-owned enterprises and some of the entities that are owned, controlled or heavily influenced by foreign governments. The issue is that the objectives of these entities are not necessarily commercially minded first. They have some other interests potentially at play. They might be interested in locking up the supply of critical minerals. They might be interested in trying to get information, whether that is intellectual property, communications or information about national defence. Proper governance is important for ensuring we have faith in a free market. If these entities are not playing by the same rules and the same principles, we cannot trust all of their motives. We have to be skeptical.

In the last Parliament, a very good proposal was made by the industry committee that when a state-owned enterprise is involved, there is no threshold too low to trigger a review. That is a reasonable approach. When there is a state-owned enterprise involved or an entity that is heavily influenced by a foreign power or could be heavily influenced by a foreign power, the government needs to think about the best interests of Canada.

Who knows what these critical assets will be in the future? I am not sure 20 or 30 years ago people realized that lithium would be as important as it is now, but what about water in the future? Is that something we should be discussing now, or should we have some more flexibility to discuss that?

The other issue is assets versus shares. One can sell a business by selling assets and one can sell a business by selling the shares in the company that owns the assets, but right now we are only looking at issues where shares are purchased. We are exposing ourselves to a loophole that companies and entities can plan around, especially those that have hostile foreign interests.

There are some expanded powers for the minister, and that is okay if we believe and trust the minister. I think the minister in this case is a wonderful individual, and I do trust his judgment. However, we might get a dud in the future. We need to make sure we have proper oversight of the minister, so the Governor in Council and cabinet should have expanded power. Maybe there should even be a third body.

We are required to be stewards of our assets in this country. Defence and security sometimes is more costly. We might not be able to sell to the highest bidder if it undermines our national security. We need to be working to secure Canada's best interests for her future. I hope that the minister and the government are open to amendments.

I appreciate the fact that this has been brought forward as a stand-alone piece of legislation. It will enable the committee to do some good work, I believe, and hear from some important stakeholders. However, I view this legislation as merely a starting point for a conversation and hope to see it enhanced at committee.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this important issue this morning. Before I close, I need to say a very happy birthday to Amanda Philp today, who I am sure is watching this and will see it on repeat a number of times.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very good speech and all of the constructive work that he does on the Standing Committee on Finance. He is a really valuable member of the House.

The Bloc Québécois applauds this bill, but we do not think that it goes far enough. National security is important, but we are asking the government to go further and to address the issue of economic security so that we have better control over foreign investments in general and so that we can keep our head offices, our economic levers and control over our resources.

Last year, only 24 or 2% of the 1,255 foreign investment projects totalling $87 billion were considered to have national security implications. In our opinion, that is not enough. We need better oversight to preserve our economic interests.

What are my hon. colleague's thoughts on that?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have very much enjoyed getting to work with the member on the finance committee. He brings many insightful comments forward.

Of course, we think the thresholds the government is currently using to review transactions are likely too low. I would refer the government to recommendations from the previous industry committee. The member rightly recognizes that there are likely more transactions that ought to fall under greater scrutiny to ensure we protect our national interests and the interests of critical resources or materials. He was alluding to jobs and headquarters too, which I think are also a consideration for the government to make sure it is reviewing.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is about the question of trust. Since 2004, the NDP has been raising the issue of non-democratic governments owning Canadian companies. I have seen a number of them over the years, whether in the Harper administration or in Paul Martin's. It goes all the way to just last year, and we have seen takeovers.

This is not only with regard to strategic assets, and what we have called for is addressing consumer issues. There are good examples: when Best Buy bought Future Shop and closed it down, when Zellers was bought by Target and it was shut down and when Rona was bought by Lowe's. It is now a private equity firm.

How can we trust the Conservatives' intent on this? We have been raising the issue of private equity firms in kingdoms and other places that do not have the full disclosure the free market would have. Are we going to have the same standards for them? They are really important, especially private equity firms, because other governments own an interest in them.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague may be happily surprised to hear Zellers is returning in a few locations. That may be some welcome news.

In any event, the world is different today. Geopolitics changes over time and regimes change. That is why we need principles under which to look at all transactions.

I agree about entities that are controlled by or influenced by a foreign power, for example, whether it is hostile or not. A hostile power today might not be a hostile power tomorrow, and one that is not today could be one tomorrow. Any time there is a lack of governance and transparency, the government should be on high alert and scrutinizing the transaction to the absolute highest degree.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is very pleased with this legislation, which would give him more power to extend the national security reviews of investments. By doing so, the power would be moved from the Governor in Council and would place the responsibility in the hands of two ministers: the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Public Safety.

Why should we trust the government to remove the accountability measure of putting these types of issues to cabinet? As we have seen over the last eight years, there is an incredible move toward putting more power within the hands of ministers and outside advisory councils with no accountability to this place.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is an absolutely excellent question. I see that there are expanded powers for two ministers. I trust at least one of them. However, the Governor in Council provides a more fulsome review. Maybe even an external body that is removed from politics would be the right way to go.

As I have said, we never know whom we will end up having as a minister, and I think we should take a bit more power away from one individual and spread it out to a greater group.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are talking about foreign investment in Canada: What are the benefits? What are the risks?

Canada is a large nation by geography, but a relatively small nation when measured by population or by economic power. We are a small contributor, relatively speaking, to the world economy, but we are punching above our weight class, and the only way we can do that is by being a trading nation. That means we have to sell what the world wants and buy what the world has to offer, but we also have to be open to foreign investment, to allow investors to contribute to our economy but also to make a good return on that investment.

This money is very mobile. A big hypothetical pension fund, for example, with a lot of money to invest, does not come to Canada because we are nice people or, as the Prime Minister says, because the world needs more Canada. That is just naive. Investment money goes where it can earn a rate of return. It is a very competitive market.

The LNG sector in Canada is a very good example of that. LNG Canada is building a large export terminal near Kitimat, British Columbia, for shipping clean, ethical liquid natural gas to world markets, to our trading partners, so they can replace dirtier burning coal. This is a partnership among some very large international corporations, such as Shell Canada, Korea Gas Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation, and there are a lot of foreign investment dollars involved here.

This is what the world needs more of: more Canadian, clean, ethical liquid natural gas to help our trading partners get off coal. Unfortunately, this is not according to our Prime Minister, who just recently told the German chancellor that there is no business case to be made for Canada supplying Europe with liquid natural gas so that Europe can reduce or get rid of its dependency on Russia. Investors need to hear that kind of talk only once from our Prime Minister and they head for the exits.

Happily, for the investors, there is a place for them to go. Late last year, the White House announced that it will work with the industry to ensure that U.S. liquid natural gas is available to replace Russian natural gas in the European market. Apparently there is a business case to be made, after all. The world smiles at Canada's naïveté.

That is where we are after eight years of Liberal mismanagement of our economy. The fundamental problem with the way the Liberal government has been managing, or rather mismanaging, our economy is that it does not look to the fundamental economic principles.

Take, for example, our economic productivity metrics. Canada lags, in a significant way, behind our largest trading partner, the United States. For every dollar that American workers pump into their GDP, their Canadian counterparts add 75¢ to our national economy. This does not mean that we are not working as hard as the Americans. We may be working harder than the Americans. It is just that we do not have the tools. We do not have the best tools available. We are lagging in investing in our tech sector and we are not investing aggressively in growth industries.

Also, there is too much red tape, too much useless bureaucracy, which just gets in the way of hard-working Canadians using their ingenuity to grow our economy. This is what our leader, the member for Carleton, calls “gatekeepers”, who are just standing in the way. Let us get rid of them.

Economists recognize that this productivity lag is a big, significant problem for Canada. Even our current Minister of Finance mentions this in her 2022 budget report and in her fall economic statement. She calls it “Canada's Achilles heel”. She understands the problem, but it is too bad that her boss does not seem to be paying attention to that.

The former minister of finance actually underlines that. He agrees with the current Minister of Finance. In his recent book, he says this: “productivity improvement is the most important issue on our agenda”. It is not “one of the most important” but “the most important”. However, in his words, “neither the PM nor the Prime Minister’s Office saw the need to address our anemic growth”.

That is where we are. After eight years of Liberal mismanagement, everything seems broken, including our economy. What Canada needs is a strong Conservative government that understands the basic principles of economics and how to grow the economy for the benefit of all, and that means working with foreign investors to attract investment money to Canada.

When we are talking about foreign investment, it is important, in my opinion, to reflect on where we are today in relation to where we were 50 years ago.

In 1974, when the Investment Canada Act's predecessor, the Foreign Investment Review Act, was the law, intangible assets, which are things that cannot be picked up with a forklift, ideas in our head like intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks and patents, accounted for only 17% of the S&P 500's assets by dollar value.

If we fast-forward a decade, when the old act was replaced with the current Investment Canada Act, which we are talking about today, the intangible assets ratio had doubled to 32%. After that, it just accelerated. Today, it stands at roughly 90% of the S&P 500's total assets by dollar value.

Let us move a little closer to home, to the Toronto Stock Exchange, a less technology-driven exchange. There, the comparable number is 70%. The European comparable number is 77%. This is hard data that Canada lags in developing our knowledge-based economy, and that is part of the reason why our productivity numbers are lagging.

Where are we after eight years of a Liberal government? We have low productivity numbers, a lack of investor confidence in Canada and a lack of focus on our knowledge-based economy. It really is time for a change at the top.

Today, we are talking about Bill C-34, an act to amend the Investment Canada Act. The parliamentary Committee on Industry, Science and Technology studied this a couple of years ago. It is too bad that the minister did not pick up on all the recommendations. That report highlights the need for foreign investment in the tech industry, but it also points out some of the challenges and risks.

If we are attracting money from non-friendly, non-democratic countries, they may profit more from that than we do. One example is a state-owned enterprise funding a research chair at a world-class Canadian university. At the end of the whole process, after a lot of contributions by Canadian brainpower into new intellectual property, the foreign company ends up owning it. That is a big risk. I am happy to see that the federal government has finally zeroed in on that.

One of the recommendations, recommendation 1, as my colleague mentioned already, was not picked up by the minister when he drafted Bill C-34. That recommendation would require that the valuation threshold for prospective acquisitions of control of Canadian assets or shares by state-owned or state-controlled enterprises must be reduced to zero. That being said, every proposed transaction that would transfer direct or indirect control of a Canadian corporation or assets to a foreign-owned enterprise would be scrutinized. I agree with that. It is too bad it was not picked up in the bill.

We will be supporting Bill C-34 at second reading, in principle, so that it can go to committee, where hopefully it will pick up recommendation 1. We will work diligently at committee to make sure that Bill C-34 comes back better for third reading.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's excellent speech. In fact, the last two speeches have been superb speeches on Bill C-34.

The member raised an issue around recommendation 1 from the industry committee report on state-owned enterprises. I would like to ask him something along a similar vein. The Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry was at the House of Commons industry committee this week. I asked him about the acquisition of the Tanco lithium mine in Manitoba, the only lithium-producing mine in Canada, by the Chinese government in 2015, and why he had not included that in his divestiture request of Chinese state-owned enterprises a few months ago. He said that he could not do it, that he could not go back far enough.

There is nothing in this bill that will allow, when a regime changes, for the minister to go back and revisit a transaction when a regime becomes less co-operative as part of the world framework. I wonder if the member could comment on whether or not there should be changes to the bill to allow for that kind of review to go back further.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I mentioned only one flaw in this legislation because we were pressed for time, but this is definitely another one.

The Canada Investment Act has not been reviewed in a long time. Its predecessor, the Foreign Investment Review Act, was with us for many years. It was drafted at a time when we were concerned about international corporations taking over our energy sector. Today, the world is different. Unfortunately, Bill C-34 does not pick up on all of these things.

I am confident that the industry committee will look at this thoroughly in its line-by-line review and the bill will come back in a much better shape than it is today.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member is about the increasing number of foreign investments we see in the health sector, where for-profit companies from abroad see Canada as a place to make profits off the health care needs of Canadians. I am thinking of Anbang, which bought up Retirement Concepts. It owns 20 retirement homes in British Columbia and is the largest source of substantiated complaints about care in the province.

Does the member believe that this version of the bill will provide adequate protection against for-profit companies trying to invade the health care sector?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. I am not familiar with that particular file, so I will have a conversation with my colleague about that afterwards, but no, I do not think this bill provides adequate coverage for that. This is another one of the missed opportunities in redrafting the Investment Canada Act, so it is definitely something the committee should look at.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

With the pandemic, we saw how fragile the global economy is when it comes to supply chains. I really expected the government to propose quicker, more constructive solutions than what it is proposing, which is almost nothing at all.

According to my colleague, will Bill C‑34 help to address the supply chain issue? If not, what does the government—

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there is no translation.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

It is working now.

The hon. member for Joliette can repeat his question.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what I was saying is that with the pandemic, we saw the fragility of global supply chains.

Honestly, I expected the government to come up with strategies quickly to help the industries in the Canadian economy overcome this problem. To my knowledge, nothing or practically nothing has been done to help these companies.

Does my hon. colleague believe that Bill C‑34 addresses that a little bit or not at all? What should the government do to promote the economy here as it pertains to the supply chain problem?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, the pandemic revealed a lot of things to us. We are a free-trading nation, which is one of Canada's strengths, but it can also be one of its weaknesses in that we have seen through the pandemic that supply chain disruptions interrupted our ability to get products that are necessary for us. I am thinking of the pharmaceutical industry and how we learned about its weaknesses during the pandemic, when we were standing in line behind many other countries before we could get a vaccine. I think the pandemic has taught us that, although we are free traders and it is important for us to attract foreign investment money here, we also need to look after the essential things of our own economy.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.

In December 1973, Parliament enacted the Foreign Investment Review Act, which was known as FIRA, to deal with the issue of foreign investors controlling Canadian industry, trade and commerce, and the ability of Canadians to maintain effective control over their economic future.

These investments would be allowed to proceed only if the government had determined that they were, or were likely to be, of significant benefit to Canada. This net benefit test still exists today, but much has changed given rising national security concerns that necessitate new measures. Let me elaborate.

In June 2017, Hytera Communications, a company owned by the Chinese Communist Party, acquired Norsat International, a B.C. telecom company. Just like that, a firm backed by an authoritarian regime took over an essential service provider here in Canada.

One would think this takeover would have raised some red flags, but it did not, not for the Liberal government at least. If it had acted rationally, the government would have conducted a national security review into Hytera. However, after eight years in power, it is clear that rationality is in short supply these days.

It did not bat an eye when, as all of this was taking place, our own Border Services Agency was using equipment from Hytera. We are talking about a company that has been charged with 21 counts of espionage. That company has been banned from doing business with our neighbour to the south. Up until that point, the Liberals have said that business is business, even when it means letting a hostile regime gain access to our essential services.

This sort of lax attitude toward issues of national security is clearly a problem. What is even more problematic is that for five long years after the Hytera fiasco, the government has not learned from its mistakes.

In 2020, it gave out a contract to Nuctech, a company founded by the son of a Chinese Community Party secretary general. It would not have taken a national security review to figure out who the company's founder was. A quick Google search would have sufficed.

It was not just standard, run-of-the-mill work that this company with Chinese Communist Party connections was doing. Nuctech was supplying X-ray equipment, of all things, to almost 200 Canadian embassies and consulates.

Two years ago, it looked like the government was changing its course when it updated its national security review guidelines. This was not the case, or at least it certainly was not the case when the Minister of Industry greenlit the takeover of a Canadian lithium mine by a Chinese state-owned enterprise.

Once again, the opportunity was right there. The minister could have requested a national security review. The review framework was even new and improved, or so they would have us think. However, the minister did not act. Delays, half measures and slaps on the wrist. Those have been the Liberal responses to national security threats throughout the past eight years.

Huawei is a perfect example of this. By 2021, each and every one of our allies within the Five Eyes had already banned Huawei from using their 5G networks. For years, my colleagues and I have been calling on the government to do the right thing: Listen to our allies, listen to security experts and ban Huawei from accessing 5G.

Reluctantly, and far too late, the Liberals finally took our advice and took a stand against the Chinese Communist Party. That was less than a year ago. With the Liberal government's dismal track record in matters related to national security, Bill C-34 feels like too little, too late. It is like the goalie letting in eight goals, then coming onto the ice at the last minute and saying, “Don't worry guys. I've got this.”

To be fair, this bill does address Canada's national security. It is a policy area where the government has been complacent for far too long. For that reason, I am prepared to support the bill at this stage, as long as it can be strengthened in committee.

For a while, a lot of us had the naive idea that these regimes were emerging partners, and they were slowly moving toward the democratic norm. Putin's war changed all of that, and it is time that Canada acted accordingly. It is time for a reality check. Hostile foreign governments want to subvert and undermine this country. The threat is real and the threat is here. Canadians are well aware. A few weeks ago, all that Canadians had to do was look up and see a Chinese surveillance balloon flying at 60,000 feet.

Bill C-34 responds to this new reality, but not well enough and not in its current form. The bill puts the power to request national security reviews in the hands of the Minister of Industry, the same minister whose predecessor did not even request a security review when Hytera took over an essential Canadian telecom provider. It is the same minister who, even after strengthening the security review guidelines in 2021, chose not to investigate the Chinese takeover of a critical Canadian mining company.

The bill is only as strong as the minister's scrutiny, whoever that minister may be in the future. Conservatives believe matters of such importance should be scrutinized by all of cabinet to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

There are also existing problems with the Investment Canada Act that are not even addressed in Bill C-34. For no apparent reason, when a state-owned enterprise invests in a Canadian company, a national security review is only triggered if the Canadian company has assets worth more than $454 million. This provision has it all wrong. It is not about the size of the company that is being acquired. It is about the security risks that would inherently arise when a hostile state-owned company gains control over a critical service or product here in Canada.

Bill C-34 needs a provision that would trigger an automatic national security review when a state-owned enterprise invests in Canada. The threshold should be zero dollars, not $454 million. Also, the bill would only deal with share purchases and non-asset purchases. Therefore, in theory, there is a roundabout way that foreign investors could acquire assets in Canada and completely circumvent the legislation. It is clearly a loophole that needs to be plugged.

Since 2017, Chinese companies have been governed by the national intelligence law. This law compels every citizen and every company to hand over data to Chinese intelligence agencies. For almost six years, so much Canadian information has gone to China's autocratic government that it is hard to even quantify. We need to put an end to this, but right now, Bill C-34 would not do that.

Bill C-34 needs a presumption against allowing the takeover of Canadian companies by China's designated state-owned entities. It needs a reformed net benefit test to better account for the potential effects of a transaction on the broader innovation ecosystem, with a particular focus on protecting intellectual property and human capital. It needs automatic review of transactions involving sensitive sectors, such as defence, artificial intelligence and rare earth minerals. It also needs a mandatory national security review for state-owned enterprises where national security is a concern.

The act would not attempt to change definitions of state-owned enterprises or look at the issue of what constitutes control. One would not have to buy 50% of a company to control it. Someone could buy small percentages of it, get a number of seats on the board or change management, which Hytera has done.

It is clear that Canada needs to improve these protections. Bill C-34 would be a small step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite troubling to hear that when the U.S. identifies national security risks, it shuts them down, and our LIberal government does absolutely nothing about it.

I wonder if the member can comment on what kind of signal this Liberal dithering sends to investors and to our allies, as far as addressing national security risks goes.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not say what the elephant in the room was this morning. There is a report in The Globe and Mail saying how the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party tried to manipulate the results of both the 2019 and 2021 elections was surely a bombshell revelation.

We are dealing with a government that cannot even protect the basic integrity of our elections, and we are asking it to now make sure that we are secure in terms of foreign investment. I have grave concerns about Bill C-34 coming out of committee in a strengthened way. I certainly hope that members on the committee and in the Liberal Party see that this bill does need to be strengthened. We are living in a whole new world where it is not just about the net economic benefit anymore. It is about what the national security threats are to Canada as a whole.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague with whom I have the pleasure of working on the Standing Committee on Finance. It is truly a pleasure to work with him. I thank him for his speech. He raised a number of very troubling issues.

I want to refer to the annual report from the department's investment division, which was tabled in Parliament last October. In the preceding year, there were 1,255 foreign investment projects, totalling $87 billion. However, only 2%, or 24 of them, were determined to have national security implications and would be covered by the new rules set out in this bill. The other 1,221 investments remain subject to the old rules. Of those, only eight, or less than 1%, were subject to a review to determine if they will truly provide a net economic benefit.

According to my hon. colleague, is the government doing enough to ensure both national and economic security?

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with my colleague on the finance committee. He always has excellent questions and makes excellent points, and this is in fact one of them.

This is an opportunity to really overhaul how Canada reviews foreign investment, in light of the new world that we are living in. I agree with the member entirely. The committee needs to have a serious look at what we could do. It could be by reducing the threshold to zero; by including asset purchases; by making sure it is not just the Minister of Industry who decides, but all of cabinet or some other broader mechanism. That would make sure Canadians remain in control of their economic future.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague that this government really has failed in terms of protecting security in Canada. Let us look back in history. It was the Harper government that increased the threshold above which a foreign takeover of a Canadian firm would be reviewed in the first place.

Would the member support reducing the current threshold for a prospective acquisition of either state-owned or state-controlled enterprises to zero so that every transaction triggers a review, including a net benefit test and a national security test?

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping that the member had listened to my speech before she asked her question. If she reviews the Hansard, she will see that is, in fact, exactly what I said. I don't think the $454 million threshold solves the problem anymore. It should be zero.