Ed Fast

[Business of Supply, November 17th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, the coronavirus is symptomatic of how the communist regime in Beijing does business. It covered up the scope, extent and seriousness of this virus until it was too late for the global community. In the meantime, it was already establishing itself to take advantage of that crisis. I believe that post-mortems that will be conducted on the coronavirus will lay bare the extent to which China has been complicit in allowing this virus to infect the global community.

[Business of Supply, November 17th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, with the greatest of respect, that is hogwash.

The investment treaty with China is an agreement that protects companies after they have made investments, that ensures expropriation does not take place without fair and reasonable compensation, that they are not treated arbitrarily by government and that investments are not taken away. That does not happen in Canada, but it does happen in China, which is why we want to have an agreement in place to protect Canadian companies against the arbitrary actions of government in China, and today that is what we have. We have an agreement that when a Canadian government invests in China and it is—

[Business of Supply, November 17th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, the 30 days is simply the timeline the government had set for the end of the year to make a decision on Huawei.

Let me get back to the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement. That agreement between Canada and China is not a market access agreement. I should know as I am the former international trade minister. That agreement protects Canadian investors when they invest in China.

Chinese companies already had protections under the Canadian rule of law, protections against the imprudent application of government power, the expropriation of property and the need for full and fair compensation. This agreement, the FIPA as it is called, was there to protect Canada's companies when they invested in China, where they did not have those kinds of protections against the government stepping in and treating companies unfairly.

[Business of Supply, November 17th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I have looked forward to trying to address what is a major failing on the part of the Liberal government. I am grateful to our leadership, our caucus leadership as Conservatives, for bringing forward a motion that challenges the Prime Minister to finally abandon his naive approach to doing business with China and take the steps required to protect Canada's national interests.

I believe that China, over the last decade, has become increasingly adversarial, confrontational and hostile, and increasingly a threat to our economic prosperity and national security. The bottom line is China is becoming an untrustworthy partner. Why do I say that? I would like to highlight six areas where I believe China needs to improve its relationship with the rest of the world.

First, the Chinese regime in Beijing, the communist regime, has failed to respect the rule of law and human rights. The plight of the Uighurs in east China is just one example, and the House has condemned the state of security of the Uighurs in east China. As Canadians, we have to see the human rights violations taking place in that country.

The second area is that China has failed to respect our national security as a country. Third, China has failed to respect our Canadian sovereignty. It has interfered in our domestic affairs. Fourth, the communist regime in China has failed to respect international treaties, norms and conventions. Its incursion in the South China Sea, which is contrary to international law, and its willingness to violate the treaty between China and the U.K. on Hong Kong, are evidence of that. Fifth, they failed to respect the international community in the area of trade and investment rules. Finally, the Chinese regime has failed to respect fundamental diplomacy and the transparency that we expect of our partners around the world.

I want to first deal with the rule of law and human rights. Today, our two Michaels, Spavor and Kovrig, are still in jail and are still not getting the benefit of the rule of law. The communist regime is holding them in retaliation for steps that Canada took in full compliance with our international extradition treaty with the United States. The communist regime in China simply does not share our value system. It does not share values such as openness, justice and tolerance. In fact, these values have been weaponized against us as Canadians.

China has also failed to respect our security as a country. The extent of its espionage in Canada and its theft of untold billions of dollars' worth of trade secrets and intellectual property over the years is still largely unknown, but we know we have paid a huge price. Nortel is just one example of how Canada has lost opportunities to grow our prosperity.

Our national security has been at risk for quite some time. Our national security agency, CSIS, has highlighted this regularly. Former national security adviser Richard Fadden has repeatedly warned Canadians of the risk that China represents to Canadian security. Even former ambassadors, like Guy Saint-Jacques and David Mulroney, have highlighted the fact that Canada has to be vigilant and protect itself on the security front.

As my previous colleague highlighted, our Five Eyes partners, the United States, U.K., Australia and New Zealand, no longer have confidence in us as the fifth partner because we will not ban Huawei from our networks. Even former BlackBerry CEO Jim Balsillie has expressed concerns about the risks to Canada's national security, especially if we allow Huawei to participate in the rollout of our 5G network across Canada.

I would like to also address the issue of China's failure to respect our sovereignty and its interference in our domestic affairs. It is becoming more and more well known that China is willing to bully and intimidate Chinese Canadians through organizations like the United Front and the Confucius Institute, and through Operation Fox Hunt.

My friend Anastasia Lin, who is a former Miss World Canada, has been outspoken about China's heavy-handed approach to using fear to intimidate Canadians to do China's bidding. That is wrong. CSIS, our national intelligence agency, has confirmed that Beijing routinely uses undercover state security officials and trusted agents, or proxies, to target members of Canada's Chinese community in an effort to silence critics of China's president, including threats of retribution against their families in China. The federal spy agency also says these illegal activities in Canada are “part of a global campaign of intimidation that constitutes a threat to [our country].”

Harassing members of our Falun Gong community in Canada is another example of a group that is mercilessly persecuted in China being intimidated here in Canada. People will say, “We know where your parents live in China and we are going to go after them. We are going to go after your siblings.” That is unacceptable by any international norm.

Fourth, let me address the failure to respect international law. China's incursions and breaches of international law are evident in the South China Sea, where it is looking to expand its footprint and push its territory further out by violating international norms. China failed to respect the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, in which the Chinese government declared the one country, two systems principle for Hong Kong. That has now been violated. The Chinese had promised that Hong Kong would not have to practise the socialist system of mainland China, but would maintain Hong Kong's existing capitalist system and way of life for 50 years, until 2047. What happened? There is no commitment to living up to its international commitments.

There is the flouting of trade laws. I just met with one of our key stakeholders in the agriculture industry who said they can no longer rely on China to respect international trade laws, such as those under the World Trade Organization.

There is also the issue of fundamental diplomacy and transparency. China's belligerent and bellicose treatment of Canada-China relations includes the imprudent rhetoric of its ambassadors to Canada. Rather than building bridges and exercising discretion, the last few ambassadors who have come to Canada have instead inflamed the rhetoric and inflamed the relationship between our two countries. It is totally unnecessary. Our diplomats are expected typically to be bridge builders, to seek common ground and to exercise the highest level of judgment and discretion. We just have not seen that from China's representatives in Canada.

China has also failed to share critical information about the coronavirus. It bought up Canadian PPE and hoarded it before Canada even knew the extent of this virus, and then sent a few token PPE items back to Canada, thinking that would curry favour with the government.

Finally, I want to address the issue of trade and investment. China is a non-market economy. It does not operate as a true free market. Its pervasive role in using state-controlled actors to do the bidding of Beijing is well known.

Its willingness to ignore World Trade Organization rules, including the dumping of Chinese products into North America on a regular basis—

[International Trade, October 29th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, we recently learned that the U.S. has set its sights on yet another Canadian industry. This time it is blueberries that are the target of American tariffs.

The Americans know a weak-kneed Liberal government when they see one. They went after our steel and aluminum. They went after our softwood lumber. We all know how the Liberal government sold out our dairy industry in the NAFTA renegotiations.

Does a similar fate await our blueberry producers? What action has the minister taken to defend our blueberry industry?

[Health, October 1st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, today, we read that the health minister ignored critical pandemic information and relied on intelligence from foreign governments. She prioritized information from China, of all places, rather than using public sources that would have told her how dangerous the virus really was. For months, the minister said that the risk was low. Now we find out that she shut down one of the most important tools to protect Canadians against this virus.

Does the minister realize this is another WE Charity in the making? Why should Canadians continue to trust her?

[Health, October 1st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, for months the COVID pandemic has ravaged our economy. Nine thousand Canadians have lost their lives, many more are hospitalized and we now know that, last year, the health minister shut down Canada's pandemic early-warning system, if members can imagine. When former Liberal health minister Ujjal Dosanjh heard this, he called the minister's actions “a colossal failure”.

Why did the minister shut down the system, and does she not realize that the early-warning system could have saved many lives?

[Proceedings on the Bill Entitled an Act Relating to Certain Measures in Response to COVID-19, September 28th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives will always look at proposals to support Canadians through this very difficult pandemic.

The member mentioned the WE Charity. This is a scandal that Canadians should have taken notice of, because it was a situation where the Prime Minister and his finance minister used the COVID crisis as a premise to try to introduce a volunteer program that they were going to fund. Folks should think about that: a volunteer program for which the Prime Minister was going to pay $1 billion. He was going to pay volunteers to do volunteer work. He was trying to shovel that money over to his friends, the Kielburgers, at the WE Charity. What a sordid affair that is. That is now reflected across government, and Canadians no longer trust the Liberal government.

[Proceedings on the Bill Entitled an Act Relating to Certain Measures in Response to COVID-19, September 28th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the iconic west coast Pacific salmon is on a precipitous decline right now. We were doing a comprehensive study at committee and in the middle of it, as we were trying to come up with some answers as to how to reverse the decline and preserve our iconic salmon for generations to come, what did the Prime Minister do? He ran away from the WE Charity scandal, a very significant scandal of malfeasance on the part of the Prime Minister, his former finance minister and the WE Charity, and shut down Parliament. Therefore, every committee of Parliament was shut down and we could not get to the bottom of this problem. It is sad.

[Proceedings on the Bill Entitled an Act Relating to Certain Measures in Response to COVID-19, September 28th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague suggested that other levels of government listened to science, and that is what the federal government should do. Except what happened in this case was that the intelligence network, which is supposed to provide the early warning system, was effectively emasculated because the minister allowed resources to be diverted to other functions of her ministry. Therefore, we did not have the same capacity to get an early warning about a pandemic, and now we have paid a huge price because of it. That is, as the Hill Times states, a “colossal failure” of the government.