Ryan Williams

[Questions on the Order Paper, November 6th, 2023]

With regard to the government's announcement related to the electric battery plant with Stellantis Canada in Windsor, Ontario: what is the contracted construction schedule of the battery plant, including the anticipated day that each stage of development will begin, until battery production commences?

[National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act, November 6th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, we would humbly like a recorded division.

[Lowering Prices for Canadians Act, November 6th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has a competition problem. I think we all know this; it has been repeated over and over today in the House. After eight years, Canadians pay the highest prices in the world for almost every good and service they can imagine. Canadian monopolies are making money on the backs of hard-working Canadians. It is not corporate greed; it is government incompetence driving these changes with the unwillingness to change the Competition Act, as well as the carbon tax driving up the prices of almost every good and service.

We can look at all of it. Canadians pay the highest cellphone bills on the whole planet. We pay three times as much as the Australians and twice as much as people do in the U.S. and in Europe. For Internet, we pay some of the highest fees. When it comes to rural Canadians, seven million Canadians, 60% of them do not have high-speed Internet. When it comes to trying to get high-speed Internet, most of them get it from the sky, from Starlink and Xplore, which are owned by American companies. With banking, six banks control 80% of all the mortgages in Canada. For airlines, 85% of all of them are controlled by two companies in Canada.

We are talking about the highest grocery bills. A 50-dollar basket in Canada is only $35 in the United States. A decade ago, we used to have eight Canadian grocery companies, which has now been whittled down to only three Canadian companies and two American companies that control 80% of all the groceries in Canada. Even for beer, we have InBev, Molson Coors and Sapporo that account for 90% of all the beer sales in Canada. What a travesty that this is controlled by three companies.

If we look at the top 20 Canadian companies, the average age of those companies is 110 years. The average founding year for Canadian companies is 1914. In the U.S., the average age is 80 years, and the average founding year is 1944. Of the top five biggest companies in Canada, our oldest is RBC, which was founded in 1864. In the U.S., it is in Microsoft, which was founded in 1975. We have major monopolies that have controlled all Canadian markets. They control everything Canadians buy. After eight years of the government, the Prime Minister, coupled with the NDP government, is just not worth the cost, literally, for almost everything Canadians buy.

Why do we want competition? Competition is freedom. It is freedom of choice. Families can decide where to put to put their money, their hard-earned tax dollars. That always means better service. It always means lower prices. However, to have freedom, one needs to have courage to change the rules and to break up the trust to stand up for Canadians' wallets.

The Competition Act is the culprit. It is outdated. It was meant to be based on an industrial 1960s-style policy that was meant not for competition in Canada but for competition in the world. We wanted Canadian companies to get as big as possible in order to be able to compete internationally. That meant we made sure all our big companies, starting from the founder, the Hudson's Bay Company, which was the original monopoly, were a big as possible and ensured those companies could compete. However, at the invention of free trade and as we have gone global in the world, we have never changed the Competition Act, so the Competition Act, in fact, protects only large companies. It protects them to get bigger, and at the end of the day, Canadians pay the highest fees on the whole planet.

After eight years, here are the mergers that have been approved by the Competition Bureau. Air Canada was approved to buy Air Transat. Rogers was approved to buy Shaw in 2022. WestJet bought Sunwing, which was approved in 2022. Bell was approved to buy MTS. Superior Propane was approved to buy Canexus. Superior Propane was approved to buy Canwest Propane. Sobeys, in the grocery market, was approved to buy Farm Boy in 2018. Tervita bought assets from Babkirk Land Services in 2015. The most egregious, to me, is happening right now. It is RBC, which has been approved to buy HSBC. RBC, Canada's number one bank, with 21% of all the mortgages, has a hard time getting new clients. When it looked to buy new clients, of course it looked at the deal with HSBC, which had 800,000 mortgage holders, and said “Is this not a great deal?” and that it would love to buy it. Why would it not, with 800,000 mortgage holders? The Competition Act, based on outdated rules, said that this company was going to get bigger and saw nothing in these rules to stop the merger.

Let me tell members what this merger would do. Of those 800,000 mortgage holders, HSBC has 10% of all Vancouver mortgages and 5% of all Toronto mortgages. When we look at the housing markets in the world, Toronto is the number one hottest market in the world. Vancouver is the third-hottest market. The approval of this merger would effectively mean that, when we look at prices for mortgages, the lower mortgages by the scrappy competitor, HSBC, would be bought wholeheartedly by RBC. We will want to compare those numbers. RBC, last week, had a posted variable mortgage rate of 7.15%, HSBC at 6.4%. That is a basis point difference of 75 for a mortgage market, which may not have meant anything three years ago when interest rates were really low. However, when interest rates go higher, that means that a family in Toronto or Vancouver with a half-a-million-dollar mortgage would be paying, per month, $312 more, based on the fact that this competitor would be gone.

The Competition Act favours monopolies; it says so in the purpose statement. Part of the change in this is the courage to change the rules. Conservatives were the ones who came up with eliminating the efficiencies defence, the defence that allows, in the Competition Act, any big companies, regardless of their size and regardless of the merger, to be able to merge based on efficiencies. A lot of times, they were job markets or job losses. I know that the removal of the defence is a good idea because it was my idea, my private member's bill, which was introduced in the House on June 12, when it was read for the first time. It was scheduled to go the second time and the government first took it with Bill C-56. Now, of course, the efficiencies defence removal is coming under this private member's bill. Of course, this is a good idea. Conservatives are looking forward to presenting more good ideas as we look to tackle the Competition Act.

It comes down to one thing: do we stand up for the people or do we stand up with monopolies? When we look at the monopolies across Canada, we certainly have to be brave in terms of looking at how to tackle those.

When we look at grocery prices and grocery stores, only three Canadian companies, three Canadian grocery chains, own two-thirds of the whole market. They are Metro, Shoppers and Sobeys. We can look over the years at how that was able to occur. In 1986, Safeway was able to buy Woodward's. In 1990, A&P was able to buy Steinberg's. Sobeys bought IGA. That one is the most egregious to me. The Independent Retail Grocers Association is not independent; it is owned by Sobeys. We have Loblaws buying Safeway. Metro bought A&P. Loblaws bought Provigo. Amazon has bought Whole Foods. Metro has bought Jean Coutu. Sobeys has bought Farm Boy and Longo's. There is no competition in Canada; there are only oligopolies.

When it comes to the grocery sector, we also have another item, another piece, that makes it completely uncompetitive; that is the carbon tax. The carbon tax has added on for the farmer. The medium farm in Canada pays $150,000 in carbon taxes and gets no rebate, meaning it passes that cost on to the consumer. Truckers get a carbon tax added on to the price of fuel. They do not get a rebate, so that gets added on to the price for consumers. Cold storage facilities and warehouses all get a carbon tax added on to their heat bills and to their bills to freeze food and keep it cold. All of that gets added on for consumers. When the carbon tax gets added on one, two, three, four or five times, the food goes up one, two, three, four or five times. That is why, when we compare Canadian grocery prices to American grocery prices, Americans pay less; it is because they have no carbon tax.

Large monopolies should not be able to merge with one another. The large monopolies should not be able to gobble up other, smaller competitors. That is the key we are missing in the Competition Act. When we have large competitors competing internationally, that is one thing. When we have Canadian monopolies buying small competitors just so they can get bigger, just so that they can make more money on the backs of hard-working Canadians, that is wrong. To break that up and to change the Competition Act takes courage, and that is what we want to do as Conservatives on this side of the House.

Competition is freedom of choice and freedom of courage. Let us have the courage to change the Competition Act and to create competition for a change, for my home, your home and our home. Let us take competition and bring it home.

[Radiocommunication Act, November 2nd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded division.

[Radiocommunication Act, November 2nd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I want to again thank Senator Patterson for bringing this bill forward. I think he did the work he needed to do in the Senate. It has been very enjoyable to debate this bill and hear the responses from all members of Parliament.

Canadians understand that they pay some of the highest cell phone bills in the world, but some are surprised that they pay the highest cell phone rates and some of the highest Internet rates in the world. Rogers, Telus and Bell are numbers one, two and three of the priciest telecommunications carriers in 48 countries out of the whole planet. Canadians already know that they pay this.

However, the bill coming out of the Senate was to do one thing and one thing only: it was to tackle spectrum speculation, such as companies buying spectrum at auctions and then making money on that. The two examples we used were, first, Rogers, which had bought, in 2013, a bunch of spectrum, and only five years later it made a $189.5-million profit. It held that spectrum, and when the spectrum became valuable, it sold it. The second was Quebecor and Videotron. In 2008, it bought $96.4-million worth of spectrum and sold it for an $87.8-million profit just nine years later. This bill was only meant to look at spectrum speculation and to ensure that we tackle that.

The current spectrum rules say that a company who buys and keeps spectrum can hold it for 20 years and has to serve a population model only after 20 years. The new rules under this bill maintain that, after three years, a company would have to hit a 50% geographical area, meaning that it cannot just look at population. A lot of these providers are looking only at the city of Toronto and not hitting the northern portions of it, or to the riding of the member for Milton, who spoke earlier. They are looking at the denser populations but not outside of those.

What is most important about this bill, which normally I am against, is that it would give the minister a new power to decide what is best for a community, which means that the minister could decide if the auction was bought and was only speculative. The minister could then change that auction and ensure that it went to someone else. However, if a provider was attempting to develop an area that it was purposed for, then the minister could extend that auction and make sure that the area gets through by that auction. That is what this bill is all about: giving the minister more power to stop spectrum speculation.

What is the point of this? Well, some members have talked about that 60% of rural Canada, where seven million Canadians live, that is not being serviced by high-speech Internet, and when they are, they are served by American companies, such as Starlink and Xplore, which are both American owned and controlled. However, when we look at Canadian companies serving Canadian markets, especially in the north and rural Canada, this bill was to ensure that we have companies that do that.

Members talked about this does not quite do what they do, which is spectrum auction reform, meaning that we are going to look at the $9 billion that Canada makes that goes into general revenues and ensure that perhaps some of that needs to go back to rural Canada to connect the north and connect rural municipalities. We have 3,500 municipalities in Canada and only 94 of them are urban, which means that over 3,400 municipalities in Canada are rural. It would be best for all of us as MPs to look at rural strategies to look at this.

Most importantly, let us get rid of this spectrum speculation. This whole premise is an anomaly and it was a flaw in the original bill of spectrum auctions, which allowed companies to make money simply because they bought an asset that is publicly owned, a public resource. Spectrum is for all Canadians. When we look at this bill, and I think it is a good one coming from the Senate, it would ensure that we tackle that flaw in this bill and ensure that we then look at the future.

In the future, yes, we need more competition in Internet. We need more competition for cell phones. We do not just need a fourth carrier, we need 40 carriers to ensure that we look after Canadians' Internet needs and that all Canadians are connected to the Internet. We need it for health, for safety, and for employment, and we certainly need it for the prosperity of this great nation.

I am thankful for this opportunity. This is a great bill, and I hope everyone can support it.

[Carbon Tax, November 2nd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, winter is here, and with rising costs, there is not one family that is not being left out in the cold. After eight years of the Liberal government, Canadians are struggling to heat their homes as the carbon tax is about to quadruple, costing Canadians more money they do not have. The Prime Minister knows this because he just paused the carbon tax for Atlantic Canadians, proving that he is just not worth the cost.

What about the rest of Canada? What about Prince Edward County, Quinte West and Belleville? What about my wife's old riding of Thunder Bay? What about the NDP leader's Vancouver riding of Burnaby South? Do they not deserve to be treated as equal citizens? Is a Canadian not a Canadian?

Our leader has introduced a motion to take off the carbon tax on all home heating in Canada this winter so Canadians can keep the heat on. On Monday, there might be the most important vote the NDP leader has ever had. Will he vote with common-sense Conservatives to keep the tax off so that Canadians can keep the heat on, or will he continue to sing along with the tone-deaf Prime Minister?

[Petitions, October 31st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition today.

For 200 years, the McCormack family in Prince Edward County has been living in Point Traverse. That was until this year, when Environment and Climate Change Canada unexpectedly terminated the leases of the commercial fishing village, a heritage area located in the Prince Edward Point national wildlife area. They even lived there through 1981 when this national park was named. They have been told that one of the reasons, which is incredible, is that commercial fishing is not viable and that those living there probably can find other ways to make it work. This is unacceptable.

I have a petition from hundreds of people, and quite frankly, Prince Edward County residents, all of them, are irate at this issue of Environment and Climate Change Canada kicking out these people. The petitioners ask that the Canada Wildlife Act set up a precedent in accommodating the commercial fishing leaseholders without incident at the commercial fishing village in the Prince Edward Point national wildlife area.

These commercial fisheries are a vital part of the economy of Prince Edward County, and the undersigned call on the Government of Canada to reinstate the leases for the commercial fishing village heritage area located in the Prince Edward Point national wildlife area.

[Committees of the House, October 30th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear the debate on housing today. Some members have said today that housing is not important, but perhaps they were doing other things.

We probably have the biggest housing crisis this country has ever had and that our generation has ever had. Those of us who have served on municipal councils know quite well that this issue is complex, but it does come down to municipalities that see a lot of Nimbyism and what we call BANANA for “build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything”.

When we look to solving those, we have to look at incentives for municipalities to help them approve more projects more quickly. In my municipality of Belleville, they have a targeted growth rate for homes. They track this from the provincial tracking, which means a foundation has to be in the ground. They are down 28% from where they want to be, meaning we are not seeing builders being able to put buildings in. There are a lot of reasons for that. There is a lack of skilled trades. There is the fact that interest rates are so high that builders are not going in.

Does the member support initiatives that help get municipalities on board with building more homes, tracking homes that need to be built and ensuring that we give municipalities incentives to try to build homes?

[National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act, October 30th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, net benefit review is extremely important. When we look at any kind of investment, state-owned or otherwise, we want to ensure that Canadians and Quebeckers are getting the best part of that deal for that.

When we look at one aspect, being the Volkswagen and Stellantis deals that have come into Canada, certainly we are evaluating that now. As parliamentarians we look at the net benefit to Canada. It seems that they are investments that, as I mentioned, are more branch-plant investments that did not look at the benefits to our Quebec mining sector. That should have been included to ensure that, any time there was an investment into batteries, we had investments in those mines as well, so that would create more Quebec jobs.

[National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act, October 30th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, not only at the industry committee, but also at the ethics committee, we have had CSIS and other organizations talk about just what state-owned companies do in Canada. One of the witnesses said:

Chinese law requires that all companies and individuals co-operate with their intelligence establishment and hide that co-operation [under state-owned law in China]. That, combined with the Chinese regime's unrelenting cyber and human-source spying on our Parliament, political parties, government departments, universities and businesses, is reason enough to conclude that foreign investment from China must be subject to the most stringent national security test, regardless of what sector or industry the proposed investment may target.

We are in a new world now. We talked about the importance of identifying and ensuring a review of all state-owned Chinese corporations' involvement in Canadian companies. It is of utmost importance. I wish the other parties would take that matter as seriously as we do.