Government Operations committee  If I recall, what followed in the wake of that was a new policy on acquisitions by state-owned enterprises, but I'm not qualified to talk about the.... I wasn't involved in the Nexen review itself. However, we saw an evolution in policy, and certainly that evolution in policy has

Government Operations committee  I think the policy we have that looks at net benefit to Canada and, again, looks at our national security interests should be sufficient. I also think.... I've said this about foreign investment, foreign investment by many sources. We've seen major multinational financial insti

Government Operations committee  I wrote a book about this back in 2015, and I talked about my darkening view of China. I said that I thought that up until about 2009 China was still using the rhetoric of international co-operation and collaboration. With the economic crisis and its success in getting through it

Government Operations committee  There are other threats to our national security, but in my view—and you might want to ask Mr. Elcock about this—China is far and away the greatest threat.

Government Operations committee  I'm guessing you mean me. It's Mulroney. Manley is the other guy. There's another Mulroney, too, but I'm the guy you have today.

Government Operations committee  No problem. I think there are things that come up. We see officials, with justification, talking about government procurement and regulations within the WTO, and there may be other contracting issues. With respect, this is sometimes the last refuge of the bureaucracy when it doe

Government Operations committee  Maybe you'll explain later what you mean by “red-baiting”, because I certainly didn't engage in that—

Government Operations committee  As I said, I think that if you look at the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement, it has to do with existing investment and the guarantee that they will be treated according to international law and the laws of the country. Even if we wanted to try to get out of t

Government Operations committee  Yes, absolutely, but I come back to my skepticism about the ability of the federal bureaucracy—and I'm a former federal bureaucrat—to do this on its own even with the best will in the world. The government is capable of that kind of smart connected operation for only a limited pe

Government Operations committee  The thing about the foreign investment agreement that we should remember is that it applies to existing foreign investment and is about equitable treatment of existing Chinese investments in Canada and Canadian investments in China. The government always retained the ability to

Government Operations committee  I think the first thing to remember is that China is extremely dynamic, and so it's changing. The China of Hu Jintao which was becoming more aggressive and assertive, has been replaced by the China of Xi Jinping, which is extremely aggressive and assertive. To that extent, no, we

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I'll again offer a few opening comments. On one level, what we're seeing with the Nuctech affair is the kind of disconnect that plagues bureaucracies. I was aware of the risk of disconnect when I served as ambassador to China. We had a dozen different organizations at

Canada-China Relations committee  I was working on Hong Kong in 1997, and I can recall that both Britain and China asked countries like Canada to pledge their ongoing support for the arrangement, ongoing support for the autonomy of Hong Kong institutions. We said we would. Chris Patten thanked Canada, and then we

Canada-China Relations committee  I think it's important to work with other countries, which will help to identify.... There was a picture recently of a police officer who was helping me. The thugs who beat up people on a subway train, these are the kinds of people you might begin to target. I think we also need

Canada-China Relations committee  I think continuing to speak out about it is important. But as I said, the most important thing for us now is probably to take the lesson of what inaction does and apply it to the next campaign, which will be Taiwan.