44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 17, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, getting into the substance of Bill C-34, this is an important topic. I do not know whether this legislation really crosses into being an important piece of legislation. Unfortunately, it is another half measure, a poorly drafted piece of legislation. It is going in the right direction, there is no doubt, but I want to give a little context before we break into a piece-by-piece discussion of Bill C-34. I will give a bit of a historical reference.
When we look back over thousands of years, the nations, peoples and countries that innovate the best end up having the most prosperity. They are the ones that drive the world forward. If we look at the Roman Empire, it dominated the world and was a leader in innovation in that era. If we look back to the Industrial Revolution, we saw the prosperity of humanity grow exponentially during that time because of innovation. If we look at the digital revolution, the countries that will dominate are those that take hold of the new world we are entering. They are the ones that will see new levels of prosperity.
Unfortunately, as innovation continues to go forward, Canada seems not to. We see that innovation is growing exponentially. This is not a linear chart; things are going faster and faster. Indeed, when we look forward to technologies such as artificial intelligence, bioscience and big data, these things will have a real impact on our lives. I strongly suggest that the world of my children is going to be a lot different than the world I grew up in, and their children will inherit a much different world.
As the pace of change continues to grow exponentially, governments have to be more agile and quicker to respond than ever. As Elon Musk commented recently, many of these technologies can have tremendous power for good, but they can also pose substantial challenges to our societies and governments. That is why we need a government that is willing to be agile.
For Canada to prosper, we must have a government that is starting to lead the way with respect to innovation and technology. Unfortunately, the government, as we have seen, seems challenged to even keep the lights on, much less to innovate and move forward. As we look forward, we see that the empirical data is coming back over the last eight years of government, and the numbers are not pretty.
Canada has traditionally been a leader in innovation and productivity, yet we are falling further and further behind. We are currently ranked sixth out of the seven G7 countries. That is nearly last in the G7 when it comes to intellectual property. Intellectual property will be the driver of our future economy. It will drive our future of prosperity. It is what manufacturing was to the 1950s and 1960s. It is what agriculture was to the many centuries before. Those who are able to prosper in that area, to conquer the area of intellectual property, will be the ones who win the future.
Canada currently ranks 24th overall with respect to knowledge and technology, which are measured by patents generated. We used to be in the top 10 in that area and we are falling further and further behind.
Canada's issue is not with respect to basic research. We are recognized around the world as being one of the best idea generators in the entire world. We have some of the brightest minds. We have a wonderful diversity of opinion that no doubt comes from our diverse and great population. We have wonderful post-secondary education. We have many different great think tanks and institutions that generate these wonderful ideas.
Indeed, our ideas are generating prosperity. The challenge is that they are generating prosperity in countries other than ours. What is happening is that we are generating these great ideas and, being the generous Canadians we are, we are giving them to the world.
The problem is that they are taking those ideas and selling them back at a profit. Although Canadians are doing a lot of the hard work in coming up with the great ideas that are leading this world and lifting people into prosperity, Canadians are not getting the benefit from that.
Whether it is from sheer incompetence, naïveté or worse, the government does not seem to understand the world we are in today. It does not understand the world of aggressive trade action and of state-owned enterprises. Companies and states around this world, authoritarian regimes, are utilizing Canada's generosity to put themselves ahead of Canadians.
This is not, and we heard this from other colleagues, really a partisan issue. There are people raising the red flags from across the political spectrum. Jack Mintz, a noted economist and free marketeer, is talking about this as an issue, as is Jim Balsillie, founder of BlackBerry and noted expert on intellectual property.
We also have that “random Liberal”. That has to hurt Bill Morneau, right? One day I will be out of this place and I just hope that the next prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, never refers to me—
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Mr. Speaker, I will apologize and not resign. I am glad I gave the member for Kingston and the Islands something to do today. I am pleased to have accomplished that today.
Like I said, it has to hurt Bill Morneau to be referred to as a random Liberal. I certainly hope the next Prime Minister of Canada does not refer to me, or any member of our caucus, as a random Conservative, or worse, a random Liberal, I suppose.
When I get into the substance of Bill C-34, the challenge is not directional. Directionally, it is on the right path. The government is trying to at least take the steps it needs to in order to protect domestic assets, corporations and intellectual property from foreign actors.
The challenge is that it is not particularly well drafted, at least in my opinion and in the opinions of many other experts, and that it does not go far enough. We heard my colleagues talk specifically about some things that should be in there. For the record, I will reiterate what they said.
First, we need to have not only sales of shares but also sales of assets. One can buy the actual corporation, which is buying the vessel, but one can also buy everything within that vessel. There are many different ways smart lawyers and accountants can avoid that, and this legislation is not smart enough, at least not yet, to catch those.
We need to have automatic triggers, regardless of the amounts of sales, in certain sectors and also with respect to certain state-owned enterprises.
While Conservatives acknowledge this is a step in the right direction, we are very hopeful we can have a robust conversation in committee and improve Bill C-34, because it certainly needs it.
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Mr. Speaker, I very much enjoyed working with the fine member from the Bloc Québécois at the finance committee. I am confident we will work with the members of the Bloc to include things like automatic triggers for reviews by cabinet and for reducing the ability of actors to avoid this through things like asset sales and otherwise.
We need to tighten up potential loopholes in this legislation to make sure we can fully protect Canadian companies, resources and ideas.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure it is a great thing that I speak on behalf of the government. What I would say is that there are many different fields where the government could have acted, including perhaps reviewing past applications and transactions. That simply has not been done in many cases and should have been. Divestitures should have happened with respect to state-owned enterprises. Even with regard to other issues, such as passports or putting in place Magnitsky sanctions on human rights, the government cannot seem to get out of its own way.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a joy to be a neighbour of the member for Kingston and the Islands. That probably ends my career with the Conservative Party, but there we go.
What I would say to him, in all seriousness, is that that is a great exception. It unfortunately proves the rule that Canada continues to be a laggard in the G7 and the OECD when it comes to productivity and innovation.
While I certainly welcome the manufacturing jobs, it would be even better to get the research and development, as well as the heads of these companies, right here in Canada so that we would not be just a secondary manufacturer or resource economy but actually have a controlling interest and prosper from our own ideas.
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Mr. Speaker, we have to acknowledge the world that we live in today, not the world we lived in 20 years ago. There are challenging actors out there who are trying to take Canadian ideas and utilize them for their own prosperity.
We must control our ideas. We have to be straightforward with it but cannot back away from the ideas. Canadian ideas are Canadian, and they are there for Canadian prosperity.
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- Feb/17/23 11:17:59 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, at the heart of any definition of leadership is the ability to unify people for a common purpose or cause, but after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians have never been more divided. He has used issues like mandates to pit Canadians against each other and to distract from the issues and problems he has caused. He believes that if people are afraid of their neighbours, they will forget that they cannot afford rent or groceries or even to heat their homes.
Even the Prime Minister's own MPs are calling him out for his divisive behaviour. As the brave Liberal member for Louis-Hébert suggested, “From a positive and unifying approach, a decision was made to wedge, to divide and to stigmatize.” He then said, “Time to stop with the division and the distractions. It’s time to choose positive, not coercive methods. It’s time to unite.”
I could not agree more. It is time for us to put the politics of division behind us and unite the country behind a Conservative prime minister who can bring prosperity back to Canada. It is time to turn hurt into hope.
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