44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 17, 2023 10:00AM
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?
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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.
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Mr. Speaker, I am just looking for a comment from the member. Why should we believe the Liberals would even use these new powers, after eight years of inability to recognize national security risks?
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- Feb/17/23 11:41:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, absolutely not. Our government has been clear from the beginning that foreign interference is a serious threat to this country. That is precisely why we have taken action. The Conservatives seem to wake up to this fact only when they think it is politically advantageous.
Meanwhile, on this side of the House, we have put in place measures like the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, a SITE committee, and the critical election preparedness committee. We will work to improve our democratic institutions and secure them while Conservatives play politics.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc colleague for that very important question.
We will vote in favour of the bill at second reading. Together, we can make sure all the necessary elements are in place to do a review. Obviously, China is not the only country that could pose a national security risk to Canada. We want to work together to make sure the strictest standards and safeguards are in place to prevent incidents like those we have seen in recent years.
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague that we need to implement the necessary safeguards to prevent national security risks for Canadians, whether it be in telecommunications, business or health. In every area, we need to ensure that these safeguards are broad enough to ensure that nothing harmful gets through and avoid this type of incident.
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Mr. Speaker, what should the number one job of a federal government be? I have always told my constituents that it is national security, our safety and security.
Last night, as I was preparing my remarks, I asked Dr. Google what the top priority should be for a national government. Lo and behold, up pops a website for Canada's federal government, which states, under “National Security”, “The first priority of the Government of Canada is to protect the safety and security of Canadians both at home and abroad.” That made me feel pretty good at first. I thought to myself that I was on the right track, and I was glad that the Liberal government places safety and security as its top priority. That made me happy. Unfortunately, I then felt disturbed when I started to think about it, because, as we have seen so much with the Liberal government, rhetoric and words are one thing, and doing is another.
Members might ask why. It is because I feel that so much of what the Liberal government and the Prime Minister do actually undermines the safety, security and protection of Canadians at home, within our borders.
The Liberals are weakening our justice system by removing mandatory minimums. There was a report recently in Vancouver that 40 or so criminals have done 6,000 crimes. That is the Liberal method, to catch and release. That is okay, I suppose, for fishing stocks, to catch a fish and let it go, but it is not good when it comes to criminals, when we have increased problems on transit with random attacks on people, and when a killer who is out on bail murders a police officer. This is not right. Canadians are not feeling protected at home by their justice system. It is a shame and a disgrace. It is not fulfilling the government's priority with respect to our security.
With respect to our national security, we have let our hair grow. Maybe that was okay back in the 1960s, but we have just let it go. We are thousands of troops short. We have obsolete equipment. The Liberal government said that it was not going to buy the F-35 fighter jets and instead decided to buy older planes, the F-18s, from the Australian air force. It has now decided that this is not working out so well and it had better get some new equipment. The Minister of National Defence has let things go with respect to our military.
I was also watching reports on Twitter and, big deal, Canada sent one tank to Ukraine. That was brought up in the House and the response was that it was actually four tanks, because three more are on the way. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are losing hundreds of tanks over there, but Canada does not have much to send because our cupboards are bare.
This is personal for me, because I was raised in a Royal Canadian Air Force family. I was born in Germany and lived in bases all throughout Canada. Even from a young age, my mind was on the military and our national defence. I also served in the military after finishing high school.
Our national defence is not a priority. I will say that categorically.
Bill C-34 is an attempt to address an important national security risk, namely identifying and responding to economic security threats from foreign investments. I think this is good. The Conservatives will be supporting its moving to second reading because it needs a lot more teeth.
Much of what we have seen, and what I have seen since being elected in 2019, is just rhetoric. It is smoke and mirrors to make it look like the Liberals are doing something when they are not.
November 9, 1989, is a day that I remember well, along with the months and years that followed. What happened? The Berlin Wall that separated East and West Germany began to be dismantled. Numerous countries had been under communist regimes. Many are now part of NATO. There have been great changes. It was quite amazing. People were set free from communism without shots being fired in Europe. There was euphoria. It seemed miraculous, and maybe it was.
I found, as I have gone in my communities and talked to people, that those who are most concerned about what is happening in Canada in terms of freedom and security are those from eastern Europe who used to be under communist regimes. They are very concerned about what they see. They can see through the bluster of the Liberal government.
The United States became the only undisputed superpower. Western countries, including Canada, let our militaries go to pot. However, the world has changed in the past 30 years. Russia has armed itself to the teeth, and we have seen an invasion. We are coming to the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Conservatives support the efforts to oppose it, as do the other parties.
There is even more of a danger happening, and this has emerged in Communist China. China is an economic and military superpower that wants to extend its economic, military and political power and influence. It is threatening its neighbours. It is expanding control.
I have been to China, and it is a beautiful country, but its autocratic communist government is suppressing its own population. There is a lot of concern worldwide and among our military partners, whether it be Five Eyes, the United States, the U.K. or other countries, about what we are doing in Canada.
China has a larger navy than the United States. Our military partners are wondering why we are giving a country, a military and economic superpower like China, full access to secrets, our people and surveillance. It is a problem. My other colleagues have mentioned some of the problems we have had, such as Huawei, which actually used technology from Nortel, a Canadian company.
It is a big concern. This just came out a few hours ago in The Globe and Mail. It said, “China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada's democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign as Chinese diplomats and their proxies backed the re-election of Justin Trudeau's Liberals...and worked to defeat Conservative politicians”.
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Mr. Speaker, the bill is about national security. I cannot think of a more important national security issue than a foreign country influencing our election. It is absolutely tied to this because we know that this is—
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands seems to be confused around what the bill is about.
It is about the issue of national security and doing national security reviews of takeovers. There is a long record of the government not approving national security reviews for takeovers, such as Hytera, which was charged with espionage in the United States; the Tanco Mine; and many others, and having the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency actually buy equipment from those entities.
The security issue of state-owned enterprises and interference in our country's economy and elections is what the issue is all about. I would like to give the member an opportunity to clarify a little more what the member for Kingston and the Islands seemed to be so confused about.
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