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House Hansard - 203

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 203 - May/31/23
Mr. Mel Arnold (North Okanagan—Shuswap, CPC)
  • May/31/23 5:07:11 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-42 
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today as the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap, one of the most beautiful areas in the world at any time of year, and especially as we turn from spring to summer. I rise today to speak to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. I would like to thank the member for Langley—Aldergrove for splitting his time with me and for his thoughtful intervention. The government has stated that the objective of Bill C-42 is to protect Canadians against money laundering and terrorist financing, deter tax evasion and tax avoidance, and make sure Canada is an attractive place to conduct business. One has to ask why the Liberal-NDP coalition has taken so long to act, when it has been evident for years that change is needed. While I believe there is support for the concept of a national public registry of beneficial owners of companies, I also believe we may need to look at extending the transparency of beneficial ownership of other assets. For example, at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, or FOPO as it is known around Parliament Hill, we have been hearing testimony from witnesses who are extremely concerned about the purchase and control of fishing licences and quotas by foreign entities, and even unknown entities. That is right: unknown entities. Let me take us back in time to explain what I am referring to. In 2019, the FOPO committee tabled a report titled “West Coast Fisheries: Sharing Risks and Benefits”. This report was the result of a study initiated partly out of concern at that time, over four years ago, over the situation of local fish harvesters unable to compete with unknown entities bidding higher prices for access to Canada’s fisheries resources, a common property resource for the benefit of Canadians. Now, over four years later, can members guess what is being studied at FOPO, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans? It is foreign ownership and corporate concentration of fishing licences and quotas. I will go back to my earlier question about why the Liberal-NDP coalition taken so long to act. Here we are; it is four years after that report, and even longer into the government’s mandate, since the concerns were first raised by stakeholders. Here we are, restudying almost the same issue, hearing that the same issues and concerns still exist, and the government has failed to take steps to ascertain that Canadians are the primary beneficiaries to access to Canada’s common property resource, Canada’s fisheries. It was somewhat shocking to hear testimony over four years ago, and now to hear similar testimony over recent weeks, that there is no real method of tracking beneficial ownership of fishing licenses, quotas and possibly vessels on Canada’s west coast. Although some have tried to track beneficial ownership, in some cases the web becomes so tangled that no one can clearly identify who owns what. The 2019 report I referred to contained a number of recommendations to the government. In fact, there were 20. However, there were a few key recommendations related to foreign ownership that the government should have acted on, but it has been slowly dragging its feet, with almost no response. I will refer to some of the recommendations quickly, and talk about what should have been done and what has not been done. Recommendation 2 from the report stated, “That based on the principle that fish in Canadian waters are a resource for Canadians (i.e. common property), no future sales of fishing quota and/or licences be to non-Canadian beneficial owners based on the consideration of issues of legal authority, and international agreement/trade impacts.” What has been done on this? Little to nothing has been done. There is nothing that the committee has been made aware of. Recommendation 4 is somewhat similar. It states, “That, to increase the transparency of quota licence ownership and transactions, Fisheries and Oceans Canada determine and publish, in an easily accessible and readable format, a public online database that includes the following”. Has that been achieved? Certainly not. Recommendation 5 states, “That Fisheries and Oceans Canada prioritize the collection of socio-economic data for past and future regulatory changes and make this information publicly available.” Again, there has been no action that the committee is aware of. Recommendation 14 states, “That Fisheries and Oceans Canada develop a new policy framework through a process of authentic and transparent engagement with all key stakeholders". For example, some of the key stakeholders are: Active fish harvesters (or where they exist, organizations that represent them) in all fisheries and fleets including owner-operators, non-owner-operators, and crew; First Nations commercial fish harvesters (or where they exist, organizations that represent them); Organizations representing licence and quota holders that are not active fish harvesters, including fish processing companies. The last recommendation was a key one, and there has been very little action by the government that the committee restudying the same issue has been made aware of. I am going to cut my time a little shorter today to make sure there are opportunities for other members to speak, but I will repeat what I said earlier. We have heard from some who are most impacted by the potential of foreign investment and foreign ownership of our common property resources here in Canada, yet there has been little or no action with respect to who the beneficial buyers and owners are. I will close by saying that there is merit in a registry of individuals with significant control of corporations in Canada. If this is done, it must be done in ways that protect personal privacy and also protect the common resources for the benefit of Canadians. I look forward to following the debate on Bill C-42 as it goes through the process, to see if it accomplishes the stated objectives without unintended consequences.
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Context: House Hansard - 203 - Jun/1/23
Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)
  • Jun/1/23 12:14:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member brought up the Liberal-NDP coalition. Normally, I would say that there is a Conservative coalition with the Bloc Québécois, but not even on this issue does the Bloc agree with the Conservatives. As a matter of fact, every other party that is represented in this House agrees that putting a price on pollution is the right thing to do. The member said that the question was not answered during the debate or during question period when he asked, but it actually was. It goes to the heart of what the member neglected to mention in his speech and, indeed, what Conservatives continually neglect to mention. The answer was this: ...as much as the Conservatives would like to deny it, climate change is real. What else is real? Those cheques that are arriving in people's mailboxes beginning April 14. In my home province of Manitoba, people will receive $250 a quarter, over $1,000 a month. The interesting thing is that I would have thought that when the member was getting towards the end of his question, he would have said that I would have come back with some line on the rebate. However, he did not even do that. He should have been able to predict that I was going to do that. Instead, he said something about how I was going to try to justify that this stops wildfires or whatnot. No, what I have been saying all along, and what we have been saying all along, and what the Conservatives have missed all along is the fact that people are getting money back. This rebate has always been there. The whole point of the price on pollution was not to put money into the general revenues, as the member said. The point of the price on pollution, or the carbon tax, as Conservatives like to call it, is to put a price mechanism on carbon, to put a price on pollution. In that way, people have to actually make a choice. In making that choice, they might be incentivized not to pollute and, instead, to try to find an option that does not pollute as much. Again, I would remind the member that I will answer the question the same way that the parliamentary secretary did during question period. This is to say that Conservatives continually neglect the fact that there is a rebate that comes back, because it does not suit their narrative. However, it actually is a reality.
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