44th Parl. 1st Sess.

November 9, 2023 10:00AM

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/9/23 12:36:43 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-34

Mr. Speaker, for the last minute or so, I have been sitting in my chair contemplating a private member's resolution perhaps in the future to talk about blueberries. The member from B.C. was talking about the blueberries from B.C. My colleague from Fredericton was talking about the lovely blueberries in communities around Fredericton, and there are blueberries in the province of Nova Scotia. I can attest there are blueberries growing even in the province of Manitoba. From coast to coast to coast, and I believe even in Yukon, we can get blueberries, but do not quote me on that. What we could all agree on is that blueberries are very healthy. We know that for a fact. It is a nutritional powerhouse for one's diet, so we should all be eating blueberries, no matter where they come from. I will wait for the private member's motion at some point in the future to add to those thoughts. Having said that, I am grateful that today we are debating Bill C-34 and that the Conservative Party did not move a motion for concurrence. That means we actually get to debate the legislation that was intended to be debated. That is how I would start off in terms of good news, in recognizing that the Conservatives have provided us the opportunity to debate the bill. However, members will recall that we did have to bring in time allocation in order to get the bill to the committee, in order to ultimately get it to third reading. I am going to continue to be a little optimistic. I have listened to the speeches on all sides of the House, and there are a couple of thoughts that come to my mind. First, members seem to recognize that it is important that we modernize and update the legislation and justifiably so. Over the last decade-plus, which is the last time we actually saw any form of substantial change to the legislation, a lot has changed. In the question I posed to the previous speaker, I talked about AI. It is incredible the degree to which AI has grown in the last number of years. It was not that long ago when someone sitting beside me in the chamber said, “Pick a topic, Kevin.” I think I can say my first name, Mr. Speaker. I picked a topic and used the example of the Philippines. Moments later a speech that I would apparently be comfortable saying appeared right there, in one minute. It was a detailed speech talking about the Philippines—

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Context: House Hansard - 250 - Nov/9/23

Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ)

Nov/9/23 1:22:23 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-34

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's statements are kind of out there. He does seem to think the Bloc Québécois is pretty important. That is interesting. He says the Bloc Québécois is responsible for removing the tax on heating oil in the Maritimes. Can he tell us which motion or act the Bloc Québécois voted for that made that happen, when that decision is solely within the purview of the current government? That is a question I would like to ask my colleague. Anyway, I do want to add something about the bill we are debating today because it is easy to get off topic. The Bloc Québécois's criticism of Bill C‑34 relates to the thresholds that trigger a review. If we look at all the foreign investment proposals from 2022, the new measures would require a review of only about 10 of those 1,200 proposals. That is barely 2%. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that. Security of investments really is important, but what is being done to implement better mechanisms to broaden the foreign investment security review process?

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House Hansard - 250