National security takes a backseat
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148.44354
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Summary
A Chinese company is trying to take over a Canadian satellite company, and the government is not doing a proper and full national security review of the deal. This has caused outrage in the House of Commons, and questions have been asked in the media.
Transcript
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You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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Well, they thought they were going to have an easy day over there today, but not so fast, Mr. Speaker.
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What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behaviour?
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You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's official Conservative Podcast.
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I am Tony Clement, your host, Member of Parliament for Paris-Saint-Maskocca.
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I want to talk a little bit about the curious case of a Chinese investment supported by the Chinese government
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into a Canadian company called Norsat Technologies in British Columbia.
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This has been occupying a lot of time in the House of Commons because what the Liberals did
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when they approved this deal going forward is that they did not do a proper and full national security review.
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Usually when there is a foreign takeover bid, a takeover bid by a foreign company,
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particularly one that has strong ties to state-owned enterprises or a government,
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that bid is reviewed on national security grounds when the target company, the Canadian company,
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is involved in Canadian military or is involved in high information technology
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that will perhaps deal with national security issues and privacy issues for Canadians.
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In this case, Norsat is a technology company, a satellite company that has a number of Department of Defense contracts
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with the United States, does a lot of contracting with the Department of National Defense here in Canada, and so forth.
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So the usual process would be that you would review that through a full national security review.
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The Liberal government did an analysis of the situation and told the target company, the Canadian company,
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that no national security review was necessary.
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As soon as this got out into the media, we started asking questions,
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and the Liberals are denying what they, in fact, have done.
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They're denying that they did not do a review when they haven't done a review.
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They're denying that they told the company that no review was necessary when, in fact,
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we have the memo from the target company to their investors or potential investors that no review was necessary.
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So the first issue is the Liberals are trying to talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time.
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The second issue, which I think is probably the more important issue,
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is there should be a genuine and full national security review when you have an investing company
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company from the People's Republic of China that is obviously supported by the Chinese government.
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This company also has been picking up companies all over the world, this Chinese company, including in the UK.
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When they sought to invest in a UK company, the British government, in that situation,
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did something that they've only done several times in the last 15 years.
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They did a full national security review on the situation, and they appended five pages of conditions
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before the deal could go through to protect the national security of the UK,
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to make sure that there was no transfer of very important technology, military technology or IT technology,
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to Chinese interests or Chinese state-owned enterprises.
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In the contrast, the Canadian government isn't even going through that process at all.
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This has been an outrage in the House of Commons.
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And just recently, the U.S. Congressional Committee is now coming on board,
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saying that they have concerns because this target company that is being taken over by the Chinese state-owned interests
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is also involved in the Department of National Defense in Washington, D.C.
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So that's the situation that we face in the House of Commons.
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It is something that we are going to continue to raise and continue to object to.
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Reporters are continuing to find new information about how this company is involved in our national security needs,
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how the investing company, the company that wants to take over,
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has been involved in numerous situations where they have pilfered information technology and have been caught at it
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and so is not considered a good actor when it comes to protection of information technology.
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And so, listeners, we're going to keep asking these questions because it is very important.
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I was at a committee, the National Security Committee, very recently.
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We had before us the acting director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, CSIS,
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and I asked him, you know, how are these decisions made?
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When is it, what sort of evidence is used to decide not to do a national security review?
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He said, look, all we do is provide the evidence.
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So when the minister responsible, Navdeep Bains, stands up in the House of Commons,
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says without batting an eye that he is merely taking the direction from the experts,
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and yet the experts are the ones saying, hey, don't look at us.
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And that's the situation we face in the House of Commons day in, day out on this particular issue.
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So, yes, we are going to continue to ask questions.
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We think it's important that the national security interests of our country, Canada,
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We should not be having a situation where the interests of the Chinese government,
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and by the way, this has nothing to do with the people of China,
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and has everything to do with the government of the People's Republic of China,
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We should not have a situation where their interests and their desires in some way overpower our national security interests.
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That is the issue that is being played out in Canadian media,
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and we will continue to ensure that our voice is heard,
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and that we continue to demand that we have a full national security review in this context.
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I suspect there will be some more revelations in the future as well.
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It looks like the target company, Norsat, may have another suitor, an American suitor.
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So, it will be interesting to see how the government responds to that.
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But I've also heard through the media discussions that I've had that the Hytera,
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which is the Chinese company, has very deep pockets, probably buttressed by Chinese government support,
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and I suspect that we'll hear from them as well,
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because they are on an acquisition binge that can only be related to Chinese security and national interests.
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So, stay tuned as we continue to ask the right questions and protect Canadian interests,
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including Canadian national security interests.
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This is Tony Clement signing off from The Blueprint, Conservative Canada's official podcast.
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Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
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search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.