Elizabeth May, Saanich—Gulf Islands
“I support parts of the opposition motion. The government wants to borrow 25 billion dollars for a new national wealth fund, but it has no real plan for it. Instead, we should fund it by taxing the extra profits oil companies make from war. We also need to change the rules for our national pension fund. Right now, it only cares about making money, so it invests billions outside Canada and in things like deepfake artificial intelligence instead of helping our country.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my dear colleague from Mount Royal, the parliamentary secretary, for sharing his time with me. I hope he will not regret it after hearing my speech because there are several things in the opposition motion that I agree with. This might be the first time I find myself in this situation. I usually do not find myself agreeing so very much with opposition day motions from the official opposition. I am watchful, and I really am very careful, of how long it takes to study, be fair and consider what has been put before us. I will try to make a number of points that relate to the multiple paragraphs in the opposition day motion. I will start with one of the government’s announcements and my experience as a parliamentarian and as a Canadian citizen. A big announcement was made on April 27, the day before “Canada Strong for All: Spring Economic Update 2026” was tabled. The Prime Minister announced that we would soon have all the information regarding a new sovereign wealth fund, the Canada Strong fund. We were given the big announcement on April 27. There was a press conference. I do not think I got it wrong when the government announced this and that we would get all the details on April 28, the next day. We would know the details of how this sovereign wealth fund would work and how Canadians could participate in it as individuals. We were told the fund would create opportunities for Canadians to make investments and to participate in our sovereign wealth fund. We just had to wait a day for the details. When we get to the details, and this is what I find astonishing, because this seems to happen a lot, on page 56 of the spring economic update, what we are told is that yes, and it is very exciting, we were going to have a “broadly accessible [fund for] Canadians from coast to coast to coast” that was “easy and simple to purchase, hold, and transact”. It was to be the Canada Strong fund, our sovereign wealth fund, but how were we going to find out about it? The update says, “The government will establish a dedicated Canada Strong Fund Transition Office.” It will, once set up, “lead a targeted engagement with market participants and regulators, and rapidly finalise the Fund. Further details will be provided in the coming months.” I am just quoting from the statement. I do not want to be unfair with them, but it is absurd. They cannot say they are going to borrow $25 billion to create a sovereign wealth fund, which is going to have all these great attributes, but first they have to create a transition office. It did not need to be like this. We have really good models from Canada for how a sovereign wealth fund can be created. I will take us back in a time machine to a place where good ideas emerged. In 1976 Alberta, Peter Lougheed created a sovereign wealth fund for the province of Alberta. Norway actually sent experts from Norway to Alberta to learn from Alberta about how it was creating a sovereign wealth fund. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is now worth over $2 trillion U.S. Norway created the sovereign wealth fund based on the principles established by the late and, I think we would all would agree, great Canadian Peter Lougheed, who in establishing the oil sands and investing in them, said we have to look at this resource and have some rules. One of Peter Lougheed’s first rules was to think like an owner. Another thing he decided was that we do not want to live off the oil rents. We do not want the revenues from oil wealth to go into spending by government. He wanted to set it aside as what we might call a rainy day fund. Alberta created what was then called the Alberta heritage savings trust, and it was funded largely by resource revenue, which went into the fund and accumulated. It accumulated the wealth. Norway followed that example. These are the attributes of Norway’s fund. I take the points from my hon. colleague from Lakeland, who was just speaking and pointing out the differences between Norway and Canada, and they are taken as read. Let us look at what Norway established based on what Peter Lougheed put forward. Number one is that it was run by an independent board. No government could touch the principal, and withdrawals were kept by law, so no subsequent politician could do what actually happened in Alberta when Ralph Klein became the premier and took over from Peter Lougheed. I will not editorialize on the differences between Ralph Klein and Peter Lougheed, but I think everybody knows. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund was created as a sovereign wealth fund. What we have in Canada may be a sovereign wealth fund, but we are starting out with borrowing $25 billion to get it started. I do not see any suggestion here that anyone other than Canadians could invest. Would anyone invest? We do not know what it is. It is definitely a pig in a poke, but on top of that, we are told to wait while a transition office, for which we are paying a couple million dollars a year, decides to consult to figure out what it is. I think we should start with what we know works, which is to tax oil wealth and separate that. The Province of Alberta did set it up and did run it. That was in its jurisdiction. The only way the federal government can do it at this point, and I am not proposing this on the floor of the House, but let us be clear that we could do it, is if we were to nationalize that sector and said that we would set aside that wealth for future generations. That is not going to happen. I know my hon. colleague here is laughing, and I am sure they are not laughing at me, but with me. The point of what I am saying here is that, in Canada at this point, we have missed the boat on deciding to create a sovereign wealth fund based on resource revenue, unless the government puts in place what many of us, the NDP and the Greens, have been calling for for some time, which is a tax on the excess profits that big oil is experiencing, particularly as prices go through the roof due to war and not due to their careful management as managers of the resource. The prices skyrocketed when Netanyahu and Trump began bombing Iran. As the spring economic statement pointed out, this drives up the price of oil and increases profits for the private sector. We should be applying an excess profits tax on those who are basically war profiteering in the sector. Let me look at another aspect of the very thoughtful motion from the opposition. I do want to thank them. Under their sixth point, the Conservatives are pointing out something that I have been railing about in this place for some time. There is over $1 trillion in pension fund money in Canada. If we are looking for sovereign wealth, there is over $1 trillion in pension fund money that has been invested outside of Canada. How does that happen? Let us just roll back a little on that. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act was carried through Parliament by our former prime minister, and I think we all respect him enormously, the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien. He is still active in public life, and he created the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act with the idea of an independent Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to decide how to take Canada’s pension money and make it work for us. The investment board is not necessarily even made up of Canadians, unfortunately and tragically. I urge all my colleagues to think about this. Let us open up the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, because it requires that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board consider only one criterion when investing our pension plan dollars, which is a return on investment. If we look at the Quebec investment board process, in Quebec they are required to consider, and it does not sound like a big threshold, the well-being of Quebec in the interest of the Quebec. This is missing for the federal monies. Our act for where our pension plan dollars go does not mention the good of Canada, and most of the money that has been invested has gone to the United States, not Canada. It has gone outside of Canada to other investments. One of them stuns me, and I think it should shake us to our core when we look at what just happened in Tumbler Ridge. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board decided it was a good investment, with good return on investment, to invest in OpenAI and Grok, the developers of deepfake AI. By the way, a member of that investment board is now our ambassador to the United States, Mark Wiseman. Two hundred million dollars of our pension plan money went into that because the board thought it was going to make money. There is no ethical screen on where our money goes. Obviously there is no climate screen on where our money goes. There is not even a question of whether it is in the interest of Canada.”
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my dear colleague from Mount Royal, the parliamentary secretary, for sharing his time with me. I hope he will not regret it after hearing my speech because there are several things in the opposition motion that I agree with. This might be the first time I find myself in this situation. I usually do not find myself agreeing so very much with opposition day motions from the official opposition. I am watchful, and I really am very careful, of how long it takes to study, be fair and consider what has been put before us. I will try to make a number of points that relate to the multiple paragraphs in the opposition day motion. I will start with one of the government’s announcements and my experience as a parliamentarian and as a Canadian citizen. A big announcement was made on April 27, the day before “Canada Strong for All: Spring Economic Update 2026” was tabled. The Prime Minister announced that we would soon have all the information regarding a new sovereign wealth fund, the Canada Strong fund. We were given the big announcement on April 27. There was a press conference. I do not think I got it wrong when the government announced this and that we would get all the details on April 28, the next day. We would know the details of how this sovereign wealth fund would work and how Canadians could participate in it as individuals. We were told the fund would create opportunities for Canadians to make investments and to participate in our sovereign wealth fund. We just had to wait a day for the details. When we get to the details, and this is what I find astonishing, because this seems to happen a lot, on page 56 of the spring economic update, what we are told is that yes, and it is very exciting, we were going to have a “broadly accessible [fund for] Canadians from coast to coast to coast” that was “easy and simple to purchase, hold, and transact”. It was to be the Canada Strong fund, our sovereign wealth fund, but how were we going to find out about it? The update says, “The government will establish a dedicated Canada Strong Fund Transition Office.” It will, once set up, “lead a targeted engagement with market participants and regulators, and rapidly finalise the Fund. Further details will be provided in the coming months.” I am just quoting from the statement. I do not want to be unfair with them, but it is absurd. They cannot say they are going to borrow $25 billion to create a sovereign wealth fund, which is going to have all these great attributes, but first they have to create a transition office. It did not need to be like this. We have really good models from Canada for how a sovereign wealth fund can be created. I will take us back in a time machine to a place where good ideas emerged. In 1976 Alberta, Peter Lougheed created a sovereign wealth fund for the province of Alberta. Norway actually sent experts from Norway to Alberta to learn from Alberta about how it was creating a sovereign wealth fund. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is now worth over $2 trillion U.S. Norway created the sovereign wealth fund based on the principles established by the late and, I think we would all would agree, great Canadian Peter Lougheed, who in establishing the oil sands and investing in them, said we have to look at this resource and have some rules. One of Peter Lougheed’s first rules was to think like an owner. Another thing he decided was that we do not want to live off the oil rents. We do not want the revenues from oil wealth to go into spending by government. He wanted to set it aside as what we might call a rainy day fund. Alberta created what was then called the Alberta heritage savings trust, and it was funded largely by resource revenue, which went into the fund and accumulated. It accumulated the wealth. Norway followed that example. These are the attributes of Norway’s fund. I take the points from my hon. colleague from Lakeland, who was just speaking and pointing out the differences between Norway and Canada, and they are taken as read. Let us look at what Norway established based on what Peter Lougheed put forward. Number one is that it was run by an independent board. No government could touch the principal, and withdrawals were kept by law, so no subsequent politician could do what actually happened in Alberta when Ralph Klein became the premier and took over from Peter Lougheed. I will not editorialize on the differences between Ralph Klein and Peter Lougheed, but I think everybody knows. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund was created as a sovereign wealth fund. What we have in Canada may be a sovereign wealth fund, but we are starting out with borrowing $25 billion to get it started. I do not see any suggestion here that anyone other than Canadians could invest. Would anyone invest? We do not know what it is. It is definitely a pig in a poke, but on top of that, we are told to wait while a transition office, for which we are paying a couple million dollars a year, decides to consult to figure out what it is. I think we should start with what we know works, which is to tax oil wealth and separate that. The Province of Alberta did set it up and did run it. That was in its jurisdiction. The only way the federal government can do it at this point, and I am not proposing this on the floor of the House, but let us be clear that we could do it, is if we were to nationalize that sector and said that we would set aside that wealth for future generations. That is not going to happen. I know my hon. colleague here is laughing, and I am sure they are not laughing at me, but with me. The point of what I am saying here is that, in Canada at this point, we have missed the boat on deciding to create a sovereign wealth fund based on resource revenue, unless the government puts in place what many of us, the NDP and the Greens, have been calling for for some time, which is a tax on the excess profits that big oil is experiencing, particularly as prices go through the roof due to war and not due to their careful management as managers of the resource. The prices skyrocketed when Netanyahu and Trump began bombing Iran. As the spring economic statement pointed out, this drives up the price of oil and increases profits for the private sector. We should be applying an excess profits tax on those who are basically war profiteering in the sector. Let me look at another aspect of the very thoughtful motion from the opposition. I do want to thank them. Under their sixth point, the Conservatives are pointing out something that I have been railing about in this place for some time. There is over $1 trillion in pension fund money in Canada. If we are looking for sovereign wealth, there is over $1 trillion in pension fund money that has been invested outside of Canada. How does that happen? Let us just roll back a little on that. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act was carried through Parliament by our former prime minister, and I think we all respect him enormously, the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien. He is still active in public life, and he created the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act with the idea of an independent Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to decide how to take Canada’s pension money and make it work for us. The investment board is not necessarily even made up of Canadians, unfortunately and tragically. I urge all my colleagues to think about this. Let us open up the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, because it requires that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board consider only one criterion when investing our pension plan dollars, which is a return on investment. If we look at the Quebec investment board process, in Quebec they are required to consider, and it does not sound like a big threshold, the well-being of Quebec in the interest of the Quebec. This is missing for the federal monies. Our act for where our pension plan dollars go does not mention the good of Canada, and most of the money that has been invested has gone to the United States, not Canada. It has gone outside of Canada to other investments. One of them stuns me, and I think it should shake us to our core when we look at what just happened in Tumbler Ridge. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board decided it was a good investment, with good return on investment, to invest in OpenAI and Grok, the developers of deepfake AI. By the way, a member of that investment board is now our ambassador to the United States, Mark Wiseman. Two hundred million dollars of our pension plan money went into that because the board thought it was going to make money. There is no ethical screen on where our money goes. Obviously there is no climate screen on where our money goes. There is not even a question of whether it is in the interest of Canada.