China in the oil patch? Trudeau has thumbs up. Mulcair thumbs down. Harper? Who knows?

The Chinese state-owned firm CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation) has a $15-billion bid on the table to buy under-performing Calgary based oil-and gas producer Nexen.

Quebec Liberal MP and leadership candidate candidate Justin Trudeau had this to say about the deal in an op-ed distributed today to the Postmedia papers. (He approves):

Why is the CNOOC-Nexen deal good for Canada? Because Chinese and other foreign investors will create middle class Canadian jobs. Foreign investment raises productivity, and hence the living standards of Canadian families. More fundamentally, it is in Canada’s interest to broaden and deepen our relationship with the world’s second largest economy.

Of course there should be conditions attached. All foreign investors must obey the letter and the spirit of Canadian labour, environment, corporate governance and immigration laws. In certain sectors national security concerns will be real. However, in the CNOOC case, Chinese ownership of 3% of oil sands leases hardly constitutes a national security issue.

Most important, the big picture isn’t about CNOOC or Petronas, but the many opportunities like them that will follow in their footsteps. China is scanning the world for acquisitions like a shopper in a grocery store. Just a decade ago, China’s outward foreign direct investment was negligible; today it approaches $100 billion. Canada has perhaps more potential to capitalize on this context than any other country. From minerals to energy, from education expertise to construction, we have a lot of what China needs.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair had this to say to reporters when they caught up with him outside the House of Commons today (his party had already rejected the deal):

Once any Chinese state-owned company would gain control of an entity like Nexen, they would be allowed to bid, for example, on oil leases.  We would no longer have control of our own natural resources. In the case of a Communist country, it’s obvious there’s no difference between a state-owned company and the state itself. So it’s China that would be owning our raw primary natural resources. It’s absurd. It’s a huge mistake. The Conservatives should back away from this and take some time to reflect on the effect of this.

Prime Minister Harper, in the House of Commons today, tried to sound as if he was taking the more responsible position:

Mr. Peter Julian (Burnaby—New Westminster, NDP)  Mr. Speaker, today Canadians found out through anonymous leaks that CNOOC has agreed to meet the federal government’s request. What request? This is the first time Canadians have heard of any request coming from the federal government on CNOOC. The government refuses to be transparent, refuses to be accountable, refuses to have respect for Canadians, so what is the government respecting of CNOOC and why is it doing it in secret? Why is it doing it behind closed doors?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr. Speaker, let me just address that very briefly. The Minister of Industry has been very clear. The government’s policy on these matters, while we welcome foreign investment, is to scrutinize every individual foreign investment to make sure they are in the bests interests of this country. On the one hand, the position of the NDP, as we know, is to be against all of these investments. The position of the Liberal Party, as reiterated yesterday, is to rubber-stamp every single one of them. We think Canadians expect us to examine these investments carefully and make sure they are in the best interests of Canada.

(I’ll have more to report on this tomorrow but let me just say at this point that my sources tell me the Harper government is trying to squeeze CNOOC for a whole bunch of conditions which it believes would benefit Canadian workers and Canadian investors.)