Ottawa, ON – Prime Minister Stephen Harper faced a grilling in the House of Commons on Monday over his decision to approve the CNOOC-Nexen takeover deal.

The opposition has criticized Harper for not releasing the details of the deal and the NDP targeted the fact that the government is still open to approving these deals in the future.

The Prime Minister says that probably won’t happen, “In terms of specifics that the leader of the NDP raises on the exceptional circumstances, I think we’ve been very clear that controlling interests, takeovers by foreign governments in the oil sands will be extremely unlikely to be approved in the future by this government”.

The NDP also criticized Harper for not bringing a bill before Parliament to change foreign takeover rules.

Prime Minister Harper points out he was only changing guidelines, not the law.