Bill C-48 (Historical)

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia's north coast

This enactment enacts the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which prohibits oil tankers that are carrying more than 12 500 metric tons of crude oil or persistent oil as cargo from stopping, or unloading crude oil or persistent oil, at ports or marine installations located along British Columbia’s north coast from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaska border. The Act prohibits loading if it would result in the oil tanker carrying more than 12 500 metric tons of those oils as cargo.
The Act also prohibits vessels and persons from transporting crude oil or persistent oil between oil tankers and those ports or marine installations for the purpose of aiding the oil tanker to circumvent the prohibitions on oil tankers.
Finally, the Act establishes an administration and enforcement regime that includes requirements to provide information and to follow directions and that provides for penalties of up to a maximum of five million dollars.

Government Business No. 1—Proceedings on Bill C-5

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the member's tone tonight. During the last 10 years, we have seen the Trudeau government bring in policy after policy: Bill C-69, Bill C-48, the energy cap proposal and, on top of that, the energy regulations. We said at the time that the Liberals are making it difficult for private capital to form in the country for these big projects because of uncertainty.

The new Liberal government has put forward Bill C-5, which basically says that the whole system the Trudeau government put in place was completely over the top and has chased everything away. I know the member has talked about getting rid of some of these other things. Which would he prefer, Bill C-5 or for the government to address the awful regulatory environment created under the 10 years of the previous government?

[Jim Belanger, Conservative, Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

I stand today to discuss Bill C-5, the one Canadian economy act, a piece of legislation introduced on June 6. The free trade and labour mobility in Canada act and the building canada act seek to unify Canada's economy by removing barriers to interprovincial trade and expediting major infrastructure projects.

The bill has generated a tremendous amount of feedback from the residents of Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt. I have received dozens of emails from people concerned that the government will manage to turn this initiative from something it claims would be good for northern Ontario into a mess. We have seen the Liberal government, time after time, introduce policies and programs that it claimed would help the economy, and instead, they had the opposite effect. I must say that I share that view. Bill C-5 should be a step toward economic growth and prosperity for all northern Ontarians, including indigenous people, but I do not have a lot of confidence that the Liberals will get this right.

The Liberal government's approach to this issue raises important questions about balance. Let us explore a few of its key components and the broader context it aims to address.

Part 1 of Bill C-5 is designed to create one Canadian economy out of 13. Canada's economy has long been hampered by interprovincial trade barriers, which cost our economy approximately $200 billion per year in lost economic growth. Barriers ranging from differing provincial regulations to restrictions on labour mobility have created disadvantages in our markets, making it harder for goods, services and workers to move freely across provincial and territorial lines. These barriers cannot continue if we are to compete in international markets today. For example, skilled Canadian workers, some who have decades of experience and training, are prevented from working in their fields from province to province. These types of regulations need to stop if we are to grow our economy and improve our productivity.

Bill C-5 should be a practical step toward streamlining trade and enhancing labour mobility, which could boost productivity and competitiveness in Canada. Although I support the notion that all Canadians should be able to ply their trade in any province, the devil is in the details. The Liberal government has not laid out how we are to achieve these goals. How will it get all provinces to sign on to these changes? The bill itself does not lay out the plan to achieve these goals of labour mobility. Will the bill, which allows labour mobility, stand up to legal challenges from provinces and other stakeholders who may not want to see this type of policy implemented? I am not sure the government knows the answer to that question.

I also want to take a minute to discuss the free movement of goods and products between provinces. Provinces have a combined total of about 600 professional credentialing bodies that regulate goods and services within their borders. These barriers exist in virtually every industry. Alcohol, dairy and many agricultural products are subject to these barriers. For instance, some products need to be inspected when they enter a province, even though they were previously inspected in their province of origin. It is these types of regulations that end up costing producers, and ultimately consumers, more money.

Part 2 of the bill, the building Canada act, focuses on fast-tracking nation-building infrastructure projects, such as pipelines, power lines and renewable energy initiatives. By streamlining federal government processes, the bill aims to reduce approval timelines from five years to two years. This part of the bill is particularly significant for my riding and across northern Ontario. Energy security and economic competitiveness in the global market, especially in the mining industry, are critical to the future of our communities.

We have all heard people speak about the vast resources of the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire is a massive mineral deposit that contains many components crucial to our modern industries, billions of dollars of minerals beneath our feet that could improve the living standards for all of northern Ontario, including indigenous people. The people of my riding would greatly benefit from the Ring of Fire project. Would the Ring of Fire be deemed a nation-building project? The people of northern Ontario deserve to know this.

I also have some concerns that the bill would empower the federal government to issue a single authorization document covering multiple permits, but it has not laid out a concrete timeline in the bill. There has been no discussion or list of what projects would be deemed as nation-building projects. Who would have input into this list? What would be the criteria to demand a nation-building project?

One of my biggest concerns is that the bill would give a tremendous amount of power to the ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office. We have all seen what can happen when too much power is put in the hands of a few Liberal ministers and the Prime Minister's Office. We could very well face a situation where there would be a high degree of political interference by Liberal insiders and decisions made on ideological grounds instead of what is good for the economy and the people of Canada. There must be openness and transparency in this process.

For instance, Liberals claim they will ensure consultation with indigenous people, but there is no definition of what that means or how that process would unfold. On this side of the House, our shadow critics have argued that the bill could be simplified by broadly eliminating project-blocking laws rather than creating exemptions. The elimination of Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 would be a good start. They could also look at removing the industrial carbon tax, which would help industries invest in new environmental technologies and growth.

Private sector companies need certainty, and the fact that this bill would sunset or be reviewed in five years does not give them the long-term certainty they are looking for. If companies are going to invest billions of dollars and create jobs, wealth and prosperity for the people of Canada, they need to know what the government is doing long-term.

Conservatives have long been advocating for the following measures to achieve energy security and a strong economy. We need shovel-ready economic zones. We need to scrap the cap on oil and gas, repeal Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, axe the industrial carbon tax and remove unrealistic and punitive electricity regulations. If the Liberal government is serious about standing up for Canada and not having us totally reliant on the U.S., then it will do all of these things.

In conclusion, Canada needs giant steps. Bill C-5 is a baby step that would not completely address the issues that have been created by the totally misguided policies of the Liberal government over the last decade.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand in the House to add my thoughts and the views of our constituents on various pieces of legislation. Today, it will be on Bill C-5, an act to enact the free trade and labour mobility in Canada act and the building Canada act.

I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Haldimand—Norfolk.

Before I get into the meat of the bill, I will say that this is my first chance to stand and give a speech in the House since the election, so I would like to thank my team working here in Ottawa and, of course, back at home, for their ongoing work. They keep the wheels on the bus and keep things moving. I want to thank them for their very hard work and professionalism. I would like to thank Marnie; Lisa; Tara; my executive assistant, Andrew; of course Mack and Paul here in Ottawa; and, during the election, the teams of volunteers, of whom there were many on all sides.

In our part of the world, in Ontario, we went through some pretty challenging weather. There was the big ice storm. Every municipality in my riding was under a state of emergency for a couple of weeks. It put a strain on volunteers of all stripes, but everyone showed up day in and day out. They kept knocking on doors, putting up signs and spreading their respective messages, so I want to thank everyone who played a part in that role. Our democracy is stronger because of their work.

I want to give a shout-out to my campaign team and my campaign manager, Paul; my EDA president, Derek; and of course my family for their unwavering support. For everyone in this place, if we do not have the support of our family, it is extremely difficult to do this job. My family has my back and is encouraging me to keep doing this, so I thank my family as well for the ongoing support.

We are debating Bill C-5 today. It has two main parts, and the first has to do with interprovincial trade. As we all know and have heard in the debate today, Conservatives have long called for the easing of interprovincial trade barriers as essential for boosting economic efficiency, fostering national unity and enhancing competitiveness in the global economy.

One of the most compelling reasons to dismantle interprovincial trade barriers is the potential for significant economic gains. A more integrated domestic market would allow businesses to scale operations more efficiently, access a larger customer base and reduce duplication and costs. Here in Ontario, it is estimated that could mean about $200 billion annually in the province. However, Bill C-5, as mentioned, only takes baby steps and falls short of where we need to be. I am afraid Bill C-5, unfortunately, may not have any impact at all in removing the barriers to interprovincial trade.

The second and probably most controversial part is around natural resource development. Bill C-5 attempts to address the effects of a decade of Liberal mismanagement of the economy by introducing measures to fast-track major projects in Canada. After an admission that the Liberals caused the problem through Liberal laws that have made it impossible to get anything built in this country, the Liberals have turned to allowing certain projects, like those that are politically favoured and lobbied by Liberal insiders, like maybe GC Strategies no doubt, to circumvent the Liberal laws.

Conservatives do agree with the Liberals that it is all their fault that the economy is stalling when it comes to natural resource development, and that their own legislation has hobbled the Canadian economy and has actually put us at risk due to the desires of the administration down south.

We have known about the ongoing dangers of the economic waters that have become unsettled; we have called this out for over 10 years. Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill; Bill C-48, the tanker ban, which will not let Alberta energy leave off our west coast; the emission caps and many more barriers and hurdles to economic growth and expansion have all been put in place by the Liberal government.

Fortunately, we have now gotten to a place where the Prime Minister is saying that if projects are determined to be in the national interest, federal reviews would shift from whether these projects get built to how best to advance them. Apparently, according to the Prime Minister and multiple media sources, this is meant to streamline multiple decision points for federal approval, while minimizing risks of not securing project approval following extensive project risk.

This would create a system where we have more people regulating an industry than we have actually working in it, which is a problem. Again, the Prime Minister has no problem creating more white collar desk workers with government authorities, simply to expand the class of people who will always be loyal to the growth of big government. That is a choke point for innovation and productivity.

Let us be clear: We are not saying, “Let us promote dirty air and dirty water.” We all breathe and eat the same things, and we want the cleanest possible. However, when we have a political class that has no compassion with respect to the impact of its decisions, because government always gets paid and first and never runs out of supply, that is a problem. It is clear that in the legislation, without the removal of key pieces of previous government legislation I mentioned, Bill C-69, Bill C-48, and many more, the regulatory system would continue to choke industry and continue to stifle investment from abroad.

What the Liberals would do, with the piece of legislation before us, is continue to reduce our ability to extract energy and sell it to the world, unless powerful lawyers and lobbyists cozy up to Liberal politicians to get their project fast-tracked. This would lead to more government control. Why is this? It is the same thing the Liberals seemed to love with so-called green energy, more like alternative energy. It is mostly about control. This way, the government would decide who gets the government grants and who would get the fast-track approvals to bypass the legislative regulatory framework.

Of course, it happened in Ontario under Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne. We all know about the Green Energy Act, where favoured companies got big contracts and grants and were able to steamroll through legislation already in place that prevented some projects from going forward.

In essence, the government wants people to buy primary services from it with their tax dollars, with all of the grants going to its chosen companies, again, with some link to government. This is how the power broker class does business, and this is why government had no problem pushing TransCanada out of building the Trans Mountain pipeline. The regulatory burden, the framework, was so much that the company had to give up. The only reason the pipeline was able to be completed is that the government took over the project with endless resources at its backing, which is the tax base, the taxpayers of this country. That is why it got completed: through government control.

If we were in some bizarre world, some upside-down universe where there were windmills in abundance and we were getting a lot of our energy from them, and all of a sudden the government found black goop that came from the ground that was able to power cities and make car engines run faster, it would be in favour of it. It would be in favour of drilling, of fracking, because it would then be the government controlling that industry and that kind of energy.

With the free market, though, if we do not like a service being provided, we take our money and go elsewhere, and because of that dynamic, of course we get competition. Somebody is always trying to innovate a product or service to gain a share of the market. That means that people who are not happy with their current offering always find the path of least resistance; they find something better. That is why, with creativity and competition, we get vibrant innovation.

When a government agency or entity monopolizes a service, we get pre-approved innovation; we always get innovation based on what the government has in mind. There is always a conclusion, and the grants are handed out based on what that conclusion is. If we are lucky, we might get some supersmart people running a department, and innovation is able to happen quicker, but on the whole, if it is left up to politicians, unfortunately innovation comes second.

I think government is not good at running much. If it were, if people say, “Well, maybe government is”, I ask what would happen if the government ran the music industry. It would probably stifle all kinds of music that the government does not like.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is the arrogance that comes from that other side. They cannot accept a yes.

There was an election. I argued that the Liberals had done such a poor job under Justin Trudeau that they actually wrecked our regulatory environment so that private capital formation was impossible in this country. Now, with this Bill C-5 coming forward, this Liberal government is admitting it was a complete failure. Rather than addressing Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and all the other things that I have mentioned, they are doing a workaround.

They won an election. I want to see projects go forward. This is not my first policy option. With the arrogance that this party is putting out while they do this, they should be mindful that Joe Clark thought he had a majority as well. I look at where that ended up getting him, particularly with a whip who could not count.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a great honour to rise in this place and speak on behalf of the good people of Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member of Parliament for Mirabel.

For the record, Bill C-5 is not perfect and, with respect, there are a few concerns I must point out. Let me start with the glaringly obvious. This bill is dubbed as the “one Canadian economy act”, and yet one of the first things we learn is that provinces and territories must provide consent on major projects. In other words, they have a veto. When a veto is provided to 13 different provinces and territories, we are not creating one Canadian economy. If anything, it is completely the opposite. In fact, a cynic might suggest that parts of this bill are designed to fail because the Prime Minister just spent an entire election making big promises that he had no intention of fulfilling. Why did he not get anything built, someone might ask the Prime Minister, who could then reply that there was no agreement on what to build. There, I submit by design, is a huge flaw within this bill.

However, we also know this bill contains other measures, in particular, under “Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada”, taking action or, in this case, legislatively proposing to take action on internal trade barriers, which have long been a passion of mine. I will expand on that point. When I was first elected to this place as someone totally wet behind the ears and a rookie MP, I was fortunate to draw quite highly in the private members' lottery order of precedence. Back in 2011, before the NDP was in power in British Columbia, tourism was not under attack and, indeed, there were a great many Canadian visitors in my riding every summer. Visiting local wineries, even in those days, with over 200 of them, has always been an immensely popular thing to do. Unfortunately, for visiting tourists from other provinces, they could not buy wine at those wineries to take back home with them. Why? Because there was an archaic Prohibition-era federal law that made it illegal to transport wine in person or to have it shipped across the provincial border.

Long-time members of this place might recall that I proposed a private member's bill to remedy this and create true free trade in Canadian wine, or so I had hoped. In those days, the NDP was our official opposition, hard to believe now, I know, which looked to slow down my bill. However, with the help of some Liberals, in particular, former Liberal MP Scott Brison, my bill was accelerated and passed in this House and the other place. Immediately after, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and British Columbia adopted the spirit of my bill; other provinces, not so much. One actually made regulatory changes to block what my bill had achieved.

I mention this because the Prime Minister has, unfortunately, made some outlandish statements, promises really. One was that there will be no interprovincial trade barriers by July 1. He also suggested that the elimination of these internal trade barriers will create another $200 billion of economic activity into our Canadian economy. I am not certain if this is wishful thinking or wilful political misrepresentation as a result of the recent election. Either way, I submit that expectations have been created that Bill C-5 will just not live up to.

This is not to say that the federal government should not do everything it can to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers. To some extent, this part of Bill C‑5 certainly does propose that, and that is why I am prepared to support it.

However, I must also return to the need for consensus found in the other part of Bill C-5. While the Liberal government will allow provinces and territories to veto major projects, we also have to recognize that many interprovincial trade barriers are erected in exactly the same way when one province essentially refuses to come to an agreement with the others. That is what frustrates me about this bill, because it contains a certain amount of double-talk and mixed messages.

I must also point out the obvious. Since 2015, the Liberals have passed several bills, such as Bill C‑69 and Bill C‑48, that have killed many Canadian energy projects. The Liberals know this, of course, but they are too arrogant to admit the obvious.

Fundamentally, the Liberals have created a regulatory environment that is no longer accessible to the private sector. Instead of fixing this, which would be the obvious solution, the Liberals created Bill C‑5, which proposes to circumvent and accelerate these regulatory hurdles through a new political process, subject to everyone's agreement, of course.

The exact mechanism of this political process is an enigma. I would like to point out that, in the past, our former Liberal government kept trying to try to buy jobs in the electric vehicle battery sector. As we now know, many of these investments, as the Liberals call them, completely failed, as is often the case when governments pick winners and losers by using politics as a criterion.

I also have to come back to another point that concerns me.

A few months ago, when campaigning to become the new Liberal leader, our now Prime Minister flew into Kelowna, and while there he told supporters that he would use emergency government powers to build energy projects. A part of that was the “build baby build” thing we heard so much during the election. Of course, in Bill C-5, there is no such language about using emergency government powers to build anything. Instead, what they say here is that there must be consensus, and of course, the NDP Premier of B.C., David Eby, has already said “no”. He will not support any new Canadian pipelines built with Canadian steel that export Canadian oil and gas by getting it to tidewater. He will, however, say yes to B.C. ferries built with Chinese steel by Chinese workers in a Chinese state-owned shipyard.

I mention that last part, because none of the Chinese steel is subject to any industrial carbon tax, unlike here in Canada, where Canadian steel remains subject to the Liberals' industrial carbon tax. On an interview with CTV Atlantic, the Prime Minister was clear that steel made by industry would be targeted for increases to offset his political 180° turn on the consumer carbon tax. This, of course, makes our Canadian steel more expensive and less competitive against Chinese steel with no carbon tax.

If this Liberal government was truly serious about building one Canadian economy, why ignore the fact that Canadian industries need a regulatory environment that is competitive and that creates incentives for investment that would lead to great-paying Canadian jobs?

Bill C‑5 completely misses the mark on those points. We are left with rather modest steps, despite huge promises to the contrary. At least those steps are in the right direction, but this bill could and should have been much more ambitious.

I would like to sincerely thank all members for taking the time to listen to my comments and concerns today.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour for me to rise in the House to represent the people of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, who entrusted me with a fourth term on April 28. As is always the case in the Saguenay region, the election campaign was difficult, first because there was a bit of a Liberal wave and, second, because it is a fertile riding for the Bloc Québécois. It was a struggle every day.

Once again, I would like to thank the people who put their trust in me. I would also like to thank my team, which worked very hard during the election campaign. They supported me and gave me so much motivation to power through when the going was rough. During an election campaign, we work every day. We go door to door and talk with citizens. I really want to thank my team, because it would be very difficult to do this all by ourselves. We always need people around us, and we will certainly work hard for our riding on the challenges that will arise.

Today, I am going to speak frankly because the time for rhetoric is over. The Saguenay region deserves results, not empty promises. It deserves concrete projects, not bureaucratic gridlock. It deserves a real recovery, not token half measures.

During the last election campaign, the Prime Minister promised repeatedly that there would be free trade across Canada by July 1. That would require interprovincial trade barriers to be eliminated, but that has not yet been done. We will wait. Those are certainly fine words, but we will see if the Prime Minister puts them into practice. He promised to kick-start the Canadian economy with billions of dollars in strategic investments to stimulate regional development, create jobs and give hope back to communities like ours, because it has been a long time since any major projects came our way. Every time projects are mentioned, we do not see them come to fruition.

Today, we are talking about a hastily tabled bill that purports to fix the problem. In reality, it is only a tiny step in the right direction, and not many details are provided. Once again, we see that this government lacks transparency. As always, it gives itself some leeway to tell people that projects will go ahead when in fact they will not.

Nevertheless, the bill represents an important acknowledgement. It basically admits that the Liberals themselves blocked everything with their laws, which created major obstacles to development and prevented foreign investors from coming here. The government seems to be finally realizing what we in the Saguenay region have known for a long time, namely that projects that could stimulate our economy are being stifled, not by a lack of local will, but by Ottawa's complex, poorly designed rules. This bill provides for the creation of exceptions, rather than dealing with the real problem of over-regulation. We are not going to get anywhere with a hypothetical proposal. First and foremost, the Saguenay region needs consistency and a real building plan.

Let us take a very concrete example that everyone is familiar with. We talked about the GNL Québec project many times and raised it again recently. This project could have injected $14 billion into our economy, created thousands of jobs and made the Saguenay region a world leader in clean energy exports. A number of elected officials and business owners have stressed that the rejection of GNL Québec left a void in our local economy.

What blocked the GNL Québec project? It was blocked by anti-development bills and regulations that impose such cumbersome and inconsistent assessment processes that they discourage any major investment. The people of Saguenay did not reject the project. It was buried by Ottawa, by a highly ideological government that drives away major investments, a government that often stands in the way of entrepreneurs, a government that does not stand up for its industries and workers, a government that must itself buy a major project like Trans Mountain to ensure it will be completed.

Canada needs consistency. The government developed a critical minerals policy that omitted phosphate and high-purity iron. It then listed a number of identified minerals that are not consistent with its own policy. There is also the Climate Institute of Canada, which said last week that domestic production will drop by 56.5% if Canada does not increase its investments in critical mineral development. That is quite something.

That is why I want to make it clear today that the best way to speed up nation-building projects is to repeal the well-known Liberal anti-development laws, such Bill C-69 and Bill C-48.

That is what needs to be done to spur investment in Canada and to get homegrown projects like Ariane Phosphate, First Phosphate and Strategic Resources off the ground. Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean is positioned as a region with a promising future and everything that it needs to prosper. It has a skilled workforce, a strong industrial culture, and access to global markets through the port of Grande-Anse, which leads to the St. Lawrence River and ultimately Europe. It has expertise in aluminum processing, with four clean energy aluminum smelters.

We are ready. It is not the region that is lagging behind; but instead—

My cell phone alarm just went off, and I apologize to the House.

The Economy

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, after the last lost Liberal anti-development decade, Canadians pay the price.

Today the G7 starts. Canada used to be powerful, but the Liberals are lucky we still have a seat at the table. Canada's economic growth is now last in the G7. Allies like Germany and Japan begged for Canadian energy, but the Liberals rejected them, and $670 billion in natural resource projects died by delay and Liberal attacks.

This PM claims “elbows up”, but they have been “elbows down”.

Canada has the world's highest per capita resource wealth, but the Liberals made Canada more reliant on the U.S.

Canada's standard of living falls behind, with an income gap of over $30,000 per person versus the U.S.

The U.S. will still take up to 90% of Canada's energy at big discounts if the Liberals keep their job-killing Canadian oil and gas cap; the anti-development bill, Bill C-69; the shipping ban bill, Bill C-48; and the federal industrial carbon tax on Canadian businesses.

In Canada, anyone from anywhere should be able to work for a powerful paycheque. Conservatives will—

Consideration of Government Business No. 1

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, desperate times call for desperate measures. Conservatives knocked on the doors of Canadians, and we understand, with the cost of living, they are really worried if they are going to make the next rent.

We understand that some projects in this country are better than no projects. We have stated over and over that these are baby steps in the right direction, but we need to repeal Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 to unleash Canada's potential, so we can improve this country and give the citizens at home a better quality of life.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador relies heavily on the tourism industry. In fact, it is one of the biggest employers in rural Newfoundland, since the collapse of the fishery. Even this industry has a massive trade barrier: the Marine Atlantic ferry. This ferry acts as a bottleneck, holding back growth despite demand. Bill C-5 talks about nation-building projects, yet our current infrastructure and transportation system needs immediate attention.

During tourism season, these vessels are fully booked, with no room for tourist vehicles and RVs. Although most hotels, resorts and restaurants have more capacity, tourists are not able to get across the gulf into Newfoundland. Our tourism industry has grown tremendously in the last decade, yet Marine Atlantic services have hardly grown. Hotel rooms and historical tours go unused because there is no ferry space available to bring travellers in.

During this last campaign, when the Liberals knew they were going to lose more seats, like mine, they made a last-minute election promise to reduce the ferry rates. Now, we can all agree that passenger rates should be free, but the Liberals promised to reduce rates before Canada Day. We are only two weeks away, and the prices still have not changed. People are booking ferry rides now for July and August, but what will happen? Will they get reimbursed? People do not know what is going to happen. This uncertainty undermines planning for families and is creating uncertainty in our tourism industry.

If the Liberals want to reduce trade barriers, they need to take a good look at how the island of Newfoundland does trade. Fifty percent of our province's cargo shipments are through private cargo companies, yet only Marine Atlantic cargo is subsidized. How can private industry compete when shipping costs are so high?

If the government wants to continue its freeze on transport trucks, will this create even more demand on Marine Atlantic services, eliminating even more possible ventures for passenger opportunity and tourism opportunity? Why does the Liberal government not make up its mind and either subsidize all cargo shipping into the province or none of it? Perhaps that would shift the cargo market, resulting in fewer transport trucks on our ferries, allowing for more passengers and more tourists to boost our economy, which would reduce the interprovincial trade barriers on our tourism industry.

Speaking of ferries, I see in the national news that the Province of British Columbia has awarded its ferry construction contracts to Chinese companies, for the ferries to be built in China, a country we are currently having a trade war with. This decision undermines Canada's industrial backbone. The Prime Minister says he is elbows up for Canada, and he brags about allegedly successful meetings with premiers across the country, yet he cannot seem to convince B.C. to build these ferries here in Canada.

Talk without action means loss of jobs for our country, which may soon have a stockpile of unused steel and skyrocketing unemployment. I am curious to know how many other boatbuilding jobs will be going overseas. B.C. alone says it expects to create 18 new ferries in the next 15 years. Where will these boats be built? Will these powerful paycheques retreat overseas?

I understand that the Liberal government has all its consultants as busy as a Bay Street banker rewriting the rules of capitalism before breakfast, but perhaps the Transport Canada minister and her team could investigate this fiasco to determine what needs to be done for these boats to be built here in Canada. In my district alone, there are two shipyards and two fabrication sites sitting idle. Perhaps the Liberal government could work with private industry to make real investment here in Atlantic Canada to conduct minor upgrades to build these ferries, future ferries and other Canadian ships. These idle sites represent a ready-for-business infrastructure and workforce.

Being an island and a landmass in the most eastern part of the country holds other connection difficulties as well. Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the largest providers of hydroelectricity in the country, with potential to have massive expansion, yet we struggle to get our power to market. Will the government use Bill C-5 to remove the interprovincial trade barriers on our green energy by ensuring that its proposed energy corridor would be connected to our province? That way, we could sell our electricity at fair market value without the extortion of other provinces. Removing these barriers would both boost our Newfoundland economy and meet national energy needs.

Considering the government just hired Hydro-Québec's Michael Sabia, I and every other Newfoundlander and Labradorian have major doubts that this energy corridor would allow our Labrador electricity to market without other provinces taking the icing off the top.

We want someone from the government on that side of the House to take a stand and assure us that this energy corridor will remove all provincial barriers and gatekeepers, so Newfoundland and Labrador can get our energy to market without having to give away our lunch money. We want a commitment to clarity, timelines and fair play conditions so that all provincial governments and private energy investors can prepare for this enormous opportunity.

Let us get down to the core of Bill C-5. The biggest component of the bill would allow the Liberal government to select a few projects it deems as nation-building projects. What is interesting about this is that even the Liberals now understand that their anti-building laws, anti-mining laws and anti-energy laws are too much for private industry to navigate on their own. They created so much red tape that they now need this new bill to roll out the red carpet for their VIP-selected projects.

Perhaps my colleagues will be filled with the highest level of integrity and would never plan to violate any ethical policies or choose companies that would benefit them, but I can assure the members, absolute power corrupts absolutely. By giving themselves the power to make or break any project in Canada with a slight stroke of a pen, it is only a matter of time before we see more shameful stories such as GC Strategies, which was given nearly 100 million taxpayer dollars in contracts to do nothing, or the green slush fund, where over six years Sustainable Development Technology Canada approved approximately 900 million taxpayer dollars in funding that was inappropriately directed to projects that violated guidelines, often given to companies that Liberal MPs or their friends owned. We must learn from the past. Those warnings cannot be ignored.

Furthermore, if the Liberals realize that a handful of supposed nation-building projects would help our economy, why can they not understand that hundreds of these projects across our nation would put this country back on track, where it needs to be, and take care of our seniors, pave our roads and fix our health care? We would not even need Bill C-5 if the government were to repeal Bill C-69, which blocks pipelines projects through this country, and Bill C-48, which cripples our offshore industry. We would not need Bill C-5 if the Liberals had never implemented the production and emission caps that are choking our economy or if we had never had the last Liberal decade because we would have had one of the strongest economies in the world. We have everything in this country to succeed, except for good leadership.

I grew up in a Canada where an average kid from Clarenville could have endless possibilities. He could run for student council and one day be the MP, or he could start pumping gas and dream of one day owning that gas station and be an oil tycoon, just like “Old Man” Irving. Bill C-5 would kill this dream and many more just like it.

Bill C-5 tells young Canadians that, if they want to build something, they have to be pals with the people at the top. It is a perfect fantasy for Canadian oligarchs. That is not the Canadian dream. It is a nightmare of privilege. It replaces merit with connection, potential with politics and small-town hope with big-city gatekeeping. We need a Canada where every company and every person has equal opportunity, and we need a smaller government to make way for bigger citizens.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the member for Saskatoon—University.

This is my first speech in the House, and I would like to thank all the supporters from Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

This takes me back to how I got started in politics in the first place. It is ironic, because as a first nations member in Kitimat, where I come from, I got my start on the environment file, meaning that we were trying to repair the damage done to our territory over the last 70 years: damage to the river, damage to the forest and damage to the air. That took up the bulk of our time. At that time, I had to research what an environmental assessment was, what a permit was and what aboriginal rights and title were. This took me years, as a labourer, at a time when the Internet was not readily available to us. We had one computer in our condemned band office, which used to be a residential school. It was hard. It took years to understand this, and nobody in my organization could really explain to me the full extent of what an environmental assessment was. Now, I am back. Over the years, I used to think about all this information in my head being useless, because I thought nobody cared and I could not use it anymore, and then I end up here, talking about the same things I was talking about in 2003, but this time it is flipped.

Canadians should understand that Bill C-5 is in two parts. One is about breaking down provincial boundaries, and I will not be talking about that. I will be talking about the second part, the exemption from environmental assessments in Canada.

The environmental assessments are responsible for LNG Canada, the largest private investment in Canadian history, being built in Kitimat to the highest standards, with transparency and accountability. Everybody understood what was going to happen, because there were federal and provincial authorities involved. More importantly, what strengthened that process was aboriginal rights and title. All first nations from Prince George to Kitimat were part of that process. We all got it; we understood it. There was an emergency of sorts back then, a crisis. Aboriginals were in poverty, and the violence of poverty goes along with that.

Now we have a new crisis, but nobody on the government side is talking about some of the conditions that led to this crisis in the first place. Bill C-69, that extensive bill with all those words in it, actually shut down the building of pipelines. There was also Bill C-48, the ban on tankers coming off the west coast of British Columbia.

The weakened state we are in, and the reason Bill C-5 is on the floor in the first place, is because of tariffs. However, I will go further and say that Canada has lost its place in the geo-energy world, the geopolitical world and the geo-economics world, and it was all self-inflicted. I mean, forget about the tariffs for a second and just think. Without a strong economy, we have a weak country. That is just basic, simple math. It is just common sense, and first nations understand this.

We are now talking about Bill C-5, which would basically exempt major projects from environmental assessments at the federal level, but it would not reduce or eliminate them at the provincial level. It is yet to be seen how much time would be reduced. There is no word on how the federal government will actually replace the consultation and accommodation of aboriginal rights and title, which are protected by section 35 of the Constitution. These processes have been in place, in formation over decades, but now, in one day, we are going to wipe that all out. We are going to say, “No, we don't need an environmental assessment.”

I agree that environmental assessments take a lot of money. They take a lot of time, and they are risky. We could do all the work we want and still not receive an environmental assessment certificate, not to mention what will happen if we have a harmonized environmental assessment with the provinces. There are so many different ways to say yes and no.

Now we are getting that from B.C., which will say no to pipelines, so what we are talking about here is almost a waste of time. If we do by some miracle get to a point where we get a pipeline approval, we are going to end up in court, because there are a tremendous number of gaps proposed by this bill. They were in place when I started in council in 2003, back when we were trying to figure out not only how we make our way in a new world as first nations, but how to strengthen the environmental standards in B.C. and Canada and get B.C. and Canada to live up to the conditions in a permit. That took a lot of work. When first nations say that they strengthened the permitting regulations and environmental assessments and used rights and title to do it, it cost first nations a lot of time, money and political capital, because we were trying to balance economics with the environment and the welfare of our people over the next 50, 100 or 150 years. It was difficult.

In Kitimat Village, we reached a happy medium where everybody benefited, not just first nations. Even our neighbouring first nations benefited, but on the basis of the processes in the province of British Columbia and Canada. We figured it out.

Yes, environmental assessments cost money, an incredible amount of money. For a major project, I recommend to proponents that they better have $50 million of disposable money just to get their certificate, with no guarantee they would get their certificate. Bill C-5 is now saying the government will forego an environmental assessment and give an exemption if it is politically acceptable to it. That would cut down on time and money, but how many groups will be lobbying the government to get on that exemption list? How will the government ensure that the lobbying is done openly, transparently and fairly?

We just went through a debate about contracts issued to a company to the tune of $60 million-plus where processes were in place to ensure there was no fraud or corruption with respect to the contracts being issued. We still have not gotten that resolved. What are we going to do when a $30-billion project comes down the pipe, or a $40-billion project? None of this makes any sense to me, except that there will be no environmental assessment for a major project unless, the way I see it, we find ways to cut corners. Where are we going to cut corners? We are already going to do it with the environmental assessment, but surely we are not going to cut corners with aboriginals on aboriginal rights and title, consultation and accommodation.

There are a lot of first nations that understand this process, but what is number one to the first nations in my area is to address the environment first. That is what we do, and we use our rights and title to do it. We understand there are jobs, money, training and everything associated with a project, but we have to address the environment first. The best way to do that is to engage in an environmental assessment. Usually, aboriginal rights and title run parallel to environmental assessments, both provincially and federally, but if there is no environmental assessment, then what is the process? How will aboriginals ensure that projects are done to the highest standards? We have always bragged that Canada has the highest environmental standards in the world. How do we ensure this with Bill C-5 going forward?

There are many questions here, but the Liberal government just proposed closure, meaning we will not get to debate this bill in full. It was tabled last week. I have never come across a bill this extensive and we only have a week to debate it. Not everybody is going to get up and get a chance to talk on behalf of their riding. Canada has to hold the government accountable. It has to know what is happening with Bill C-5 and the future for the next five, 10 or 20 years, because exemptions are going to be a big issue.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is just like the Liberals. Typically, they will say one thing during an election and do something completely different once they have been elected. They refuse to repeal Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, the shipping ban. Also, the minister is talking about all the jobs this bill would create, but at the same time, they refuse to repeal Bill C-50 on the just transition, which will cost 200,000 jobs in energy, 290,000 jobs in agriculture and 1.4 million jobs in construction.

Why will the government not send a clear signal to investors and working Canadians by repealing Bill C-50, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 and truly show Canadians that Canada is open for business?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to hear the government wants to build special projects, specifically the pipelines that Alberta has been asking for for a long time, but the same government has put up barriers so that these projects cannot go through, such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, which are still in place.

I am not sure how the Liberals can explain to Canadians how they are going to build projects while the barriers they have put in place are going to prevent those projects from happening.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the government is now moving closure on its piece of legislation in order to, as it claims, fast-track projects for our nation. However, without getting rid of Bill C-69, without getting rid of Bill C-48, without getting rid of the industrial carbon tax and without getting rid of the production cap, what is the point in fast-tracking legislation to have a one-stop shop where people can just hear the word “no”?

Oil and Gas Industry

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, because of the government's economic failures, Newfoundland and Labrador is once again dependent on equalization payments from the west. Newfoundland's employment has been entangled with the west for decades. We understand that when the west does better, all Canada does better, but in order for the west to succeed, it needs to get its resources to market.

Will the current Liberal government repeal Bill C-69, which stops new pipelines; repeal Bill C-48 that blocks our shipping exports; and remove production caps so all of Canada can prosper?

Natural Resources

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, can members imagine driving to work every day wondering if that is the day they are going to get laid off? For 10 years, the Liberals have had antidevelopment policies, like Bill C-69, Bill C-48, the emissions cap and the industrial carbon tax. These hard-working men and women deserve a much better answer than that.

Will the government be like the old government? Is the new guy the same as the old guy, with no pipelines? Pipelines deserve to be built in this country. They run our economy. Will the Liberals use Canadian steel in pipelines?