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.

Opposition Motion—Housing Supply

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.

It is always an honour to rise in the House and to speak, especially on the important motion we have before us today, which is our opposition day motion. Before I get started, I would like to give some credit. I am a shameless team promoter. I love this team. I will say it time and again. I want to give credit to the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon for all of the incredible work he did on this file in the last Parliament. In fact, his work was used as the basis for a lot of our platform development. It received accolades from many groups across the country for the great ideas within our platform regarding housing. I wish him the best in the Asia-Pacific development file as he continues on. I also wish the best for the residents of B.C. as they come out of the difficult time they have been going through.

I would also like to recognize the wonderful member of Parliament for Edmonton Riverbend, who gave me the honour of speaking here today. I do not know if members know this, but he is the father of three children, including the beautiful baby Hugh. He knows this issue very well, because he is a family man. I have family who lives in his riding. I have mentioned that to him before. This affects him and his family and everyone in his community, so I am really happy to see him taking the charge on this motion and on the discussion here today.

I held this file under families, children and social development when I served as the shadow minister in that role. With that, I would like to recognize the new member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. What a fireball she is. I love that lady. She is a new mother and a strong voice for her constituents and for Albertans. When she got this role, I told her that this file was hard. I will tell members what I saw when I held that role of families, children and social development and housing was still under that file.

I saw government members traipse across the country, announce new housing initiatives, pat themselves on the backs and call it a day. They would make outrageous claims. In fact, the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion continues to make claims. For example, on November 29 of this year, he said, “Mr. Speaker, every Canadian deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. Since we came into office, we have helped over a million families get the housing they need”. He also said, on December 2, 2021, “We will keep working to make sure every Canadian has an affordable place to call home.”

That is not what I saw in my role at that time. I read the files. I looked around my community and I saw two things. I saw a government destroying my local economy with glee and forcing businesses and residents to vacate buildings, because all the business was gone and all the jobs had been lost. These buildings were being purchased by the government for a song and being turned into subsidized housing, and then the government declared a victory. This is what I saw time and again.

I will repeat that. The government would destroy the economy, force all the businesses to close, take all the good jobs away, purchase the buildings for a song, turn them into subsidized housing and say it had done a great job. It was terrible. There are no winners in that model.

While the government was passing Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium bill, and the clean fuel standard, jumping, cheering and drinking out of their soggy paper straws, my constituents were suffering. They were wondering whether they could keep their houses or if they would have to move in with their sisters. They wondered how they were going to make rent that month, but the government did not care. Its members would show up on this floor week after week, claiming victory.

The second thing I saw was that all of these government programs the government was claiming victory over were the result of two things: a poor economy and higher taxation.

Every single benefit and every program that I considered, and wondered why Canadians would need, always came back to no jobs or no good jobs. While the government was destroying the economy, killing good jobs and taxing Canadians with one hand, it was handing out a measly little portion of what it had killed and collected with its other hand. What could Canadians do? Could they say no to the small amount that was offered to them? There were no jobs, and certainly no good jobs, to go back to.

I have the best riding in all of Canada. Calgary Midnapore was built on the backs of the generation that fuelled this nation for decades. Communities thrived in lakes and parks that were created by a love of what they did and what it meant for Canada. However, that all started to change six years ago. Jobs became scarce. Businesses went out of province and out of country, and people had to turn to these benefits. They had no choice, and they were grateful because their jobs were gone. I am starting to worry that some people are getting conditioned to believe that they do not deserve any better.

Now, we add affordability and inflation to this mix.

Canadian housing affordability deteriorated for a third consecutive quarter in Q3 of 2021. The mortgage payment on a representative home as a percentage of income rose 1.7 points after a 3.2-point increase in Q2 of 2021. Seasonally adjusted home prices increased 4.6% in Q3 of 2021 from Q2 of 2021, while median household income rose only 0.8%. Affordability deteriorated in all 10 markets covered in Q3. On a sliding scale of markets, from worst deterioration to least, were Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, Hamilton, Montreal, Calgary, Quebec, Winnipeg and Edmonton. That was the third consecutive quarter with a worsening in all of those markets. Countrywide affordability deteriorated 0.7% in the condo portion, versus a 2.3% deterioration in the non-condo segment. Prices continued a relentless upward trajectory, rising 4.6% in the quarter and 18.6% year on year. That annual figure was the most it has been since 1989, which was before I graduated high school in Calgary Midnapore.

Let us talk about inflation. There is hardly a commodity that has not been touched. Natural gas is up 18.7%. Gasoline is up 41.7%, and I certainly think twice before I decide that it is time to fill my car. Ground beef is up 8.2%. Sausages are up 11.3%. Steak is up 13.6%. I examine the cuts way more thoroughly now before making my choices at the grocery market. Eggs, which are not even a direct meat product, are up 7.4%. Butter, another Canadian staple, is up 5.5%. Syrup is up 11.6%. Coffee is up 3.7%. Chicken is up 8.3%. A year ago I could buy the whole bird, and nothing but the whole bird, for $10. Now it is $14 when I go to the grocery store.

The current government wants to claim victory on this file, but I will not let it. The Liberals destroyed our economy, took away the good jobs and increased taxation, and they want to pat themselves on the back. I will not let them, and neither will Canadians.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member emphasizes the problem. Time and time again, he refuses to acknowledge that there are regions of the country that demand respect in our federation. The Liberal government has refused to do this too, even in various pieces of legislation. I think about Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and even the debate around carbon pricing. The federal government has the ability to impose its will on provinces, but the question that should be asked is whether or not it should. The problem is that we have a Liberal government that refuses to respect anyone who disagrees with any aspect of the way it approaches politics, the legislation it puts forward—

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in the interests of getting this important legislation passed so we can get it to the next stage and provide these protections for workers I could give a 20-minute speech, but I will be giving a significantly shorter speech on this.

There is one personal note I want to add. I was texted this morning, after I completed my speech, that my first niece was born today. Her name is Maeve Elizabeth Danielle Penner, and her mom is doing great. We are all very happy and blessed to have this new beautiful baby girl in our family.

I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill S-3, an act to amend the Offshore Health and Safety Act. It is about time this important legislation to protect the safety of workers made its way through the House of Commons.

The Liberal government failed to get this legislation passed in a timely manner, which has put the safety of offshore workers at risk. We debate a lot of important issues in the House, but out of the many pieces of legislation I have seen the government put forward over the past few years, few bills could be more important than ensuring the safety of workers. In this case, we are talking about offshore energy workers.

How did we get to this point? We are now in a situation where important safeguards have been allowed to lapse. These safeguards were put in place by a previous Conservative government over five years ago, but not acted upon by the current Liberal government until it was too late. Thankfully, no one appears to have been harmed by the lack of action on this file, but it remains inexcusable that we have come to this point in the first place.

At the end of last year, the Liberals allowed the existing temporary safety regulations for our offshore oil and gas workers to expire. In effect, this stripped key health and safety protections for these Canadian workers who risk their lives every day to ensure we have the resources to heat our homes and drive our vehicles to work. These workers, in this case primarily from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, are a pillar that supports the economy of the province and this country.

The province has elected a lot of Liberal MPs. The Minister of Natural Resources comes from the province, yet it appears that little attention has been paid to this important issue.

Most people would not know it, but I had the privilege of working in our onshore energy sector. I donned my personal protective equipment and H2S monitor and went to work in Canada's energy industrial heartland in Edmonton, Alberta. I spent two summers in university working the shutdowns at the Imperial Oil refinery in Strathcona. On site we had plenty of heavy equipment moving around and we did the jobs that needed to be done to ensure the facility could run smoothly, create jobs and support our economy. I remember working the night shift, 12 hours a day, day in and day out, for weeks. I picked up extra hours at the end of each shift and put on a HiVis vest to do traffic control and ensure that the tired workers would not accidentally be run over as they went home from their shifts. I stood watch as skilled workers went deep into systems to ensure that first aid would be readily available for them in case of danger. This was on the land. I can only imagine the dangers faced by those on the east coast who get on a helicopter and head out to platforms far at sea, sometimes in bad weather.

Tragedies from our past demonstrate just how critical it is for these safety regulations to be in place. Canadians were devastated in 1982 by the news of the Ocean Ranger rig and 84 workers who lost their lives when it capsized during a storm, and again in 2009 by news of Cougar Helicopters Flight 491 crashing into the North Atlantic, resulting in the tragic deaths of 17 offshore oil workers. This tragedy led to the Cougar inquiry, the results of which were taken by governments to pass this important legislation. After each of these disasters, there were investigations into their causes and recommendations on how to avert these dangers in the future. I am sure that politicians spoke to the devastated families, promising that never again would this be allowed to happen, yet here we are today debating legislation that should have been passed months, if not years, ago.

It was the previous Conservative government that recognized the very real need for these protections. That is why, in 2014, the government passed safety regulations through the Offshore Health and Safety Act. That is exactly the kind of leadership that we need in this country: We need a government that is proactive and not reactive, and that takes prompt action to protect the safety of our workers.

These temporary regulations were set to expire in 2019. They gave the Liberal government years to implement permanent offshore energy safety regulations. The Liberals had to extend that deadline for another year. They extended those temporary regulations to December 31, 2020. The Liberals had time to get the job done.

For many of those years, they had a majority. The fact is, even now in the current minority government, the Liberals have the political support to get the job done but they have not, until now, and that is inexcusable. It was not days, and it was not the month of the deadline in December, that the Liberal government finally introduced Bill S-3 in the other place. Where was the Liberals' sense of urgency? It really feels like an afterthought, as if the safety of these workers was not of great importance to the government. Why did the Prime Minister, the Minister of Natural Resources and the Liberal government wait until the last minute to do their jobs? An important deadline has been missed. Key protections are missing. The Liberal government dithers. Perhaps if the government had not chosen to prorogue Parliament and waste many additional days of productive debate, we could have had this passed before the deadline. We will never know, but what we do know for sure is that the Liberal government did not care to make this a priority.

I am also disappointed, for another reason, that this legislation was not introduced until last year. It would have been a fitting tribute to Judge Wells from Newfoundland and Labrador, who did so much to advocate for the safety of offshore workers. Sadly, in October 2020, Judge Wells, who headed the Cougar inquiry, passed away at the age of 87. Judge Wells was a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister provincially, and was a Rhodes scholar. As commissioner, his key contribution to the inquiry was the recommendation that helicopters have 30 minutes or more of run-dry capability. He also recommended founding a full search and rescue base in St. John's. I wish the government had its act together and had passed this legislation in advance of the deadline so that Judge Wells could have seen his legacy put permanently into action. All the same, I want to commend him for his service to our country and to his province. He will be remembered for his commitment to the welfare of offshore energy workers and their families.

The delayed passage of Bill S-3 is just another example of how the current Liberal government has failed to prioritize the needs of the men and women who work in our oil and gas sector. In fact, I noted with some surprise that the minister said the words “one of three oil-producing Canadian provinces”, seemingly unaware that more than three provinces in this country produce oil. If it was not bad enough that the government was failing to get key safety legislation passed by the deadline, it also seems intent on phasing out the livelihoods of these oil and gas workers.

We know that Newfoundland and Labrador relies on the energy sector more than every other province, including Alberta. We know that the future of Newfoundland and Labrador requires a strong offshore oil and gas sector. In fact, it is so important to that province that the word “oil” is mentioned nearly 150 times in the recent Greene report outlining the economic future of Newfoundland and Labrador, yet the Liberal government continues its attack on the oil sector with bills like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 in the previous Parliament, and by not acting on key legislation like Bill S-3, which we are debating today.

Something close to 147 days have passed since the Liberal delays allowed for the existing legislation to expire. That is 147 days that hard-working offshore oil and gas workers have been left in limbo without protections.

I want to recognize the hard work done by those in the other place in passing Bill S-3 as expediently as possible. Recognizing the urgency of this bill, it is unacceptable that after passing in the Senate so quickly, the bill waited in the lineup to get through the House of Commons' agenda. We knew that members in the House were intent on getting the legislation through quickly at second reading and passed immediately.

I sit on the natural resources committee, and we moved with unprecedented speed to get this bill through. It was one meeting. It is my sincere hope that we can push forward with the debate today, get the bill passed and secure these key protections for our offshore oil and gas workers.

As members of the House, protecting Canadian workers must be a key priority. That is why the Conservatives have been co-operative in working to get this bill passed as quickly as possible. The failure to protect offshore energy workers is unconscionable and must end. It is time that we finally get the job done and secure these protections so these workers can continue going about their jobs safely and so we can ensure the prosperity and future not only of Newfoundland and Labrador but of our nation, Canada.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that, even just yesterday, our shadow minister asked the government about its plan, how many jobs it would create and when the budget would be balanced. The government had no answers to any of those questions. The unfortunate thing is that Liberals can call it a plan, but they really do not have the answers to very basic questions.

What we need is a plan to create jobs, especially in Alberta. The Liberals' policies, such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and their overall disregard for the energy sector have hurt investments. Thousands of jobs have left. We need a plan to bring those jobs back. We need to bring investor confidence back, and this budget does none of that.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in this House on behalf of my constituents of Edmonton Mill Woods.

In the lead-up to this budget, the longest lead-up ever, as we went over two years without a budget, there were dozens of news stories and trial balloons talking about how innovative this budget was going to be. We heard time and again about how this budget would be a stepping stone for the Liberal government to build back better, whatever that means. Instead, at 739 pages and nearly a quarter of a million words, the longest budget in the history of our great country is also the greatest disappointment.

There is no plan to deal with inflation. There is no plan to make the dream of home ownership more attainable for Canadians. There is no plan to create new jobs and economic opportunities for families and young people across this country. Instead, we are left with a budget that says so much, proposes so little, and leaves Canadian jobs, productivity, and economic growth behind.

Let me start by looking at the full picture. In my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods and right across Canada, there are countless families and businesses on the brink of losing everything. The jobs numbers that came out earlier this month revealed that another 207,000 people across Canada had to come home and tell their family and loved ones one of the most difficult things to hear, that they had lost their job.

To be clear, Alberta’s economic problems didn’t just start because of this pandemic. The Liberals' Bill C-69, which many people called the “no more pipelines” bill; Bill C-48, the tanker ban; and general disregard for the energy sector have driven away billions of dollars of investment and, with it, thousands of Canadian jobs. The government has failed to produce a plan for one of Canada’s largest economic sectors, the energy sector.

There are some things in this budget that we and our Conservative team are in favour of. For so many Canadians who continue to struggle throughout this pandemic, the budget does have the extension of emergency programs that our Conservative team supports, measures like the wage subsidy, rent subsidy and other recovery benefits, but there are still issues that remain with some of these programs. My office has heard from so many Canadians. It has heard repeatedly from small businesses that opened just before the pandemic or during the pandemic, which have been left behind by these wage subsidy and rent subsidy programs. When asked about it, the Liberals continue to repeat what everybody already knows, that small businesses are the backbone of our community, yet they continue to do nothing to rectify this issue, leaving many small businesses, and the Canadians employed by them, behind.

One thing that I know would bring jobs to Alberta and to Canadians from coast to coast is pipelines. Our natural resources sector accounts for nearly two million jobs and nearly one-fifth of Canada’s GDP. There are mentions of pipelines in this budget. They talk about a vaccine pipeline, a talent pipeline, an innovation pipeline and a PPE pipeline, but no mention of a pipeline to carry our natural resources. Once again, the Liberal government continues to ignore our energy sector, which will be instrumental in our economic recovery coming out of this pandemic. Instead, we continue to import oil from the likes of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, where there are much lower environmental standards and horrific human rights records. Talk about a failure.

Perhaps the biggest failure, and the focus of my speech today, is the government’s failure to take inflation seriously. Canada’s inflation rate in April was 0.6%, or roughly 7% on an annualized basis. For the average family in my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods, that means the inflation tax is going to take nearly $6,500 out of their pocket this year. This has been seen right across the board, as Canadian consumer prices are climbing at the fastest pace in a decade. The average family will pay nearly $700 more in groceries this year because of inflation. Everything from meat and vegetables to cereals and bread has increased by about 5%. Gas prices are continuing to increase dramatically. As Bloomberg reported last week, they have increased more than 60% in a year.

Perhaps the most explicit case I can make here is with lumber prices, which have increased by 300% over the last year. As Kevin Lee, the CEO of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, points out, this drastic rise in lumber costs will add tens of thousands of dollars to the average price of a home.

This leads me to another area of failure in this budget, which is the lack of any semblance of a plan to address overwhelming housing affordability issues in Canada, which has pushed the dream of home ownership further out of reach for far too many Canadians. Prices across Canada are skyrocketing, with young families who were saving for their first home at the beginning of this pandemic even further behind than when they started.

This has led to feelings of hopelessness. A poll from the Royal Bank of Canada released last month revealed that 36% of non-homeowners under the age of 40 have given up on ever buying a home and 62% of respondents said they expect the majority of people will be priced out of the market over the next decade.

What is the government doing to address this concern of people being left out of the market? The hallmark of this budget’s efforts on housing affordability is a 1% tax on foreign owners of vacant housing, which will simply be seen as a very minor inconvenience for wealthy foreign investors who have seen their investments appreciate by 42% this past year. This will not solve the problem at all. Instead, the current government should be focused on the root of the problem, which is the shortage of supply right across Canada.

As a recent Scotiabank report points out, Canada has the lowest number of housing units per capita of any G7 country. If Canada set the modest goal of simply catching up to the United States, Canadian builders would have to complete an extra 100,000 homes. To catch up to the U.K., it would require an extra 250,000 homes. To put these gaps in perspective, we have had an average of 188,000 home completions in the last 10 years.

I believe this serves as a perfect microcosm of the government’s philosophy. When it identifies a problem, it does not address the root cause. Instead, it takes a small reactive step, creates a new government agency or program for it, and then dumps millions, if not billions, into it.

The budget introduces another $101 billion in new spending, pushing our debt-to-GDP ratio to over 50% over the next few years. What are we getting out of this increased spending and debt? The budget predicts that the growth rate will slow steadily starting in 2022, all the way down to 1.7% growth in 2025.

As Robert Asselin, the former policy and budget director to Bill Morneau and policy advisor to the Prime Minister, said of this budget, “it is hard to find a coherent growth plan.... [S]pending close to a trillion dollars [and] not moving the needle on…growth would be the worst possible legacy of this budget.” While the budget is entitled, “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience”, there seems to be much concern about whether or not it will deliver on jobs or growth.

The budget has no investments to address the structural problems that have plagued productivity and our ability to compete on the global stage. There is no plan to address the unprecedented level of investment that is fleeing Canada. There is no plan for regulatory and tax reform to help us win on the global stage. There is no comprehensive innovation strategy to ensure Canadian tech start-ups keep their job-creating investments here at home.

This budget is not meant for the growth of the economy. I believe Canadians are looking for hope that things will soon get better and they will still have a bright future to look forward to. They want their jobs and small businesses back. They want their lives and communities back. They want the hope of being able to afford a house. Simply put, they want to return to normal and live the Canadian dream.

This budget fails to deliver. There is no growth plan. It is not meant for the people of Edmonton Mill Woods, Alberta or our future generations. It is a failure. That is why we will not be supporting it.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Speaker, after waiting two long years for the Liberals to table a budget, they have instead presented a massive new debt burden for Canadians rather than a hopeful plan for a path forward post-pandemic—in a word, failure.

Unemployed Canadians wanted to see a plan to create new jobs. Workers who had their wages cut and their hours slashed had hoped to see a plan to reopen the economy. Families that simply cannot afford more taxes were looking for relief. Instead, this costly plan will add over $100 billion in new spending and will increase Canada's debt to a whopping $1.2 trillion. Yes, that is trillion with a “t", for the very first time in Canadian history.

It is a staggering amount that most Canadians cannot even begin to comprehend: $1.2 trillion. It is equivalent to every single Canadian being responsible for $33,000 of federal debt. Canadians and their children, their children's children and their children's children's children and on and on will be forced to pay off this massive debt of the government.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently released a report saying that this budget even underestimates the size of the federal deficits by about $5.6 billion per year. To quote the PBO, it “puts Ottawa on a long-term path of higher debt”.

What about fiscal anchors? No, there are none of those in there. There is only a vague mention on page 53, which says, “The government is committed to unwinding COVID-related deficits and reducing the federal debt as a share of the economy over the medium-term.” That sure sounds reassuring, does it not?

Canadians are right to be concerned about this Liberal spending. They will be footing the bill of $40 billion in taxes every year to pay the interest expenses on that debt alone. This is all predicated on a very risky assumption that interest rates and inflation will continue to remain low.

With all this spending and fiscal risk, one would expect some actual substance, but many Canadians are being simply left behind or ignored in this budget. How about a plan to unleash the prosperity-producing, economy-boosting Alberta energy? No, that one is definitely not in the budget. The government has been abundantly clear on its plan to landlock Canadian oil with Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 in the previous Parliament and the Prime Minister's comment that the oil sands need to be phased out.

The Liberal government already stood by idly while the U.S. administration cancelled Keystone XL, and of course it itself caused the cancellation of things like northern gateway and energy east. With Enbridge's Line 5, of course we know about the jeopardy it is in, and it is responsible for supplying half of the oil needs of Ontario and Quebec. The closure of that pipeline would literally create an energy crisis here in Canada, and then of course we would see more of Alberta's oil stranded, when Alberta's economy is already suffering. Instead, that biases it toward oil from places with far less environmentally friendly records elsewhere in the world.

All of that is due to the Liberals strangling Alberta oil in favour of that less environmentally friendly oil from other countries, which certainly do not share our commitment to environmental protection or to human rights. Again, the budget is completely silent on Alberta energy.

Despite this deafening silence by the Liberals, Conservatives will always continue to advocate for pipelines and projects that end our dependence on foreign oil and that will unleash our energy sector. Energy- and job-killing legislation from the Liberals has only decreased Canada's ability to produce and trade environmentally sustainable energy resources and to create more jobs.

Alberta's energy sector could be the key to economic growth and to success post-pandemic in Canada, but the Liberals have chosen instead to denigrate and ignore it. Its absence is glaringly obvious and Albertans will not forget it. Instead, this budget proposes a reimagined Canadian economy that dabbles in risky economic ideas that will leave the Canadian economy in a very precarious position.

However, so much more is also missed in the budget. For start-up businesses that are in desperate positions and do not meet the government's narrow rules of assistance programs, there is nothing either. For small businesses, there are major gaps and issues with federal programming that the Liberals continue to ignore. The CFIB said of the budget that “the government did not deliver on many of the major program gaps affecting thousands of small businesses facing restrictions, closures and huge amounts of COVID-related debt.”

Many of those small businesses are tourism businesses, and tourism businesses are desperate to have the government table a safe plan with metrics and targets to be able to open their businesses for the key summer season. I am sorry; there is nothing for them in the budget, either.

In my beautiful riding of Banff—Airdrie, tourism is a key economic driver that has been devastated by the pandemic. Lockdowns and border restrictions have stifled businesses. Many have been forced to lay off employees and in some cases, unfortunately, have closed down altogether.

This is happening everywhere, right across Canada. Tourism and travel-related businesses lost approximately $19.4 billion in revenue last year from the absence of international visitors. However, the government just extended, once again, the U.S.-Canada border closure well into the key summer tourist season without any kind of plan or any metrics on how or when it might be willing to safely reopen that border. Now, tourism businesses are looking at losing another key summer, and the budget is completely silent on a safe plan for reopening and for a safe way forward.

The government has unfortunately chosen winners and losers in this budget and unfortunately left many people out to dry. The Liberal government loves to tout the saying “We are all in this together,” but recently I heard another metaphor about the pandemic, which I thought was very apt to the chosen winners and losers in this debt-heavy Canadian Liberal budget. It is this: We are all in the same storm, but some are in yachts and others are in leaky rowboats. The Liberal government should not be waving to Canadians struggling in the pandemic storm in leaky rowboats while the Liberals are drinking champagne from the deck of their taxpayer debt-paid yacht. Spending without a proper plan is failure.

To the government, I say this: Fix this budget and give Canadians a hopeful path forward for economic recovery post-pandemic, not a lifetime of taxes and debt. That is what we see with this budget. We see a lot of money being spent, but a lot of people still being left behind, and what we then see is people being burdened. Canadians, their children, their grandchildren and their great-great-great-grandchildren will be seeing that burden of debt to pay for all of this spending.

That is the thing I think the Prime Minister and the Liberal government fail to understand. Money does not grow on trees. The government does not just manufacture the ability to spend money. That money comes from hard-working Canadian taxpayers who have earned that money, and it takes away from their ability to meet the needs of their families, to meet their own needs, to keep their businesses running and to keep their employees with jobs. That is not just now, but it is well into the future, to pay for the kind of debt burden that we have seen put on by the government.

It is just staggering to imagine the amount of money being spent and how there are still so many people being left behind. I talked about our oil and gas industry in Alberta. I talked about our important tourism industry across this country, about the small business owners, about the many people who have started new businesses and are left out of many of the government programs. The Liberals have been able to spend a lot of money, but they have not been able to help so many of the people who actually need it, and those are the same people who are going to have to pay for the burden being left by the government and all of its massive spending.

I say to the government that it has to try to do things to make sure it is not leaving people behind and that it is creating a hopeful and optimistic future, instead of burdening people with massive amounts of debt that will do the exact opposite.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Chair, I am happy to add my voice to this debate around Bill C-15.

I recognize that it has been a long and arduous battle to get the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples passed through the UN, and I also recognize the work of Romeo Saganash, with whom I had the privilege of sitting on committee in the past. I developed a friendship with him, and it was a pleasure working with him on committee.

Bill C-15 is an interesting bill. It is a severe case, in my opinion, of a lack of doing what one says and saying what one is doing. This seems to be typical of the Liberals. They say they are doing something when in fact they are not, or they are doing something when they say they are not doing something. Again, Bill C-15 is one of those and, in my opinion, does just that. Conservatives typically say what they mean and mean what they say, and if we do not mean it, we do not say it.

One thing that is frustrating for me about this particular bill is that this is new, uncharted territory in terms of clause 4 of the bill. I think the crux of the bill is in clause 4, which says:

The purpose of this Act is to

(a) affirm the Declaration as a universal international human rights instrument with application in Canadian law; and

(b) provide a framework for the Government of Canada’s implementation of the Declaration.

What is frustrating about it is that I think that the declaration is a universal international human rights instrument, and I also think that it has application in Canadian law, with or without the bill stating it.

I use the Palermo Protocol extensively, which is a UN protocol used to identify victims of human trafficking. The Canadian government, being part of the UN, can use these protocols or declarations to validate whether or not our laws fall inside these frameworks. We use them as an instrument to assess Canadian law, which would be no different for UNDRIP.

The same goes for the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Again, we use that declaration to assess Canadian law. We take the Canadian laws on the rights of children and the protection of children and we stack them up against the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child to see if we are abiding by and meeting the thresholds that are laid out in the declaration. If we are not, then we attempt to bring Canadian law into alignment.

I have been working on that around the Palermo Protocol here in Canada, putting forward bills and trying to get Canada's laws to totally align with the Palermo Protocol. We are in significant alignment, but we are not 100% there, and that is also the case with UNDRIP. It is an instrument against which we can assess Canadian law to see if we are living up to the expectations that are laid out in UNDRIP. Are we living up to the ideals that reconciliation would bring? Nobody has a problem with that.

What Bill C-15 proposes is unique, because no other UN declaration has a legislative declaration with application in Canadian law. When I asked the Department of Justice officials about this at committee, they said that I was correct, that it is a unique thing. The Declaration of the Rights of the Child does not have a legislative declaration that we are recognizing as an instrument in Canadian law. However, when arguing a case in court, one can bring a UN document, a UN declaration, to the court and say, “Hey, the UN says this and therefore this is a piece of evidence for my particular case.” What I am frustrated about with Bill C-15 is that it would not change the application of UNDRIP in Canada.

Some witnesses came to committee and said this was like a bill of rights for indigenous people. We were assured again by the justice department this was not the case. This is not granting a bill of rights for indigenous people. This is a framework to develop a plan, and that is what this bill is all about.

If that universal human rights instrument, UNDRIP, had application in Canadian law, would it be actionable? One of the things I asked repeatedly was whether one could take the government to court if it failed to meet one of the objects of the declaration, and I was once again assured that this was not the case. Therefore, what changes with this bill? If this is such a monumental change to the way Canadian law is happening, as the Liberals would like us to think, then what would actually change? That is extremely frustrating.

The Liberals continue to say we are fearmongering, which is also untrue. We just want to know if the things the Liberals are saying are in fact true. If this is going to change the way Canadian law operates, then what are those changes? The bill does not explicitly say that, to me. It says that we are going to develop a framework.

The big crux of a lot of the issues we deal with is around FPIC, or free, prior and informed consent, and what it means. One of the things we continually asked was about the Canadian government, the years and years of jurisprudence, the court cases that have been fought and won in this country around consultation, and the term “duty to consult”, how all this is laid out and how it would fit into UNDRIP.

I would say we are well on our way to developing systems in Canada that fit in with UNDRIP and come into free, prior and informed consent. As our laws develop, with requirements to consult, we see companies going out and consulting. I would say we are well on our way. When I hold up the instrument of UNDRIP against our free, prior and informed consent laws and court rulings, those are all things we can consider.

All this bill would do is create uncertainty. It would bring in a new element. It says that perhaps these articles of UNDRIP are now Canadian law, so does duty to consult equal free, prior and informed consent, or does it not? We could have that debate and argument, but at this point we just do not know. There is a lack of clarity around that. That is what is being introduced with this bill. What is free, prior and informed consent, and how does it relate to duty to consult?

We have seen in this country that this has caused uncertainty in the marketplace. The Government of British Columbia has adopted UNDRIP in a similar fashion, again without clearly defining the terms, and there is now a 1% premium placed on investment in B.C. There is a risk premium to doing business in B.C. because of that, and the markets have deemed it to be about 1%, a lack of 1% return on it, which is a challenge. If one is going to the marketplace to raise capital for a project, one will have to pay 1% more to bring capital into British Columbia compared to the rest of the country. When people say there is no risk to this, no uncertainty, there obviously is, and that is the frustration about this.

I go back to the point that one should mean what one says and say what one means. Where does FPIC come up in this bill? It does not really come up in this bill. It comes up in the document and this declaration having a universal application in Canadian law, but again, what does that mean? We know that all it is doing is driving uncertainty. It is not allowing us to hold up UNDRIP as a document for criteria by which we should judge Canadian law. That is continually frustrating as we go forward.

We heard extensively from Canadians from across the country around this bill at committee, and it is also interesting that the Liberals seem to have a distinct side that they come on when it comes to consultation. We would hear them today talk about how they had extensive consultation even in the development of this bill, but I would say that initially, when we first started reaching out to folks around this, they had not been consulted on this bill. It was not until the bill had been introduced that they began doing the consultations, so by the time it reached committee, yes, some consultations had been done and folks were giving their nod toward the bill, but up until that point there had not been extensive consultation in the development of the particular bill.

That was seen in that every organization that came before us had an amendment for the bill, and that was increasingly obvious. All of them came forward and had amendments, despite the fact that they all acknowledged that UNDRIP is a useful tool and that UNDRIP is something that they hope Canadian law aspires to. I am not convinced this was something they were all expecting when we had the implementation of UNDRIP in Canada. A plan for a plan is not the implementation, so it is going to be more and more interesting to watch how this unfolds.

We have also seen at committee that the government amended its own legislation. That also seems to me to be a point where the consultations were not done appropriately on the front end. If the government had indeed consulted broadly, as it said it had, we would have seen that this bill would not have had amendments by every organization that came before us, and also that the government would not have had to amend the bill itself. It seems to me that there was a complete lack of consultation.

The other thing that I would like to point out around the government and its consultation record is that it only seems to consult in the direction in which it wants the answer. We see this over and over again with first nations communities in northern Alberta. Many of them had a stake in the northern gateway pipeline. We have seen how their communities were thriving off the construction and the capital stake that many of them had in the construction of that pipeline, and yet we saw that pipeline cancelled after the shipping ban off the west coast in Bill C-48, and there seems to have been no consultation with them whatsoever as to the impacts of that decision on their communities. We see that today unemployment in northern Alberta is among the highest in Canada. Why is that? Is it because the government failed to consult with first nations and did not adequately recognize the impacts on these communities?

Again, this is an area where the government says one thing and seems to do another. The idea of consultation is only important in a particular direction, or when trying to stall a pipeline project rather than get one built. That was and continues to be extremely frustrating for first nations communities across northern Alberta.

There are still many questions left unanswered as we go forward. As the government continues to pursue its implementation of the declaration, we will continue to have a discussion on what FPIC means, because there is no clarity. Nobody has said that our duty to consult and FPIC are equal. We are even lacking a bit as to who the final arbiter of this decision-making is. I would say that the Government of Canada is the final arbiter when it comes to major projects. It is the final arbiter when it comes to many of these things that get brought forward, and that is important.

We do not necessarily have clarity from the government. We would like to see that for sure. When pipelines get built, when the federal laws of Canada are designed and when Parliament makes decisions, those decisions are supreme in Canada. We would like to see FPIC clarified as we go forward. Those are some of the things folks brought to committee and said they were concerned about.

The other interesting thing is how this applies between federal and provincial jurisdictions. The bill sometimes says “Canadian law”. Does that mean provincial law as well as federal law, or does it just mean federal law? We need to ensure that is clarified as we go forward, and I hope the government is able to answer some of these questions.

As we hear from more folks on this, it is interesting that there is not even unanimity within first nations communities. The O'Chiese First Nation in Alberta, Treaty No. 6, rejects Bill C-15 outright. It said it would undermine its position in Canada and is opposed to it entirely. The government did not seem to acknowledge that individual first nation communities were not in favour of Bill C-15.

The government consults with the three major national indigenous organizations, but does not necessarily consult with individual first nations across the country. Something I hear over and over from individual first nations is that the government needs to listen to individual first nations across the country in addition to the national organizations, because national organizations do not always speak for individual bands. That is another major concern we heard as well.

We are looking for clarity on a number of things, and this bill would not do anything to clarify any of these issues. This bill would put us on a path forward to align Canadian law with UNDRIP, which I am in favour of, but it would not necessarily do what the government is saying it will. It does not say this will be the next step in bringing us in line with that. The bill just says it is going to develop a plan to do it, and that is frustrating.

I was hoping the government was going to move in the direction of aligning Canadian law with UNDRIP and that it would give us some clarification, such as indicating where Canadian law aligns with UNDRIP on point 43, for example, or giving its opinion on the duty to consult on FPIC, whether it is an adequate or less-than-adequate measure. It might give indications of some of the improvements it is going to make on duty to consult to bring it in line with FPIC. FPIC means something. If the government is insistent that it does not mean a veto, what does it mean? What does that consultation piece look like? Does the jurisprudence on duty to consult still stand?

Those are some of the things I would have expected to see in a bill that would have ushered in UNDRIP. Nonetheless, we do not see these in this bill. There are some less-than-clarifying statements in this bill.

Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is my last statement of this session and possibly before we go to the polls. I am grateful for the four years that the good people of Calgary Midnapore have allowed me to be their voice, so I cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing the following.

Mr. Prime Minister, you have failed the people of Calgary Midnapore. You have taken away their right to make a living. You implemented Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. You delayed Trans Mountain. You did not stand up for Keystone XL and Line 5. You cancelled energy east and the northern gateway. You have called my small business owners “tax cheats” and attacked their retirements and succession plans. This was all before 2020.

You failed to protect them. You squashed their ingenuity of therapeutics, rapid tests and pilot projects. It is you who has delayed their freedom with your horrific procurement of vaccinations, delaying their lives and dreams.

You may want to forget what you have done to the people of Calgary Midnapore, but I will not let you.

Line 5 Pipeline Shutdown

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise virtually today to speak in this emergency debate about a critical piece of infrastructure, in an industry that is critical to the economy of our country and our recovery post-COVID-19.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline carries Canadian oil east, running through Wisconsin and Michigan. It is supplying about half the oil needs of Ontario and Quebec. For decades, the pipeline safely shipped oil that is refined in Sarnia into gasoline, diesel, home-heating fuel and aviation fuel. It is also a major source of propane used in Ontario and Quebec. A lot of farmers use the propane to heat their homes, barns and commercial greenhouses, as well as to dry grain. Sourcing propane elsewhere could drive the cost of ag production up, along with the cost of food for Canadian families. This would, without a doubt, hurt industry and competitiveness.

Canada's oil and gas sector suffered another tremendous blow with the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline project. Keystone was all about securing additional export markets for access for western Canadian crude, to help this struggling sector and secure better average prices for our resources. Another great threat to our economy is looming: the cancellation of one of the most vital supply lines in our country. Tens of thousands of good jobs are at risk and, with no doubt, there will be increasing costs for many goods and services.

While I appreciate the discussion today, I do find it somewhat ironic that many of the voices that we are hearing from were silent while the energy industry was struggling, other projects were being cancelled and capital was being deployed outside of our country. Today's discussion is a symptom of a much larger problem, a problem that is six years of relative inaction by the government. I agree with the Minister of Natural Resources that this industry is, and has been, a critical pillar of our economic success. He spoke today about the action the government has taken since this fall. The much larger question is: where has the government been for the last six years?

I acknowledge that Line 5 has the attention now, but where has the government been when it comes to supporting this critical industry? The government has had six years to negotiate an agreement on a North American energy strategy. The cancellation of Keystone XL and now this crisis on Line 5 demonstrate to me the lack of a proactive strategy by the government. I would also note that there is virtually no mention of this important sector in the budget and absolutely no mention of a strategy for greater energy, security and self-sufficiency.

I am a proud Albertan and I recognize the critical importance that the natural resource industry plays today and how critical it will be for our economic recovery. The government has sent many signals that do not support its argument that it sees this industry as being critical. Support is not demonstrated by enacting legislation like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. Canada has a critical trading relationship with the U.S., but we can also provide energy solutions for other jurisdictions and displace countries that do not extract resources to the same high and improving standards we have demonstrated.

In April of this year, there was a paper written by Philip Cross, and I would recommend reading it, with the title, “How oil sands investment and production benefit Canada's economy”. I would like to take this opportunity to share with colleagues a few of its salient quotes. This sector is one of the key supply sources of energy. “The oil sands are a uniquely Canadian success story and an increasingly rare example of innovation in Canada.” It is “important for the industry and governments in Canada to set the public record straight on what this industry has accomplished and its importance to Canada’s economy.” “The largest oil sands plants today are operated by Canadian companies...[such as] Suncor Energy, CNR, and Cenovus.” “Canada’s participation in the oil sands extends to First Nations.”

A number of indigenous ventures have participated in the oil sands: One Earth, Mikisew Group of Companies, Boucher, Tuccaro Group and Acden, to name a few. The economic benefits are enormous: $8.3 billion in oil sands investment represents 4.5% of all the business investment in Canada. “This exceeds all investments made by the retail trade industry, construction, or all business services, and is four times more than auto...” “Both investment and production in the oil sands are important to Canada’s economy...” Some $10 billion in investments results in Canada's GDP going up by 0.5% and increases overall employment by over 81,000. Combined with Ontario, Central Canada reaps about 13.6% of the jobs.

Canada's oil and natural gas resources are among the most responsibly produced energy resources on the planet, under the most stringent environmental regulations in the world. In Canada's oil sands, conditions have fallen significantly. According to data from the Government of Canada's 2019 national inventory report, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada's oil sands have fallen 34% per barrel since 1990, and they are going down further.

Media portrayals rarely present what the oil sands mine looks after the land has been rehabilitated, something all companies must commit to and set aside funds for when they begin operations. The boreal footprint of the oil sands is significantly less when compared with that of what is flooded to build massive hydro power projects.

Let us talk about a bit about innovation. The Alberta carbon trunk line system is the world's newest integrated large-scale carbon capture utilization and storage system. Designed as the backbone infrastructure needed to support a lower-carbon economy in Alberta, the ACTL system captures industrial emissions and delivers the CO2 to mature oil and gas reservoirs for use in enhanced oil recovery and permanent storage. As the largest capacity pipeline for CO2 from human activity, it is capable of transporting up to 14.6 million tonnes of CO2 per year, which represents 20% of all current oil sands emissions, or equal to the impact of capturing the CO2 from more than three million cars. The future of a lower-carbon economy relies on key infrastructure investments like the ACTL system to provide sustainable solutions to global energy requirements.

I wanted to illustrate today that we have these enormous assets and that we should recognize the fine work that industry has done to supply this important resource. Today I heard much discussion about an energy transition, but we are in the here and now. There are significant jobs at risk not only in the energy sector, but in sectors that depend upon a safe, secure supply of energy. Canada relies on exports to fuel our economy, and without the safe supply of energy, we run the risk of seeing our manufacturers, agricultural sectors and other industries go down, as they depend on this supply.

I have no doubt there will be a transition over time, but in the interim, I suggest that Canada has the opportunity to be a market leader in the supply of energy as we build into this transition. Oil will be critical during this transition, but we also have a tremendous opportunity to be an exporter of LNG and nuclear technology as we displace coal as an energy source.

Many speak about the new jobs that are about to be created to replace these valuable energy sector jobs, but I have yet to hear a substantive plan that demonstrates what those jobs will be and in what specific sectors they will be. The hard reality is we are a large country with a small population. We have built infrastructure and an impressive social safety net that supports people across the country. Much of this is as a result of the revenue produced from the natural resources and commodities that we have been blessed with. We should not lose sight of this important fact.

Line 5 is an important piece of this infrastructure, and shutting it down would have a dramatic impact on the citizens and industry in Ontario and Quebec. This makes us abundantly aware of the importance of energy security for our country. The last thing we want to rely on are alternatives for transportation, such as rail or truck traffic, or foreign markets for supply.

I hope the government will recognize not only the importance of Line 5, but also that the natural resources sector could be an important part of our future success. Jobs and people's economic well-being are at stake. My province has taken the brunt of the economic slowdown, and we are overdue for the government to do more than talk about the support of an industry. It should demonstrate with action.

It is time for the Prime Minister to show Canadians the specific plan for the natural resources sector and the thousands of jobs that this sector employs. The industry is ready and willing to be a substantive part of our economic recovery. This is about leadership, and it is also time for the Prime Minister to reach out to the President and reinforce the economic importance of energy security for both our countries, and ensure the continued operation of Line 5.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, Enbridge Energy's Line 5 pipeline could be shut down in a week. This is another example of the Liberal government's failure to act. We have known about the May 12 deadline for months, and the Liberals have done nothing. Pipelines and getting goods to market are topics that are very important to me and my constituents, and under the Liberals, we have seen countless energy projects and pipelines cancelled, pipelines that could have prevented this situation.

We have seen this government pass Bill C-48, the shipping ban bill, and Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill. Also, the Liberal government abandoned Albertans in failing to stand up for Keystone XL. Indeed, this government's record on pipelines is brutal. In cancelling energy east and northern gateway, and causing the cancellation of the Carmon Creek project, they have left 134,000 Canadian oil patch workers and their families in the lurch. When the Liberals stand up and say that this is about jobs, I say, yeah right, that is a bunch of BS. The Liberals are ashamed of Alberta and the prosperity that comes from our natural resources.

Canadians want good, ethical and responsibly sourced oil, yet we have refineries in Saint John, New Brunswick, that must take oil from countries with atrocious human rights records and no environmental protections whatsoever; measures that we do not have because of the national east-west pipeline that our Canadian oil is unable to get across this country.

Our Canadian oil is produced with some of the highest standards in the world. For now, we have the Line 5, which transports half a million barrels of oil a day from the Canadian west to the Canadian east, from production fields in Alberta to refineries in Ontario and Quebec. This is a win-win for all of Canada, and several provinces get their direct share of the benefits of our natural resource. Indeed, Canada needs more Canadian oil, not less. We need more Canadian energy, not less. We can share our energy. I know that Quebec is a world leader in hydroelectricity. Why can we not share that and go back and forth?

Pipelines are not just something to transport oil in. They are something that we transport all kinds of things in. As we transitioned from oil and moved to the production of natural gas, we switched over many pipelines from oil to natural gas. Who knows what in the future we will be transporting through these same pipelines. These pipelines will not become obsolete as we use less and less oil.

Moreover, we are at a crossroads here today. In fact, we are actually at the edge of the cliff in regard to Line 5 due to Liberal inaction. This pipeline that plays such a critical role in the Canadian economy could be shut down very soon. We did not have to be here. We could have had other pipeline projects initiated five years ago, which could have been in play today, and yet here we are with only one pipeline transporting oil from west to east.

This Line 5 pipeline plays such a critical role in the Canadian economy, and it could shut down very soon. With the closure of Line 5, the livelihoods of thousands of Canadians will be impacted. Not that the Liberals seemed to care when it was 134,000 Albertans who were losing their jobs because of the lack of pipelines, but today here we are with 5,000 direct jobs in the Sarnia region and 25,000 jobs in southern Ontario and Quebec impacted.

This pipeline provides $165 billion in revenue and thousands of indirect jobs both in Quebec and Ontario. We cannot abandon these jobs either. Just because this government does not want to stand up for jobs in Alberta does not mean that we should not stand up for these jobs in Ontario and Quebec. Justin Trudeau cannot and should not be choosing which jobs are worth saving. The energy sector—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member was able to stop himself from falling right out of the chair. That is good news.

I will point out to him that we do not measure things by how much money the government can spend on something. If the government wants to show support for our energy industry and allow it to be profitable, the best thing it could do is stop getting in the way of projects being built. That is how it could best help the industry. If we want to see projects get built, it could stop putting forward bills like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, which ended projects and cancelled projects in this country.

The government needs to allow those projects to move forward and serve the energy needs of our fellow Canadians and serve the energy needs of the world with some of the most environmentally friendly products found anywhere in the world. They are better for the environment by replacing less environmentally friendly sources, but also better for our economy in this country.

I know that member wants to see this country break up, but I want to see this country unified. That is why I am supporting what is happening here. It is unfortunate he does not want to get on board and do the same.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

It is a “ticking time bomb”. Those are the words of the office of the Governor of Michigan yesterday about the Line 5 pipeline. I will point out that those words are entirely inaccurate, but they highlight something that is incredibly important, which is that the Liberal government has failed to express upon the governor and our other friends in the United States the very clear importance of that pipeline. It has failed to secure it being able to continue past the May 12 deadline, which is six days from now. This is truly an emergency and a very urgent situation.

Before I go any further, I will point out that I will be sharing my time with the leader of the official opposition, who is one of the foremost champions in the country of this nation-unifying pipeline that would link energy producers in the west with energy consumers in the east, not to mention he is also one of the loudest advocates for our energy industry and oil and gas workers. Therefore, I am proud to share my time with him.

In contrast, the Liberal government is at it again, trying to find ways to land-lock Alberta oil and, frankly, stick it to Albertans. The Liberals have been abundantly clear on their distain for our energy industry and for our Canadian oil. Bill C-48, the shipping ban, Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill, and the Prime Minister's comment about the oil sands needing to be phased out are all very clear examples.

In the end, the Liberals are not just sticking it to Albertans when they do that; all Canadians will pay the price. They already cancelled things like northern gateway and energy east. Then there was the cancellation of the Keystone XL project by the U.S. administration a few short months ago. That was because of the complete inaction of the Liberal government. It failed to provide any tangible support for that project, which included the refusal to initiate a NAFTA challenge or to back any legal challenges in support of the project. One would think it would have learned something, but now Enbridge Line 5 is also in serious jeopardy.

In November of last year, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered Line 5 to be shut down on May 12. It is now May 6 and the Liberal government has not found a solution. It does not seem to understand the urgency here.

For decades, the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline has safely moved Canadian oil east from the Alberta oil sands, with a pipeline running through Wisconsin and Michigan. It is responsible for supplying half of the oil needs of Ontario and Quebec. Again, half of the oil needs of Ontario and Quebec are supplied through that pipeline. The pipeline is an essential part of the Canadian energy supply chain clearly and its cancellation would create immediate and alarming fuel shortages across Ontario and Quebec, would increase truck and rail transportation of oil, would increase fuel prices and create greater environmental risks. It sounds like we better deal with that.

Line 5 oil is refined in Sarnia into gasoline, diesel, home heating fuel and aviation fuel. It is also the main source of propane used in Ontario and Quebec.

Line 5 also feeds into Line 9, which carries oil to refineries in Montreal and Lévis for Quebec's supply needs. The Minister of Natural Resources has highlighted in the past that Line 5 delivers 66% of the crude oil consumed in Quebec.

This cancellation would impact one of the most vital supply lines in Canada, which has been operating for decades. Jobs are at stake and so is the increased costs of absolutely everything from gasoline to food across Ontario and Quebec. The Liberals need to ensure that this vital infrastructure link remains uninterrupted, that jobs are not lost and that Canadians are not forced to pay more for absolutely everything.

For instance, many farmers use the propane source from Line 5 to heat homes, barns and commercial greenhouses as well as to dry grain. Sourcing propane elsewhere will drive the costs of agriculture production up along with the cost of food for Canadian families. Further, 5,000 well-paying jobs would be lost in Sarnia alone if this project is cancelled, with thousands more in jeopardy in my home province of Alberta as well as across both Ontario and Quebec energy industries.

The Toronto Pearson airport relies on 100% of its jet fuel from Line 5. The airport would literally cease to operate without finding another source of fuel. As the St. Lawrence Corridor Economic Development Commission recently stated in a news release:

Simply put, this line is critical for our daily lives and shutting it down will mean there won’t be enough fuel to look after our needs from personal driving, transportation of groceries and goods, heating fuel and the fuel needs of industry and farms. Of course, this will affect refinery jobs in places like Sarnia – which expects to lose almost 5,000 quality high paying jobs but indirectly will affect an additional 23,500 jobs. Those jobs are held by real hardworking people. These jobs will be lost at a time that thousands of our neighbours, friends and family are already facing employment losses due to the pandemic.

From an environmental perspective, shutting down Line 5 would be a disaster. There would be an energy shortfall in Canada that would have to be obtained from other sources. Canadians are not simply going to be able to stop heating their homes or buying groceries. That means shipping oil and natural gas by rail, truck or ship, which are potentially more dangerous, potentially more costly and potentially more harmful to the environment. Sourcing the same amount of oil that Line 5 provides would require approximately 2,000 trucks or 800 railcars each day alone. It would also mean additional tankers in the St. Lawrence Seaway.

It is not just the shipping part that could impact the environment. If Line 5 closes, oil would need to be obtained from foreign sources, sources like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Azerbaijan and Nigeria, places that are not exactly known for their human rights or high environmental standards. Our standards in Canada and in my home province are far higher than any of the sources that would have to be used if Line 5 were to be shut down. The Liberal government is standing by while Line 5 is shut down. That, to me, sounds like a method to cut off one's nose to spite one's own face.

Alberta has the most environmentally friendly oil and gas in the entire world. Many Albertans right now are struggling. They are hurting. They are out of work and they just want the chance to go back to work. Then, of course, there is the problem we face with unity in this country. Many Albertans are frustrated and angry because they see no support from the current federal government in terms of being able to get their products to markets, in terms of being able to supply the energy needs of even their friends and neighbours across this country.

To me, it seems like a no-brainer that we would want a pipeline like this to continue to supply those needs, to provide that link between our western producers and eastern consumers, to make sure that our environment continues to have the best products it can in terms of oil and gas being good for our environment, in terms of keeping national unity going and making sure we can keep people in my province and all across this country working on something that is so crucial to our needs.

The Liberal government and the Prime Minister need to wake up. They need to wake up because Line 5 is crucial to Canada. It is crucial for jobs. It is crucial for the environment. It is crucial for national unity and it is crucial for all Canadians. They need to take action now. They cannot just talk about it. They need to get the job done, and they are not getting it done. I certainly hope they will be listening tonight, paying attention, understanding the importance of this project and making sure we can continue to keep this line open to serve our energy needs, to protect our environment and secure our national unity.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak today about my opposition to Bill C-15, an act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It is evident that much of our contemporary political debate is denominated in terms of human rights, with both sides' various questions using the language and philosophy of rights to justify their conclusions. This is most evident in contentious debates about social issues, where one person's assertion of a right to die is measured against another person's assertion of a right to encounter a health care system that does not make distinctions based on ability, or whether one person's assertion of a right to bodily autonomy conflicts with the potential claims of another person in terms of someone's right to life. In these cases, it clearly is not enough to say one is for or against human rights as such. Rather, one has to develop a procedure for determining which rights claims are valid and which are not, or for determining which rights claims can be justifiably abrogated, or for determining which rights claims take precedence in the case of a conflict.

When we are evaluating these questions of how to compare competing rights claims, it matters very much where we think rights come from. We need to establish where rights come from if we are to determine which rights claims exist and which rights claims take precedence. On this point, let us say there are three general categories of options. Rights either come from positive law, from social consensus or from nature.

Some seem to take the view that rights exist because they are called “rights” by the state or some multilateral body. This would imply that those rights only come into existence when the associated statutes or declarations are promulgated, and that nothing can be called a violation of rights if it is done legally. This view of rights would imply, falsely in my opinion, that no violation of human rights occurred in the context of horrific, violent actions against indigenous peoples in previous centuries, if those actions were legal. That seems to be a monstrous conclusion. I therefore reject the view that rights come from positive law. Arbitrarily depriving some of their lives, freedom, culture and community is a violation of their rights, regardless of whether it is recognized as such by domestic or international law.

The same general issues arise if we see rights as derived from social consensus. There have been many times and places in which a social consensus existed in favour of policies that also arbitrarily deprived people of their lives, freedom, culture and/or community. As such, if we wish to justify the conclusion that these acts of violence have always and would always constitute violations of human rights, then we must start from the premise that human rights emanate from nature as opposed to from law or convention: that is, human rights come from being human.

Deliberations in the House or international bodies about human rights are not fundamentally about creating rights, but rather about discovering rights. Rights are discovered, not invented. If rights exist in nature, as gravity exists in nature, then we should be able to identify a procedure for discovering rights objectively. Whether such a procedure can exist or not, it does not seem to be invoked often in this House. More often, we hear the assertion of the existence of a certain right as being self-evident. We hear a call for more rights, not fewer rights. We hear rights referred to as “hard won”, and perhaps referenced in the context of some domestic or international text deemed sacred by our legal tradition.

If rights come from nature, then members should argue for how we can know that a right exists, not simply point to a text that says it does. If rights come from nature as opposed to from text, then texts that claim to codify human rights may contain gaps, errors or other problems. It is possible to believe that human rights have all been correctly codified by UN documents because of some metaphysical process by which the deliberation of these bodies is protected from error. However, believing in this idea would require a kind of faith in a metaphysical process: a faith that I do not think can be grounded in reason alone.

The particular legislative proposal before us today, with respect to human rights, is to graft UNDRIP, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, onto existing law and practice in this area. Much of the debate today has centred around the importance of indigenous rights. I think we all agree about the importance of indigenous rights, but that is not really the core question we have to evaluate when determining whether to support this legislation.

The question really is about what impacts or changes the implementation of this legislation will have on existing rights frameworks, and whether those changes will advance human rights for indigenous peoples or not. With this question, I think it is also important to challenge some of the Hollywood-ized framing of indigenous communities. Many of us will have seen the 2009 movie Avatar: a movie about a group of human colonizers who seek to exploit and destroy a natural environment guarded by an indigenous community that lives in perfect harmony with it.

Although filmed in colour, the moral message of the film is very black and white. Those who fully absorb the message of this film will perhaps come to the conclusion that indigenous communities never want development, but this is, of course, false. The complex history of European settlement in North America involved a great deal of colonial violence and oppression, as well as mutually beneficial exchange and collaboration. Today, many indigenous communities want development.

As wonderful as being in harmony with nature in this sense is and that some people ideologize, generally development can be associated with higher standards of living and amenities associated with modern life. For me, defending indigenous rights means respecting the rights and choices of indigenous peoples, and indigenous nations acting autonomously to make their own choices about their own development paths. It is about competing balance: how they balance traditions with opportunities to develop in new ways. These are choices that individual communities and nations should be able to make for themselves.

Sadly, we have seen many attacks on indigenous rights by anti-development forces, advancing a kind of green colonialism based on this Avatar-informed view of the world, which seeks to force indigenous people to live in the equivalent of national parks even if they would much rather enjoy the benefits that come from resource development in terms of jobs and convenience.

While my friends on the political left like to assume that their opposition to natural resource development aligns them with the wishes of indigenous people, they are increasingly offside with the wishes of indigenous people in areas where resource development is taking place. The anti-development policies of this government are increasingly raising the ire of indigenous people and indigenous proponents of resource development projects, such as those seeking the construction of the Eagle Spirit pipeline, blocked by Bill C-48, or those indigenous people in the Arctic who were not consulted at all when the Prime Minister brought in a ban on drilling.

For reasons described earlier, these anti-development voices still frame their positions in terms of indigenous rights, believing that the right to say “no” to development is so much more important than the right of those same people to say “yes” to development. I think we all know and understand that this gets dicey in situations when the rights of some indigenous peoples come into conflict with the desires and rights of other indigenous peoples, when different peoples and different communities disagree about whether a particular project should proceed, or when indigenous proponents find themselves in conflict with members of their own or other communities over how to proceed on a development path.

Bill C-15 would establish a principle in law that there must be free, prior and informed consent for resource development to take place within an indigenous community, but it lacks significant clarity about who consents on behalf of indigenous communities or what happens when different communities, perhaps with competing legitimate claims to traditional presence in an area, disagree. The lack of clarity about who gets to decide will make it nearly impossible for indigenous communities that wish to develop their own resources to proceed.

We got a sense of the risk associated with this uncertainty last year, when the country faced widespread rail blockades in solidarity with some Wet'suwet'en protesters who opposed the Coastal GasLink project. Members of the House, at the time, seemed to believe that the opposition of a minority of hereditary chiefs required that the project be stopped on the grounds of indigenous rights.

These arguments came from an Avatar-inspired world view and a failure to take into consideration the legitimate competing rights claims of the majority of indigenous peoples affected by this project who supported it, the fact that all of the elected indigenous bodies responsible for this project had approved it, and the fact that those who, from a democratic perspective at least, were the representatives of those indigenous people wanted to say yes. It was enough for members of the House that people from a different hereditary leadership who claimed to speak on behalf of those nations wanted to say no. This is the problem that arises when we have competing rights claims. When we lack a procedure, and when there is ambiguity inserted in the law about how to resolve the desires of those people, it ends up always being a path of no development instead of a situation where those communities get to decide.

I am suspicious that members of the House who are promoting the bill in the name of indigenous rights are actually happy with that outcome. They are actually happy with an outcome in which development has a hard time proceeding, when investments do not get made even if indigenous people in a particular area, in association with a particular project, overwhelmingly want to see it happen.

As a member who cares deeply about human rights, and well-structured procedures and mechanisms for affirming those rights democratically, I think we need to recognize the existing rights frameworks we have in this country and build on them, but I do not think this particular legislation would do that. It would introduce more confusion and more challenges to development that would, in effect, deny the rights of indigenous peoples in cases where they want to make the choice to develop their resources.

Employment Insurance Act

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my excellent and hard-working colleague from Calgary Midnapore.

Today, we are debating Bill C-24. I have a couple of quick observations about the context of this debate. This is another example where we can clearly see the willingness of the Conservatives to work constructively on areas where we share a perspective on the need to move forward with the government on a particular bill. We saw this earlier this week: As a result of a Conservative motion, we were able to debate quickly and pass Bill C-18. Today, we have worked with the government to create a framework to move forward on Bill C-24.

In the case of both of these bills, there is a relevant deadline the government has ignored up until this point. The leadership of our party has pushed the government to move forward with things that are supposed to be its legislative priorities but have clearly not been. We see how the Prime Minister has been trying to spin a narrative that Parliament is not working, as a way to justify his plans for an election in the middle of a pandemic.

There is no doubt that the Conservatives do not support some aspects of the government's legislative agenda, and some require further study and debate. However, in this Parliament in particular, the 43rd Parliament, the Conservatives have worked constructively to quickly advance legislation when there is a shared sense of essential urgency on matters.

Bill C-24, like Bill C-18 and other legislative measures we have seen in this Parliament, is in the category of measures that we are supporting and have worked with the government to move forward. I hope the government, members of the media and the public will take note of the instances of co-operation that have taken place, often led by the Conservatives, and will point out the flaws in the narrative the Prime Minister is trying to spin to justify his pandemic election plans.

Bill C-24 is an important bill that expands benefit programs in the context of the pandemic, and the Conservatives are supportive of it. At the same time, we have highlighted the need for the government to have a broader vision of where our country is going economically in the midst of the pandemic and what we hope will soon be the economic recovery coming out of it.

While other parties are talking only about spending and the benefits, the Conservatives recognize the need to have strong economic growth as the basis for providing strong benefits. We have legitimately pointed out the issues around the significant debt and deficit we are accruing during this period of time. Other parties in the House want to present a false choice: either we support benefit programs and have dramatic growth in our debt and deficit or we do not have the debt and deficit and leave people out in the cold. We view that as a false choice. We believe it is very possible and indeed important to support a strong social safety net, but that exists on the foundation of a strong economy. If we support the development of a strong economy, with a vision for jobs, growth, opportunity and investment in this country that gives people the opportunity to work, then we also increase our capacity to provide people with support when they find themselves in situations where they are not able to work.

Our vision for an economy of the future is one that involves a strong economy, a strong community and a strong social safety net. We believe those elements need to exist in tandem. A strong economy means repealing some measures the Liberals have put in place, like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, which impede the development of our natural resource sector. It means working to strengthen our manufacturing sector. It means taking note of some problems, like the slave labour around the world that is producing cheap products that come into the Canadian marketplace. That is obviously terrible from a human rights and justice perspective, but it also impacts Canadian workers. It is an economic issue and a justice issue when human rights violations are linked to unfair trading practices.

We need to stand up for Canada's manufacturing sectors that may be impacted by those kinds of practices. We need to support the development of our natural resource sectors. We need to expand access to markets, especially in like-minded countries. That is why the Conservatives support working to expand trade and partnerships around the world with like-minded partners in the Asia-Pacific region. We are also looking to expand our economic engagement with Africa, building on some of the trade agreements we have signed previously, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Canada-EU free trade deal negotiated under the previous Conservative government.

We need to think about rationalizing regulations and approving projects that make sense so that Canada can once again be seen as an optimal destination for investment and growth. If that plan for investment, growth and jobs includes an appropriate respect for our natural resource and manufacturing sectors, we will be able to create the conditions that allow unemployed Canadians to get back to work.

That is the strong economy piece. Of course, a strong economy helps to generate the revenue for governments that allows governments to provide support to people without creating the kind of unmanageable deficits that we currently face. Having a strong economy is therefore very important.

I talked about a strong economy, strong communities and a strong social safety net. For many people who face challenges, whether they are unemployment challenges, health challenges or personal struggles of various kinds, the first line of support is the communities they are a part of. In recent decades, we have seen a decline in the strength of community ties, a greater social atomization. As a society, we need to think about how we can strengthen the forms of local community that are such a vital form of initial support. We should think of a big society, a strong society and strong community as being the first line of support and defence when people are confronted with various challenges in their lives.

Part of how the national government can be a part of supporting the idea of strengthening the community is to work constructively in partnership with community organizations and look for opportunities to learn from what communities are doing. These could be cultural associations, faith communities or service clubs. We should better partner with local organizations in the delivery of public services.

There are so many ways this applies. One thing that has been a great interest of mine is the model for the private sponsorship of refugees. Through it, the government works collaboratively with private organizations that are sponsoring refugees to come to Canada. We know that those who have community connections through private sponsorship generally have better outcomes than people who are publicly sponsored, because those who are publicly sponsored are not immediately brought into an existing community that knows them and wants to work with them. Across the board, whether it is combatting addictions, supporting families, addressing joblessness or addressing recidivism, the government needs to have a much better vision of the opportunity for partnership as a means of addressing challenges and building strong communities.

As I said, we need a strong economy, a strong community and then a strong social safety net. If we have the strong community and strong economy pieces in place, we will also be in a position collectively to put the full extent of our resources into supporting those who fall through the cracks with a strong social safety net.

The Conservatives are very supportive of that. We believe, though, that if we neglect the strong economy and the strong community pieces, it will become much more difficult to have a strong social safety net while preserving some degree of fiscal sanity. What we see with the government is a desire to push forward spending on the social safety net, but a lack of vision for the strong economy and strong community pieces.

The social safety net needs to be there for those who are not able to benefit from a strong economy or from strong community structures that are in place. However, if we only have the social safety net piece, and not the economy piece or the community piece, then the pressure that falls on that social safety net will be so significant that we will find ourselves in an unsustainable fiscal situation. That is the challenge we need—

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague comes from Saskatchewan and I am from Alberta; we have similar issues with the impact on energy workers. There is a lot of frustration with some of the earlier bills, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. We know those bills predate the pandemic. However, when we are thinking about how the economy is going to recover post-pandemic, those bills are a big barrier to Canada's looking like an attractive investment destination.

Could the member speak further to some of that legislation and share his feedback on what could and should be done in response to that climate of Canada's not looking like a great place to invest with these bills in place, particularly in the context of our energy sector?