Bill C-48 (Historical)

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Economy

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consideration of Government Business No. 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

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

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

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

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

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

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

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

Oil and Gas Industry

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

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

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

Natural Resources

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

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

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

Canadian Energy Sector

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, after ten years of Liberal anti-energy laws, over 176 billion dollars' worth of energy projects have been scrapped. Bills such as Bill C-69, the so-called “no new energy pipelines” law, and Bill C-48, along with the job-killing carbon tax, have created so much red tape and uncertainty that energy companies will not even invest here anymore.

In the B.C. interior, countless families depend on the oil and gas sector to put food on the table. Even our regional airports rely on flight revenues tied to energy-related travel and investment, but because of stalled pipelines, investment and job creation have dried up, not just in my riding, but across Canada.

If the Liberals are serious about making Canada an energy superpower, they need to repeal their own anti-energy agenda, lift Bill C-69, remove Bill C-48, kill the industrial carbon tax and get Canadians back to work by finally tapping into our natural resources.

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

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, where is Canada after this last, lost, anti-development Liberal decade? Only 11 years ago, Canada became internationally recognized as home to the richest and biggest middle class in the world, with more children lifted out of poverty than ever before. Heading into 2015, the budget was under control, with a billion-dollar surplus, and Canada's economy was the strongest in the G7, the last in and the first out of the great global recession.

Today, Canada's economy has fallen behind those of our allies. Productivity lags. Workers cannot make ends meet and wonder whose job will be gone next. Canada's natural wealth sits idle in the ground and offshore. Investment heads south and to other countries. Families, and people with no one else to count on but themself, fall further behind. Young people lose hope for their future and wonder whether they will ever be able to afford a home, build up a nest egg or actually capture their big dreams.

Communities lose opportunities and dwindle. Businesses close due to excessive red tape, taxes, costs and constant uncertainty, and they have to reduce their charitable and community contributions. Violence, crime, mental distress and suicide, especially among rural men, are on a steady rise.

Killing energy projects does not just cost jobs; it also costs communities. It takes away critical revenue to build roads and bridges. It takes away revenue for critical supports for social programs; to build arenas; to support health care, like the long-term partnerships with the Lloydminster and Bonnyville regional health foundations and energy companies; and to build schools and universities.

Today, Canada works for the super-rich, the well established, the elites, the well-connected, the big companies of all kinds, mostly foreign-founded and multinationals. It does not work for the Canadian people who do the work, take big risks and build big projects: individual entrepreneurs, small business owners, innovators, and workers and contractors who fuel, feed and power this country for our Canadian people. That is the Liberal legacy; the cost to Canadians is real, and it is staggering.

Today, we as MPs find ourselves in an odd position. The very same government that inflicted the last decade of anti-energy, anti-private-sector death by delay and uncertainty on natural resource workers and businesses in every corner of Canada, that harmed all the secondary and tertiary sectors that depend on it everywhere, that sent allies away in dire need of Canadian resources, and that divided our country, pitting Canadians, provinces, businesses and sectors against each other, suddenly claims to want big natural resources and infrastructure projects to get built in Canada, so it brought in Bill C-5, with all kinds of big promises.

However, at its heart, Bill C-5 is really a glaring admission that everything the Liberals have done for the last 10 years has made Canada a place where the red tape and constantly changing goalposts get to “no”, and nothing can get built efficiently or affordably.

The real question is this: Would the Liberals' Bill C-5 really clean up the colossal mess the Liberals themselves have made? Where are the projects held back by the lost Liberal decade? Where are the investments that would have created prosperity for every single Canadian? Where are the thousands of well-paid jobs for Canadians everywhere, and especially in rural, remote, northern, Atlantic and indigenous communities that need them most? Where are the revenues for all three levels of government to fund public services and programs, build public infrastructure and support communities?

Where has all that gone, and how much are we talking about here anyway? Well, Canada has lost $670 billion in cancelled oil, gas, LNG and pipeline projects alone since 2015, due completely to the Liberals' anti-energy, anti-development messages, policies and laws.

On Wednesday night, in committee of the whole, the minister and I discussed Bill C-5 a bit. I suggested an obvious, immediate first step, if the Liberals really want to get Canadians working and building to strengthen Canada's economy and sovereignty, that would not require weeks and months of delay, meeting after meeting, and press conference promises with very few details.

The minister said I brought up “hypothetical projects”, and he refused to say whether they met his factors for projects in the national interest, which the Liberals themselves will decide. That was alarming in itself, since the projects I mentioned are real projects, with real proponents, that would offer real jobs with powerful paycheques for Canadians and long-term tax revenue for all three levels of government. Real businesses are paying real money and losing real time trying to get to build their big projects. The problem is that they are stuck in one form of federal regulation or red tape right now.

The immediate solution is blindingly obvious, without all the extra rigamarole, uncertainty and time delays. What was extra weird about the minister's evasion is that of the five vague factors the Liberals have outlined for Bill C-5, which they will use themselves to decide what is in the national interest, two of these factors are that projects must bring economic or other benefits to Canada and that they must have a high likelihood of successful execution. Clearly the top priority action, then, to fast-track efficiently should be all the projects and proponents stuck in red tape right now by the Liberals' own conditions.

Where is the Crawford nickel-cobalt mine project near Timmins, Ontario? It was proposed in 2020 but is stuck in the regulatory mess the Liberals created. Where is the Troilus gold and copper mining project in Quebec? It has been stuck in the regulator since 2023. Where are the Rook I uranium mine and Denison uranium mine projects in northern Saskatchewan? They were proposed in 2019 and are both still stuck. Where is the Bruce C nuclear project planned for Ontario? It is stuck in double layers of regulatory review.

It is no wonder Canada ranks dead last in the G7 for development. The projects are not only lost in red tape; they also seem to be lost completely from consideration by the minister, since he was so adamant on Tuesday night that they did not exist. They are five projects, five chances to grow Canada's economy, five chances to lead the world in energy, innovation, responsible resource development and indigenous opportunities.

Of course, it is not only those five projects. In fact, there are dozens of major energy, nuclear, critical mineral and indigenous-backed resource road proposals that are stuck in limbo right now at the federal level. These projects are not theoretical; they have names, investors and local support. They have involved years of engineering, technical, environmental and consultation work, risk and investment.

The missing piece is a federal government with a will to fast-track the assessments through the regulatory maze it created itself, to approve them efficiently and to back proponents once they approve them so proponents can actually build on their time and on their dime. In Bill C-69, as would also be the case in Bill C-5, cabinet is the final decision-maker, with all the power.

Currently, both officials and ministers already have significant sweeping powers to start, stop, restart, extend, delay and suspend, and to change the rules and start all over again as many times as they want. It is no wonder things cannot get built. The government also has the power to fast-track the projects right now. Instead, it ignores all the real and ready projects, proponents and people, and has brought in a short-term workaround of its own bad policies and laws, Bill C-5.

The Liberals talk about emissions reduction and imposed electric vehicle mandates, and they want so-called green growth, but they stalled the very projects needed to make all that happen. We cannot build electric vehicles without nickel, lithium and cobalt, currently dominated by China. We cannot power a reliable, affordable modern grid without uranium and natural gas. We cannot reduce emissions and build new technology without the innovation, jobs and revenues that come from responsible Canadian resource development, mostly from traditional oil and gas, and from pipeline companies.

Alberta is an example. By 2023, Alberta oil sands reduced emissions intensity while growing production by 96%. Alberta leads the country in alternative energy development too, as in fact it always has.

According to the federal government's national inventory report from 2025, Alberta had the largest absolute reduction in emissions of any Canadian province between 2022 and 2023. That is the truth the Liberals will not tell Canadians. Albertans cut emissions not by shutting down, but by showing up and building through free enterprise, innovation and technology, getting better emissions reduction results, real emissions reduction results, without killing jobs or driving away investment. However, the Liberal government still treats as problems not solutions Alberta and every province that develops resources, those of us in the so-called ROC, the rest of Canada, that politicians in Ottawa usually ignore. The Liberals punish the most responsible energy producers in the world and give a free pass to foreign polluters. They celebrate emissions reductions in Canada when they come from lockdowns, lost jobs and bankrupt businesses.

Canadians cannot afford essentials because the government drives up costs and imposes unrealistic targets on power and fuel. It is worse when the facts do not fit the Liberals' narrative. When it turns out that Alberta reduces emissions the most, the Liberals stay silent. When LNG could displace coal from growing energy demand in Asia, India and Africa from B.C., or help secure European energy needs and cut dependence on Russia, the Liberals turn allies away. When western provinces want to build major projects or northerners want to mine and drill offshore, the Liberals deny, ban and delay. When Atlantic Canadians want to drill offshore, ship LNG to Europe or have a pipeline to bring western oil to eastern refineries so future generations of Atlantic Canadians can stay home with jobs and abundant opportunities, the Liberals interfere and then look away.

Let me pause here to tell members how important that issue is to me, because the fact is that Atlantic Canadians and Albertans are inextricably linked. We have helped build each other's provinces in the best interests of all Canadians. I say that as a first-generation born-and-raised Albertan and the daughter of a Nova Scotian and a Newfoundlander.

The Liberals spend years talking about reconciliation, yet delay, risk or kill pipelines, roads, mining projects and LNG opportunities that so many indigenous leaders, elders, youth, entrepreneurs and workers spent years negotiating with businesses to get jobs, to get their own-source revenue and to do environmental oversight in a good way. The Liberals claim to support first nations but deny them the opportunity to own, to build, to partner and to profit. It is not reconciliation when Ottawa decides who can build and who must wait. It is not partnership when one side always says no. It is not respect when indigenous voices are ignored because they want to make their own development decisions and exercise their rights and title.

The bill that we are debating today proves what Conservatives have said all along: The Liberals' antidevelopment agenda kills Canadian jobs, kills Canadian investment, weakens Canada's security, unity and sovereignty, and has made our country a risky place where nothing can get built and where uncompetitive, pancaked and incoherent taxes, laws and policies; uncertainty; and constantly changing goalposts deter big projects from our own country.

Canadians deserve a plan based on facts and results, not vague statements and delay from the same government that caused the problems it suddenly now claims to want to fix. The consequences of the Liberals' antidevelopment decade are growing poverty, not prosperity, and fractured national unity. The Liberals pit Canadians against each other and attack Albertan businesses in particular with constant misinformation and myths.

The reality is that when Alberta builds and grows, so does Canada, and when Alberta is strong, so is Canada. Albertans have been there all along with our friends from Saskatchewan and from Atlantic Canada. We have just been asking the Liberals to help get the country's top export from the industry that is still the biggest investor in Canada's declining economy by far, whether the anti-energy zealots like it or not, to more markets globally so Canada is not dependent on the United States.

Ten years later, ten years of this lost last antidevelopment Liberal decade, Canada faces economic, security and sovereignty threats from our closest ally, the world's biggest economy, our biggest customer and now, because the Liberals held Canada back every step of the way, our biggest competitor. Canadians cannot afford essentials, because the government drove up the costs of power and fuel for everyone.

Make no mistake; it did not have to be this way. With all due respect, by which I mean almost none, the time to “build Canada” and make our country self-reliant, secure, united and strong was the last decade. The answer has always been to unleash Canada's natural resources and increase production and export customers, as Conservatives and only Conservatives have consistently and unequivocally advocated the entire time. This was never actually an even-sided theoretical or philosophical debate. It has always been simply the fiscal and economic reality of our country.

Canadians deserve a government that backs them, not a government that blocks them and not a government that pees down our leg and tells us it is raining. Bill C-5 is breadcrumbs and baby steps, not a real breakthrough of Liberal-inflicted barriers on Canada. Our country needs real change and long-term, concrete certainty for the private sector and for Canadian workers to make us autonomous, resilient and secure, as the Liberals say they want to do now, even though they have been in charge around here for the last 10 years.

What would that actually look like? It would mean fixing the fundamentals and repealing the failed “no new pipelines, never build anything” bill, Bill C-69, which is rife with uncertainty; which has no concrete timelines despite Liberal claims, arbitrary and unrelated conditions, political interference and jurisdictional overreach; and which the provinces, territories, businesses and indigenous groups all oppose or want to overhaul. The Supreme Court declared Bill C-69 unconstitutional for every single reason that Conservatives, and it happened to be me, warned about during the debates. However, Liberals ignored this entire Conservative team, all the premiers, all the territorial leaders, the private sector and the Senate and rammed it through anyway.

The government should repeal the shipping ban bill, Bill C-48, which blocks dedicated export routes for Canada's much-needed energy to countries with actual emerging markets that need Canadian energy and technology in Asia, like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, and to European allies like Germany, Latvia, Ukraine, Greece and Poland.

The geopolitical security aspects of this issue, obviously, cannot be overstated. That ban signals that shipping may be blocked by the government off any coast, just like its offshore unilateral drilling bans and antidevelopment zones on land and in water, but it stays. Clearly, the Liberals are A-okay with Canada's allies and other countries getting energy they will continue to want long into the future from the U.S. or from foreign regimes like Venezuela, Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia over Canada, with much lower environmental, labour and safety standards and where the benefits usually only go to a wealthy few.

The government should repeal the Canadian oil and gas cap that will cut Canadian energy production by 5%, kill over 50,000 jobs and remove over $20 billion from Canada's GDP. That is self-inflicted sabotage that no other country in the world is doing to itself and totally nonsensical for what is actually a radical anti-energy government suddenly plagiarizing, like someone's thesis, the former Conservative government's vision for Canada as an energy superpower.

While the minister and his Liberal buddies laughed when I asked questions about job losses, Canadians stress, wondering where their next paycheque will come from. In 2021, TD Economics projected that of Canadian oil and gas jobs, up to 75% could disappear by 2050. The Liberals call it a transition for Canada. It is devastation.

The Liberals should repeal the globalist, top-down economic restructuring, just transition plan in Bill C-50 that they already know will threaten the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians and cause labour disruptions, which is bureaucratese for job losses, for 642,000 workers in the transportation sector, almost 300,000 agriculture workers, 202,000 energy workers and, get this, 193,000 in Canada's important manufacturing sector, which is maybe more important than ever before, given this world becoming more dangerous and the global threats that Canada faces because this Liberal government has failed us.

The truth is, the future does not look brighter with the same government pretending to be a new one. TD reports the unemployment rate in Canada has risen to its highest rate since 2016, outside of COVID, to 7%, and 100,000 jobs are to be lost by the third quarter of this year. The job outlook for students is even worse, with a 20% unemployment rate; that is the highest since the 2008 recession. In fact, Canadian manufacturing has lost 55,000 jobs in a period of only four months. This is not getting Canada on track; it is the continued track record of the same Liberal government, and we know what they say about lipstick on a pig.

It was not always this way. Under the former Conservative government, Canada ranked fourth for ease of doing business of all countries in the world. However, by 2020, with the Liberals, Canada had fallen to 24th, behind Georgia and Thailand. Today, Canada ranks near the bottom globally for construction permits, property registration, securing electricity and cross-border trade. In fact, Canada is ranked second worst in the OECD for construction permit timelines because of the Liberals.

The Liberals' blocked projects, hiked taxes and doubled debt have made Canada 30% less productive than the U.S. today. Since 2015, $5.6 trillion has left Canada for the U.S. That is not a coincidence; that is a Liberal consequence. The trend of Canadian investment up in the U.S. and U.S. investment down in Canada is a historic anomaly caused squarely, and for the first time ever, by the Liberals' damaging economic and energy policies.

Just last week, StatsCan reported a more than 5% decline in forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas since last spring. Declines in primary and resource-producing sectors impact everything else. Ontarians now face the worst unemployment, outside COVID, since 2013. In April alone, Ontario lost 33,000 manufacturing jobs. Tens of thousands of real people lost their jobs while the Liberals patronized and laughed at opposition MPs fighting for those workers. It is a travesty that it has taken global instability, external threats, growing conflicts and a cost-of-living crisis that the Liberals created for them to even appear to take notice.

Canadians now know, without a doubt, that energy security means food, job and national security for Canada. Last year, the energy sector contributed 7.7% of GDP, or $208.8 billion, to Canada; 446,600 Canadian workers, including 10,800 indigenous people, relied on natural resources. My point here is that none of this is accidental or externally inflicted on Canada. It is the direct result of domestic antidevelopment laws and policies. Canada's top global energy and resource competitors have ramped up their production of all kinds in the same time period, with much lower standards than Canada.

We now arrive at Bill C-5. The current Prime Minister, who advised the last one for half a decade and is well known for his global advocacy to keep resources in the ground, has not actually explained whether he has had some kind of major philosophical metamorphosis, transformation and awakening from all his previous values and views but nevertheless has met with premiers and businesses and suddenly claims to want to do what Conservatives have been urging the gatekeeping, road-blocking, radical Liberals to do the entire time, which is to build, build, build.

However, there are a lot of questions. Let us start at the beginning. As of right now, the Liberals say five factors will be considered to determine whether projects are in the national interest. Bill C-5 says a project must “strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience and security”; “provide economic or other”, whatever that means, “benefits to Canada”; “have a high likelihood of successful execution”; “advance the interests of Indigenous peoples”; and “contribute to clean growth and to meeting Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change.”

Now, it is worth a a pause here to point out that most Canadians would likely be shocked that these factors are not already part of regulatory and cabinet decision-making and may rightly wonder what the heck the government has been thinking about for the past decade.

Also, it is worth noting that these concepts are broad enough that any interpretation or any argument could be made about each factor either way for any project, which is, of course, automatically and inherently uncertain, and wide open to manipulation and ideological or politically connected decision-making. So much for objective, technology- and sector-agnostic, predictable, clear, certain and evidence-based decision-making in Canada.

As of right now, there is no public list of projects. Now, the Prime Minister says he is getting lists from provinces, and some premiers have said what their asks are, yet the minister claims there is no list and that that will happen after Bill C-5 is law. The minister specifically said on Wednesday, and I meant Wednesday earlier when I said Tuesday, that “when the projects are designated, they will be made public.”

Do the projects drive the legislation, or does the legislation drive the projects? Do they have a list from premiers or do they not? Nobody knows, because of mixed messages and misleading answers. What is clear is that the whole thing is a politically driven and determined process, which is, actually, already exactly what the Liberals have been doing for the last decade. That is the opposite of clarity and certainty--

Canadian Energy Sector

[David McKenzie, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has spent 10 years strangling Canada's energy sector with red tape and anti-energy laws and policy. The world came to us to ask for our help in supporting its energy security, and the former Liberal prime minister said no, that there was no business case.

The fact is that pipelines and infrastructure will not be built because of four Liberal laws: Bill C-69, the “no new pipelines” act; Bill C-48, the west coast shipping ban; the job-killing oil and gas production cap; and the industrial carbon tax. Canada does not need the Liberal government to build pipelines. Canada needs the Liberal government to get out of the way so that the private sector can build our infrastructure and, in fact, make Canada an energy superpower.

Canadians call on the Liberal government to repeal their anti-energy laws and not just add more red tape to the pile. Let us stop the self-sabotage.

Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates (A), 2025-26

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

Mr. Chair, that is one, and it needed an exemption from Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and the carbon tax.

I am going to ask the minister this again. How many projects are they going to be cutting the ribbon for that did not need an exemption from the laws of the Liberal government of the last 10 years?