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.

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will resume third reading debate on Bill C-48 on the oil tanker moratorium. The debate shall continue tomorrow.

On Monday, we will start report stage and third reading of Bill C-65 on harassment. Tuesday will be an allotted day.

Next Wednesday, in accordance with the order adopted on April 26, the House will resolve itself into a committee of the whole following question period to welcome the athletes of the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic and Paralympic Games. Afterward, the House will proceed with debate at report stage and third reading of Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act.

Next Thursday, we will only begin the debate of Bill C-76, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act. As members have heard in this House numerous times, we are committed to seeing more people participate in democracy. I have always committed to ensuring that there is a reasonable amount of time to debate and also to ensure that the committee can do its work. Therefore, I look forward to hearing from all parties how much time is needed so that we can continue to ensure that legislation is advanced in a timely fashion.

Just quickly, Mr. Speaker, I want the opposition House leader and all colleagues to know that this is our parliamentary family, and we are always going to be here to work together. We know that in the days and weeks and years to come, there might be times that we need to lean on each other, and we will always be here to do that, and I know the opposition does the same. We sincerely appreciate those kind words today. Our thoughts and prayers are with the members.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Karen McCrimmon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand in the House today and speak to Bill C-48. In my opinion, it is a very balanced, comprehensive framework for a responsible and sustainable future. It would protect our precious coastal communities of northern British Columbia while supporting those communities as they enjoy the ability to grow and prosper in that beautiful part of the world.

It really does not matter which ocean one is facing. Whether it be the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic oceans, the health and protection of our coasts are critical to our environment, to our economy, and to all Canadians. In today's competitive markets, ensuring that the import and export of products is done in a safe and efficient manner is paramount to the vitality of globalized economies.

In Canada, our domestic shipping industry is the linchpin to our supply chain that allows us to competitively engage in the international marketplace. With a direct contribution of $3 billion annually to Canada's gross domestic product, transporting approximately $200 billion in international goods, the value of a strong domestic shipping industry is unquestionable. The marine industry not only ensures that our goods get to market, but it also provides essential supplies to rural and coastal communities. British Columbia's coastal communities know how important these resupply activities are.

British Columbians will also tell us that what they truly love about living on Canada's Pacific coast is the extraordinary beauty and the breathtaking landscapes, which they rely upon for food, for cultural activities, and for their very livelihoods. The abundance of nature's bounty is a cornerstone of their quality of life.

Obtaining the right balance of safe and efficient marine shipping while protecting our coastal waterways is top of mind for our government. To help preserve and protect our national heritage across all of Canada's coasts, we are investing $1.5 billion over five years in our national oceans protection plan. In parallel, we are also moving forward with Bill C-48, which proposes to formalize an oil tanker moratorium on British Columbia's north coast. This moratorium complements our ambitious oceans protection plan.

The goal of the oceans protection plan, and Canadians' expectation, is that a strong economy and a healthy environment go hand in hand. This is an unwavering commitment. Formalizing an oil tanker moratorium that would ban oil tankers from stopping along British Columbia's environmentally sensitive north coast is an important element of this commitment. While still allowing critical local resupply activities to continue, this moratorium would help protect the north shores of British Columbia and still enable communities to develop economically. This proposed legislation underscores that our government is serious about encouraging long-term economic growth in a way that does not harm our marine or coastal environments.

Given that the volume of goods moved by marine shipping has increased by almost 20% over the past decade, Canada needs to be well prepared for the associated risks of increased trade and marine development. Our goal is first and foremost to prevent incidents from occurring, and in the unfortunate event that they do take place, minimize their impacts on the environment, on local communities, and on the economy.

This proposed legislation builds on a solid foundation. Canada has had a comprehensive, multi-layered marine safety system in place for many years. This is reflected in our safety record. Although accidents have occasionally occurred in Canada, there has not been a major incident in decades.

Complementary to this legislation, the oceans protection plan will make important investments in science to better understand how oil behaves in water and to research more effective technologies for spill cleanup, including through partnerships with external research institutions and academia. In addition, we are significantly increasing our capacity to prevent incidents through investments, such as increased towing capacity for the Canadian Coast Guard. Through these initiatives, we want to build an economy that prioritizes responsible and sustainable growth.

I want to acknowledge that the shipping industry has evolved over the years to enhance its safety record. Design and construction have improved, as have safety and communications equipment. Seafarers are better trained than in the past. Lifeboat design and drills have also improved. All these contribute greatly to marine safety and security. Despite the relatively strong safety record that Canada enjoys, there is room for improvement.

We need to address gaps and continue to build a world-leading system that will keep pace with the growth and developments in the marine transportation industries. Canada needs to position itself for a future characterized by emerging and disruptive technologies, and new approaches. Connectivity and automation will have far-reaching impacts on the transportation sector and the economy as a whole.

Transport Canada is the federal department that oversees a comprehensive legislative and regulatory system that ensures marine transportation remains safe and efficient, and protects our marine environment. Canada has more than 60 marine safety regulations. The key components of this existing safety regime include compulsory pilotage areas in sensitive or busy waterways where marine pilots with local knowledge of the area are required, and marine safety inspectors to ensure that all vessels, including tankers, meet the strict safety requirements in Canadian law.

Building on this record of excellence and marine safety measures already announced under the national oceans protection plan, Bill C-48 would add another layer of protection. It would not only protect one of British Columbia's most sensitive marine environments, but would also complement several other initiatives that promote marine innovation in support of safe and environmentally friendly marine shipping.

In 2016, Transport Canada consulted Canadians on our transportation system. On the subject of the environment and innovation, Canadians told us that pollution should be reduced in all modes of transportation by using options such as alternative fuels and electric power. They also told us that government incentives and regulations can encourage the use of new technologies.

For example, the shore power technology for ports program is part of our effort to limit air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and to improve air quality in ports near major cities. The program reduces emissions by allowing docked ships to turn off their auxiliary diesel engines and connect to electric power. This is one way Canada is acting on its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17% from 2005 levels, and to do it by 2020. So far, seven ports have received funding under this program, five of which are in British Columbia, totalling $9.5 million for the B.C. ports.

Since January 1, 2015, under the North American emission control area in coastal waters, vessels operating in Canada must use fuel with a maximum sulphur content of .01%, or use technology that results in equivalent sulphur emissions to reduce air pollutants. These regulatory changes enacted by both Canada and the U.S. are expected to reduce sulphur oxides by 96%. This is another important example of how government uses incentives and regulations to enable the marine industry to develop innovative solutions to complex problems and invest in new technologies.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

moved that Bill C-48, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

moved that Bill C-48, 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, as amended, be concurred in.

The House resumed from April 30 consideration of Bill C-48, 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of Motions Nos. 1 and 2.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today we have heard many intelligent comments about Bill C-48 from many people with an extreme amount of knowledge on this topic, and there have been many questions of those people. Maybe that leaves me with rhetoric. I do not know what is left to say, but I will try.

Trade has always been a pivotal component of life in Canada. Long ago, before European settlement, indigenous peoples traded prolifically. On the British Columbia coast, much of that trade was conducted by water. For example, the Haida Nation made use of large commercial canoes to achieve great prosperity along the Pacific coast. It is quite remarkable that this legislation makes such a radical departure from Canadian history. In Canada we have some of the most lucrative trading goods in the history of humanity at our disposal, namely oil and gas, but we cannot trade them, because we cannot access the market to do it. It seems a betrayal of Canada's historical legacy as a trading nation.

Unfortunately, this oil tanker moratorium appears to be just another stage of the government's plan to phase out Canada's energy sector. We desperately need to diversify Canada's export markets for oil and gas, yet Bill C-48 would take further steps to limit access to tidewater for Canadian oil. It is not just a tanker moratorium; it is a pipeline moratorium. The government has increasingly demonstrated that its agenda is dictated by radical activists and the foreign donors who support them. These people want Canada to be nothing more than a giant nature preserve.

Of course, we do have vast areas of pristine wilderness that I think all Canadians are proud of. I have been on the coast of Newfoundland all the way down to New Brunswick. It is a beautiful coastline. I was probably on the Pacific Rim, which is now the Pacific Rim National Park, before many people in the House were born. I have been on the tide pools and the coast and the beautiful Pacific part of Vancouver Island. Some members are older, which the minister might be, but some of us are a little older than he is.

I know that the Prime Minister was just in Europe, in France and Paris, and he apologized about being so slow to phase out the energy sector. It might have shocked his audience to find that Canada is not just one large nature preserve. People live here in Canada and people across the country work in the Canadian energy industry, and those people are being hurt by the government's disregard of the Canadian energy sector. In my riding of Bow River, the job losses have been catastrophic. People need pipelines with oil going to foreign markets. These people are highly skilled and highly trained. They may have found other jobs in other sectors, but they are much lower paying and are not using their highly trained skills.

Those foreign markets need oil. Global demand is growing. It is projected to keep growing at least for the next 30 years, especially in the Asia-Pacific region that we need to reach from the west coast. Let us get our economy back on track and meet this global demand.

As it stands, we are selling our oil at a huge discount to the United States. The U.S. sells it back to us to refine in New Brunswick refineries at the full market price. It is like building a car in Canada for $30,000 but having only one market, which offers us $15,000, and we take it, and then they sell it back to us for $30,000, because we have no choice.

By some estimates, the losses amount to at least a large school a day and a major hospital a week being built in the United States instead of in Canada. Hundreds of millions of dollars are lost because we cannot diversify our energy exports. It is a ridiculous situation. It is embarrassing to our country on the international stage when we look at countries that trade. Despite this totally unacceptable situation, we have learned that the government is funding anti-pipeline activists through the Canada summer jobs program, yet in my constituency, summer camps cannot get any money for summer jobs.

One constituent told me today that if people are convicted of obstructing justice, they should immediately be put on a no-fly list. They could not fly if they were convicted of obstructing justice while protesting. That is an interesting concept.

The government can dismiss the reality with its favourite talking points all it wants, but the issue is a lot more complicated than a talking point. Oil products are already shipped safely in and out of ports across Atlantic Canada and B.C. If we have to distill it down to a sound bite in the way the government likes to, let us put it like this: Venezuelan oil is shipped up the St. Lawrence to Montreal. If both those coasts were travelled on both sides of the St. Lawrence, one would find some of the most natural beauty in our country. It is very different on one side and the other, yet we are shipping large oil tankers all the way up the St. Lawrence to Montreal.

We are shipping Saudi Arabian oil to the east coast through the many islands to get to the refineries in St. John. If one has travelled on those islands and seen the beautiful coast, one knows we have skilled pilots on the west coast. It is tricky to get through to St. John's as well, but we are allowed to do that. Canadian oil is okay for Vancouver but not northern B.C. It does not make much sense when one puts it like that, but that is exactly what this legislation would implement.

This bill is yet another signal to investors that Canada's energy sector should be avoided. That is a travesty, especially since our former Conservative government already implemented responsible tanker safety regulations and established a world-class tanker safety system in 2014. That legislation modernized Canada's navigation system. It enhanced area response planning. However, we have had colleagues say we could do more. Well, we could do more. It built marine safety capacity in aboriginal communities and ensured polluters pay for spills and damages.

What we should be doing is building upon that successful safety record. Let us build more. We should be harnessing Canadian ingenuity and the great skills that our pilots have on the west coast. We should be collaborating with regional and indigenous stakeholders to develop even safer mechanisms for our coasts. We could maybe export that to the rest of the world. That is the logical next step, not a moratorium that would prevent any possibility of progress. Furthermore, a voluntary exclusion zone of 100 kilometres for oil tankers travelling from Alaska has already been in place since 1985 just beside this area.

Look at the current investment climate. Why pass legislation that does nothing more than remind investors of the government's attitude toward oil and gas? I guess what Maslow said was right. He said that when someone only has a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. This legislation is nothing more than a nail in the coffin of investor confidence in Canada.

Some $80 billion in investment has now been driven out of Canada. I hear about this in my constituency. That is a huge number, but the devastating impact of the government's attitude toward oil and gas is not limited to investors. The indigenous nations mentioned earlier have sued the federal and provincial government over this tanker ban. They argue that it is an unjustified infringement on their aboriginal rights and title. In fact, 30 first nations started an online campaign to raise money against this ban. It does not seem that the government was able to convince them in the consultation process that it was a good idea.

I have had the opportunity to meet with several first nations elders. Their views on energy development are not as uniform as the government would have us believe. Many I spoke with did not want to be told what they could and could not develop. They want the autonomy to make their own decisions in the best interest of their people. They view this as a lack of consultation and a form of colonialism, as they mentioned to me. Many first nations leaders want the right to develop their resources in the way they choose.

Even if this legislation receives royal assent, U.S. tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington would continue to travel up and down the B.C. coast. This is not about the tankers; it is about tying the hands of future governments and preventing pipeline construction. It is a pipeline moratorium under a different name. It is the opposite action to what the government should be taking. It needs to send positive signals to international and Canadian energy investors. It needs to actively champion the diversification of energy exports. This bill would not do that, and I cannot support it.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to talk about this bill.

I sat on the transport committee while this bill made its way through committee. I know this has been labelled by many as hypocrisy, but the number one thing I want to talk about today is consultation. It is interesting that it was brought up by the last speaker from Edmonton and the minister mentioned it as well.

The minister made a key point that I think will be proven wrong in a court of law. He mentioned it at committee as well. I asked him about the duty to consult. He responded to that question with a long list. He will remember full well the list he provided me. However, when he asked his question just now, he said that he had a meeting or that he met.

That is not consultation. I asked people whom he had on his list when they appeared before committee if they had met with the minister. They said, “Yes, we did.” I asked if they called that consultation. Whether they approved of the ban or opposed the ban, they all snickered because they all know it was not consultation. In fact, a number of the people who were there also said, and members can check the record because it is all recorded, that when they sat down with the minister, they told him that it was not to be considered consultation, that it was just a meeting.

The question constitutional experts, and I am not one, will ask is, “Do you need to consult to impose legislation?” Well, we might find out.

The flip side of this is, let us say another government gets in in another period of time and wants to do away with Bill C-48 and eliminate the tanker ban. Will it need to consult? We may find out the answer to that question as well.

The key point is, and I think we will see this in the court case that is being brought forward, whether the federal government has the right to impede on resource development on lands where it is clearly stated in their nationhood? Will the government have the ability to eliminate any possibility for them to develop resources, to transport resources across the area? Will it be able to tell them whether or not they will be able to develop a deepwater port along the coastline of their land?

I think most constitutional experts would say that as long as it passed all the regulatory requirements of an environmental assessment, etc., they probably should be able to. We will see.

I just wanted to make that point, that from the very beginning of when the minister appeared just down the hallway here on Bill C-48, I asked him the question, and all the way through the process of the bill going through committee, I asked the question. Each and every time, people felt they were not consulted. They had a meeting, but true consultation is not a meeting. We will see on that one. It will be an interesting court case.

I will also mention that there were a few comments that really raised my eyebrows on the reconciliation and rehabilitation between first nations members and government. Again, this is on the record. One of the main objectives of the government was to improve relations with first nations, and they made the comment, “We don't need a trust fund prime minister telling us what to do.” They also looked at this bill as “further colonialism.” We are talking 2017-18. These are their words. These are not my words. These are the words of first nations members.

Eagle Spirit Energy took five years to work on a project where members of first nations could come together to develop resources from Alberta to the coast of B.C. and to do a project. One of their comments, which I also thought was great, was that they were not looking for a handout, that they were looking for a hand up to further the economic ability and the economic development within their own communities to give their people, their children, and their grandchildren an opportunity to have a better life.

These are regular Canadians who just want a chance to develop resources in a safe manner and transport resources in a safe manner. They love their country, they love their environment, and they would not do anything if they ever thought it would have a negative impact on them.

I know hypocrisy has been mentioned before, and probably every speech has mentioned it in one form or another. We are banning tanker traffic in this area, yet we are not banning it in an area south of this area. We are not banning it in an area on the east coast. We are not banning it in an area along the St. Lawrence. It is just one specific area. Oil will be coming in from different countries that certainly have less stringent environmental regulations on the development of resources than we do. This has even been written about by former Liberal members of Parliament as well.

To show members the kind of crisis we are at and the situation we are in, instead of creating a pipeline to transport oil to a port and transporting it from that port on a safe vessel to a market and actually getting a fair price for it, we are now forcing companies like CN Rail and other technology companies to use this product called CanaPux. They are actually adding polymer plastic to oil so they can ship it by rail through the two CN rail lines on the northern coast. They ship these CanaPux on vessels that would normally handle coal. This is what we have been forced to do. Diesel locomotives are travelling thousands of kilometres of rail line up and down interesting terrain just to ship it along the way. As a guy from Ontario, I sometimes question what we are doing in this country.

Another thing I thought troublesome, and I think the minister and department officials would agree, is the schedule. Using the CanaPux example, I asked government officials if CanaPux would be put on the schedule. Well, nobody has an answer, and I am not sure anybody will have an answer. Also, if we get on that schedule, how do we get off the schedule? There are no answers to that. Before any proposed legislation comes into force, I think that needs to be clearly defined and clearly set out. The industry has a right to know.

A constituent of mine mentioned that there is a consortium of clean tech people who have the technology and ability to clean up spills. They have been on a contract to provide cleanup services on the west coast. Their project or their submission to public works was flatly declined in favour of a solvent that was an American technology. I do not think we have anything against America, but when we have a Canadian technology that has been proven to be able to clean up oil spills—not dissolve oil, but actually clean up oil spills—then we have to question exactly what we are trying to accomplish here. I feel fairly safe about what technology can do to deal with vessels exporting oil products to this country, China, and parts in between, but what are we doing?

The final thing I will add is that yes, there is a ban on oil, but there is no ban on diesel fuel. Obviously I am not a scientist and I realize that the two have different properties, but there is no ban on diesel fuel. That is further to the hypocrisy point. I would say that if we had a diesel spill, it would cause a lot of damage to the environment, marine life, and marine plants, yet there is no mention of that in the bill. Each side is making is making their points, and the bill will get passed, but I would like to mention that there will obviously be court challenges and perhaps quite a bit of hypocrisy as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would be remiss if I did not mention a great man who has been mentioned many times today in this House, former prime minister Stephen Harper, who is enjoying his 59th birthday today, so I wish Prime Minister Harper a happy birthday.

I rise today to speak to Bill C-48, which aims to ban oil tanker traffic on the northern coastline of British Columbia. This legislation is yet another blatant attack on Canada's energy sector, along with all the high-paying and high-quality jobs that go with it.

The current government can talk about balancing the environment and the economy, but this proposed legislation is not balanced, and it is a direct threat to the viability of Canada's energy sector. This bill not only threatens jobs and the prosperity of Canada but also the solvency of our governments. Furthermore, it fails to respect our commitment to first nations, because the Liberals failed to consult and are discriminating against first nations who support energy development.

This legislation sends a clear message that our country is closing up for business, and industry leaders are listening. Energy giants are already beginning to move their operations to Texas, taking jobs with them. Where will the wealth creation and tax revenues that are needed to finance our transition go? They will go straight south of the border, leaving Canada in a vulnerable position, with few resources, as we seek to embrace change and innovation.

The failure of our energy industry is simply not an option. Although oil prices have doubled over the last two years, governments in Edmonton and Ottawa continue to run substantial deficits. I would like to see the government start trimming these deficits. However, the Liberals cannot seem to kick the habit of spending more than they take in, even with significant tax hikes on small businesses. How is the government ever going to balance the budget while it campaigns actively to phase out the very industry responsible for those revenues? This does not square. Budgets simply do not balance themselves. The government must either raise taxes, cut spending, or, as we propose on this side of the House, grow the economy, not as the Prime Minister suggests, “from the heart outwards”, but by embracing the real opportunities in the energy sector.

The Minister of the Environment recently said in an interview, “Hard things are hard”, and they certainly are. However, the government has made things harder on the families that rely on the energy sector because of its ideological approach to energy development. Take, for example, that the current Liberal Prime Minister ran in the election on a promise to cancel the northern gateway pipeline. He did not run on a promise to review the science or to act in the national interest. No. He made a promise because it was politically expedient to do so. That is the easy thing to do. The problem with taking the easy way out is that someday one has to pay the price, and today, as we watch the dying throes of Canada's last, best hope of getting energy to tidewater, we have only the Liberals to blame. They are now doubling down on their mistakes. They are not content to just cancel northern gateway; they are legislating for future generations to ensure that no pipeline will even be considered for the northwest coast.

Actions have consequences, and those consequences are hard. The families of my constituents know that all too well. The reason for their hardship is that the current Liberal government made rash promises not founded on reason or science but on political calculation. Rather than recognizing that fact, the Liberals are closing their minds and hearts to the hardships of Canadians.

The bill before us today is an attempt to dig up the corpse of northern gateway and put it on trial. It is a declaration to the world that never again will a pipeline be considered to our north. This moratorium is not based on science. It is not even based on the national interest of Canada. It is a political exercise to try to appease those who oppose the Trans Mountain pipeline and who will oppose any energy infrastructure the Liberals' foreign masters will pay them to oppose. When will these Liberals show some backbone, stop caving in to foreign interests and radical activists, and instead stand up for science and stand up for Canadians?

If the Liberal government were to extrapolate its logic and apply it consistently across the country, it would severely hurt our economy. Oil tankers enter Canada daily through the Port of Vancouver, on the east coast, and through the St. Lawrence River without incident. The sad thing is that for the most part, these vessels have circumnavigated the globe to bring Canada energy from other countries, energy that we have ample reserves of ourselves. In ports like Saint John, New Brunswick, millions of tonnes of energy products have been shipped and provide jobs necessary for the prosperity of our eastern provinces. If Bill C-48 passes, the government will be setting a precedent for our entire coastline that will reverberate across our country, killing jobs and opportunities for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Let me talk about the hypocrisy of the Liberal government, a government that stands every day in the House to malign the reputation of former Prime Minister Harper, a man they accuse of not consulting with first nations on energy development. Let us talk about the Lax Kw' alaams first nation and the nine tribes whose traditional territory lies within the zone that this moratorium would apply to. Did the government consult with the Lax Kw' alaams, or does it only negotiate with first nations who oppose energy development?

The nine tribes on the west coast have issued a legal challenge to this moratorium and this legislation. I wonder whether the Liberal government will respect aboriginal sovereignty, and will it fulfill its duty to consult? Evidently, it has not. The Lax Kw' alaams are fighting them in court. They are fighting for their economic future, the future of their children, and the Liberal government is disrespecting them and discriminating against them with this legislation. It is shameful, not only because it is the wrong thing to do, but because it flies in the face of everything the Liberal government claims to believe in.

For those who are reasonably concerned about environmental impact of oil tankers on our coast, let us look at some facts. In 2011, the Conservative government undertook the development and implementation of a world-class tanker safety system. This included modernization of navigation systems, enhanced area response planning, and ensuring that polluters pay for the spills and damages caused by accidents in their operations. As a result of this legislation, on top of Canada's sterling record of environmental safety, there has never been a major oil spill on our west coast.

Now the Liberals are pouring more resources into ocean protection, but for what purpose if they are not allowing development to proceed? Why are we spending taxpayer dollars to the tune of $1.5 billion, if they are going to ban the tankers in the first place? It is another example of the government's absolute incompetence when it comes to responsible development and environmental protection.

In the best-case scenario, even if this legislation only leads to preventing tankers from operating on the northwest coast, it would be an act of supreme unfairness for those communities on the coast. If there is a lack of infrastructure to protect from or mitigate a possible spill, then perhaps some of the Liberal money should be going toward that solution. Surely if this legislation is their solution, then it should be sufficient to protect our northwest coast. If oil tankers are as big a threat as the Liberals claim, why have they not invested in better ocean protection on every coast? Why are they not speaking in Halifax, St. John's, or other Atlantic city on the importance of protecting against oil spills with new funding?

The fact is that they are not. They know full well that there is no clear threat of a catastrophic oil spill. They are merely trying to score political points by shutting down an entire coast from any development, hurting communities like the Lax Kw' alaams in the process. It is a shameful state of affairs when a government chooses to put its own political self-interest ahead of the interests of all Canadians.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-48 again.

There is a content creator on YouTube who does these great videos called “honest trailers”. He discusses what movies should actually be talking about when they do their trailers. I would like to do the same with Liberal bills, because quite often we hear these grandiose names.

For example, for the budget, I would rename it the “Dude, where is my infrastructure budget?”, because no one seems to know where the infrastructure money went. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer could not locate $7 billion of it. I do note that of the $7 billion, he was able to find that it was costing Canadian taxpayers $700,000 of spending for every job created.

I also called it the “Honey, I sank the kids” bill, because $100 billion in added debt is going to stick to our children and our grandchildren in the coming years. However, I stuck on a different name, the Vantablack bill. Vantablack is the darkest substance known to man, so I called it that because of the lack of transparency in the budget bill. In fact, it is so lacking in transparency that even a supernova could not bring light to it.

An issue with the budget bill was, for example, that the finance department refused to respond to either us or the Parliamentary Budget Officer about some five-year spending projections. There was vote 40, which the treasury board president has brought forward, which will allow him to spend $7 billion without any oversight from committees, Parliament, or votes once the money has been done. The government that brought us an $8 million hockey rink is going to be given $7 billion without any oversight or transparency.

With Bill C-48 there could be a lot of names, but I am going to call it the “hypocrite bill”. The name “hypocrite bill” could also be applied to a lot of other bills. For example, the government talked big on military spending, but it is not mentioned once in the budget. The Liberals also talk about helping the middle class, yet burdened it with tax hikes and hundreds of billions of dollars of added debt with no mention of how it will ever be paid back.

As well, the government brags about a gender-balanced cabinet, but they give all five junior ministries to women. No government since the Trudeau Senior government has given all five of the junior ministries to women.

The Liberals killed energy east by constantly changing the goalposts and requiring upstream and downstream emission considerations. At the same time, they have given hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to their friends in Bombardier to pay out millions of dollars in bonuses, by the way. Apparently Bombardier jets do not emit emissions. The Liberals have given millions and millions to Ford motor companies because apparently Ford cars now run on pixie dust.

Let us look at the general hypocrisy around Bill C-48. Do not let anyone be fooled. It is not about banning tankers; it is about killing the northern gateway pipeline once and for all and killing Alberta jobs.

The Liberals like to talk a lot about human rights, but they blocked Alberta oil, the cleanest, most ethically produced oil in the world, to bring in oil from some of the worst human rights-abusing countries in the world. We bring in oil from Saudi Arabia, where there are some of the worst oppressions of women and of the LGBTQ community.

The Liberals brought in oil from Nigeria, where the government will murder a person for being gay. Think about that. We are bringing in oil from Nigeria and giving them money. Instead of creating Alberta jobs, we are getting oil from people who murder gays just for expressing who they truly are. We bring in oil from Angola, a country that Human Rights Watch highlights for its heavy government oppression. However, we buy their oil and block Alberta oil.

This is really interesting. Just last week, the Liberal government banned the famous Angolan human rights crusader Rafael Marques from Canada. We have open borders to all those fleeing the tyranny of the U.S., where one million Canadians still live. I hope they are going to flee as well. The Liberals will allow open borders for that, yet an award-winning human rights crusader from Angola is banned by the government. However, we will buy their oil.

The Liberals talk about evidence-based decision-making, so let us look at the facts on tanker safety.

We allow tankers into the Vancouver harbour to pick up oil in Burnaby from Kinder Morgan, where it currently is. We are planning, if Kinder Morgan gets built, to move that up to one freighter a day. That is perfectly fine. The Liberals approved that.

We allow what is called an Aframax tanker to move under the Second Narrows bridge in North Vancouver or Burnaby, where there is a width of 137 metres across the narrows.

The government now also says that a tanker moving through a width of 1,400 metres, through the Douglas Channel from Kitimat to the open seas, is not safe. Not only is the Douglas Channel 10 times the width of underneath the Second Narrows Bridge, but it would be escorted with three pilots for the entire passage. That is something we do not do when bringing in Venezuelan oil, Saudi Arabian oil, or Nigerian oil on the east coast. It is something we currently do not do when we bring in ships through the much narrower passage from North Vancouver to Burnaby.

The TERMPOL document for northern gateway added many other safety measures, such as radar on Gil Island, and more response gear, which we also do not offer for the tankers coming in through North Vancouver or the east coast.

Let us talk about the hypocrisy of the government's empty statement on nothing being more important than the nation-to-nation relationships. We heard in the government operations and estimates committee that no industry does better in Canada than the energy industry in working with indigenous groups, indigenous business, and providing jobs and prosperity to indigenous people of Canada. Who does the very worst on engaging them? It is the Canadian government.

This is what the first nations are saying. Elmer Ghostkeeper of the Buffalo Lake Métis said that they and other first nations are disappointed by the political decision, not the evidence-based decision, but the political decision, made without their input. Mr. Ghostkeeper said that 30 bands were looking forward to the shared prosperity that northern gateway would bring, with $2 billion in set asides.

Again, let us remember. It is Suncor, Syncrude, Enbridge. These are all the companies that were named in the government operations and estimates committee as companies that do the very best of any industry in providing prosperity, jobs and opportunities for first nations, and we are throwing it aside.

Chief Derrick of the Gitxsan first nations said that the Prime Minister did not even want to hear from supportive bands.

The government will consult with every U.S.-financed radical environmentalist group on pipelines in the industry. It will even take taxpayers' money to give to these radical environmentalist groups, saying, “Here, take some taxpayers' money from Alberta, from all across Canada, and go out and work against the Canadian interest.” It is working against what the government has said is in the national interest. Will the government listen and consult with first nations? No, of course not.

I want to talk about some of the safety issues. B.C. coast pilots are some of the very best pilots in the entire world. They have a safety standard for shipping off of B.C. that far exceeds what we do on the east coast. I want to talk about their record.

Since 2007, the very worst year for incidents has been a 99.94% success rate. There was not a single issue of an oil spill from tankers since Kinder Morgan was built 63 years ago. Not one. On regular shipping, the very worst year was 99.94%. In 2017, it was 99.97%. They have gone above and beyond, as I mentioned.

With the portable pilotage units they put on their ships in case their ships piloting or GPS goes down, they can control it as well. They spend $600,000 a year in training for the pilots. As I mentioned, they have a perfect record for moving liquid bulk vessels of over 40,000 dead weight. These are the experts.

They did a computer program when northern gateway was being considered. The experts said that moving ships down, even without pilots, would be perfectly safe. However, the plan was to include three pilots. Here we have the experts saying it is perfectly safe without all the added measures, and they have offered to put on these additional measures to make them extra safe. The government shot it down.

Bill C-48 is not about coastal safety. If it were, the government would shut down the east coast and Vancouver as well. This bill is all about killing Alberta jobs, and about killing once and for all the northern gateway pipeline.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying a few things about pipelines in French. There are francophones in Alberta, and pipelines are an important issue for the entire country.

An American journalist by the name of Michael Kinsley once said that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. That is an interesting thought. It might be rephrased a little to say that a gaffe is when politicians say what they actually think. When we look at some of the comments that have been made by ministers and by the Prime Minister about the energy sector or various other issues, these one-off comments are often dismissed as gaffes or mistakes. We are told not to worry, that the tweet was deleted and the minister provided clarification.

However, when we start to see a pattern when comments are made, it is worth reflecting on this Kinsley quote. These are gaffes in the sense that these are cases when people are actually letting the curtain slip and are showing what their real agenda is with respect to our energy sector. For example, in 2012, the Minister of Democratic Institutions tweeted that it was time to “landlock” Alberta's tar sands. That is pretty offensive language, but it came from an MP who is now a minister in this government. The minister once said that she wanted to landlock Alberta's oil sands. Clarifications were provided and the tweet was deleted, but that person is now sitting in cabinet, and it makes people wonder what her views are with respect to Alberta's energy sector. Actually, we do not really need to wonder, because she has already told us what her views are in that regard.

More recently, the Prime Minister stated that the time had come to phase out Canada's oil sands. He has also said that Canada was not doing well with people from my part of the country in key management positions.

Such remarks, which are very disparaging towards Alberta, also indicate opposition to energy development and the desire to landlock our energy resources, and are sometimes deemed blunders or gaffes. I think they are truly revealing. They are gaffes in the sense that sometimes the Prime Minister and cabinet members let a comment slip and say what they are really thinking.

We have a government here that is attacking our energy sector, and people in my constituency and across the country realize that. The government has all these fancy talking points to try to hide what it is doing. The Liberals will say in one part of the country with one kind of audience how they are stopping energy development. These things will come out about what the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet really think. On a different day, the Liberals will say that they are getting the pipelines built and that the previous government did not build pipelines.

Let us correct the record on that. I am very proud of the record of the previous government when it comes to delivering for the energy sector. Not only did we say no to a carbon tax and not only did we approve the northern gateway pipeline, but it was under the Conservatives that four pipelines were built in this country: the TransCanada Keystone pipeline, Enbridge's Alberta Clipper, the Kinder Morgan Anchor Loop pipeline, and Enbridge's Line 9 reversal. Every single pipeline project to tidewater that was proposed under the Conservative government was in fact approved. For the minister to say that more could have been built, well it beggars the imagination how Conservatives could have approved pipeline projects which at that time had not even been proposed, but we put through a rigorous process and we approved pipeline projects that were proposed. We built projects. We approved the northern gateway.

We got it done, and we established an environment in which people wanted to build and invest. They saw Alberta and Canada as a place with the kind of taxation and regulatory environment that made it a good place to invest and create jobs. That is why we had the best economic record, the lowest unemployment, and the best fiscal performance in the G7 under Stephen Harper.

Since members across the way want to talk about the record of Stephen Harper, on all of these fronts, support for the energy sector and strong fiscal management, that is a record very much worth defending. We can line that up against the terrible performance of this government running massive deficits during good years, rather than using fiscal stimulus only during economic downturns.

The Liberals want to run deficits all the time, whereas Conservatives take a balanced approach. We believe in balanced budgets over the medium and long term. We believe in establishing the conditions that allow all sectors of the economy to succeed, including the energy sector, the auto sector, and the forestry sector, not pitting them against each other, but rather to survive, thrive, and excel together, recognizing their interdependence. The steel industry benefits from the energy sector because pipelines have to be built. Indeed, there are other parts of the country outside of Alberta that benefit. I know there is a plant in our leader's riding, but there are other regions of the country, as well, that benefit from the steel industry that serves the pipeline industry.

We see with the government an attack on the energy sector. What has it done when it comes to pipelines? With northern gateway and what we are talking about today, the Liberals killed the northern gateway pipeline. They are proposing today Bill C-48, an arbitrary bill that says we cannot export from northern B.C., from this established exclusion zone.

Let us dig into this a little. They say that we cannot export Canadian oil from this exclusion zone, yet we have Alaskan tankers taking oil as close as they can come to the coast, outside the designated area, but quite close in principle. Canada cannot benefit from that economic activity. We cannot export, but the same activity and potential theoretical vulnerability is very much still there. We have tankers coming into the St. Lawrence Seaway and on the east coast that are bringing foreign oil into Canada for import, yet we cannot get the energy east pipeline built because the government has introduced regulatory hurdles that make it difficult for the project to proceed. It killed the energy east pipeline indirectly. It has killed the northern gateway project quite directly.

However, the Liberals cannot explain why it is somehow okay for tankers to import foreign oil into Canada and not okay for Canadian oil to be exported by tankers from Canada. They cannot explain why there is some environmental risk that is unique to Canadian oil being exported that does not apply in the case of oil from other countries being carried very close to international waters. They need to answer that question in order to justify putting forward this bill.

They say they are in favour of the Trans Mountain pipeline. They have no plan to build it, but they say they are in favour of it. In the opposition, between the Conservatives and New Democrats, we have a different view on virtually every pipeline question, but one area where we agree is that the government is making strange unjustified distinctions. It claims to be in favour of the Trans Mountain pipeline and is doing nothing to build it, yet it is completely opposed to the northern gateway pipeline.

Obviously, if we tell people that pipelines are dangerous, then there will be people in the Lower Mainland who are going to ask why the government is pursuing one policy in northern B.C. and a completely different policy on the Lower Mainland.

We are clear in the opposition about the strong safety record of pipelines. We are clear about the benefit of Canada being an energy superpower, which means we seek to create jobs here in Canada by promoting the development and export of Canadian energy resources, by taking advantage of those export opportunities, because other countries are not going to wait for us.

There are countries in Asia, for example, Japan, which imports most of its energy resources. Canada could benefit from a stronger relationship with Japan by selling our energy resources to Japan. Right now most of its energy resources come from the Middle East through the South China Sea. There is a big opportunity for Canada to get in the game through helping Japan with its energy security and building a better partnership. I just use that as one example.

Canada should be getting in the game and it should be growing economically. We need to end this Liberal attack on Canada's energy sector. We are proud to oppose this bill.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am astounded by the member's comments, and not by the volume and number of words he speaks, because he is famous for that. I talked about how the Prime Minister has provided zero consultation with respect to his unilateral decision on northern gateway, zero consultation when he signed away Inuit rights to self-determination on 17% of their lands. The member comes back to me and suggests that their consultation was the election. I guess that is what he is saying.

I would bet that the Liberals have not consulted on Bill C-48 with the 31 first nations impacted by the northern gateway decision, but the member seems to think the election writ period qualifies as consultation with our first nations. I would suggest that is not meaningful. I would suggest that falls short of Supreme Court decisions.

The second apology I would like to hear in the House is from that member for that suggestion.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his remarks, particularly for his great overview of the history of safe tanker traffic off Canada's Pacific coast. We hear a lot of rhetoric and clearly a lot of confusion from some members on regular marine accidents, where a vessel might spill some of its diesel or its own petroleum products. That is very much different from an oil tanker, which is designed to transport diluted bitumen or a range of petroleum products.

There have been no accidents on the Pacific coast. Multiple governments, of both Liberal and Conservative stripes, have continued, over the last few decades, to modernize marine navigation and regulatory regimes and safeguards. I think that unblemished record will not only continue but has been enhanced by Canada's world-class regime.

My remarks on Bill C-48 are going to touch on two things. When Canadians go to the polls in 2019, they are going to assess the Prime Minister. Before, they just knew him as the celebrity son of a previous prime minister. He had no record, no record in the private sector, no record in the non-profit sector, no record in academia, and no record, really, of any note from his days as a member of Parliament in this place. Therefore, he ran and won on a celebrity record.

Now they are going to judge him on his performance, whether it is broken promises on the deficit, whether it is hundreds of billions of dollars of investment fleeing Canada, or whether it is our competitiveness, which literally every bank and economic forecaster in recent months has said is at real risk with changes in the U.S., with Canada increasing taxes and the U.S. lowering taxes. They are going to judge him on his record.

Nowhere is the current Prime Minister's record worse than on first nation issues. There is some laughter coming from the Liberal benches. The Prime Minister has a tattoo of the Haida Nation on his shoulders. However, I cannot say one thing he has done for that nation or any other nation. The missing and murdered indigenous inquiry has been a disaster from start to finish. There has been no clarity for the families that were promised certainty. There have been departures, with people leaving. They are now asking for twice as much time and twice as much budget. The Prime Minister promised healing and to drive us toward reconciliation. However, he has not done that.

One might ask why I am speaking about this when it comes to the tanker moratorium and Bill C-48. I will quote a chief from the Buffalo Lake Métis, Elmer Ghostkeeper, who, when the Prime Minister unilaterally, and not following science or regulatory approvals, cancelled the northern gateway pipeline, and this moratorium bill is essentially a way of blocking that from ever coming back, said, “Equity was offered to aboriginal communities, and with the change in government that was all taken away.”

Another leader from that area, from the Gitxsan Nation, Elmer Derrick, said, “The fact that the Prime Minister chose not to consult with people in northwestern [British Columbia] disappointed us very much”. In fact, 31 bands across that route were going to be 30% equity holders in that line with Enbridge. Unilaterally, the Prime Minister of Canada took away that economic opportunity that could have eliminated poverty in many of those communities within a generation.

It is sad that the Liberals are heckling, in light of some of the language coming from first nation leaders. That would not suggest a reconciliatory attitude from those members.

This is a pattern that started back in 2016 with the Prime Minister. In fact, on his first state visit to Washington, he signed on to an accord with the United States and with President Obama that put a ban on development of 17% of Canada's Arctic land mass and on 10% of Arctic waters. How much consultation was done in conjunction with that? It was zero.

Days after, the Premier of the Northwest Territories confirmed his disappointment that there was no consultation, that the first nations and Inuit of the area were not consulted. Who was trotted out by the Prime Minister's office? It was the president of the WWF Canada, David Miller, the former mayor of Toronto. That seemed to be the only organization in on this ban on our Inuit development opportunities in the north. I would note that a year earlier, the president of that organization was Mr. Butts, who was a principal adviser to the Prime Minister.

There was zero consultation with Inuit and first nations leaders in our Arctic and in northwest British Columbia but lots of consultation with insiders and, I would say, groups on the left. Why is that important? It is because now we see the Prime Minister's record on economic development coming home to roost. He unilaterally cut the northern gateway project. He killed energy east through changes to regulation. Now Trans Mountain is on the precipice.

Today marks one month remaining until Kinder Morgan may be withdrawing its capital investment, having watched two and a half years of the Liberal government over-regulating, over-taxing, and becoming less competitive and with uncertainty on whether it can even get a twinning of its existing line completed.

What is going to happen now with Bill C-48? If Trans Mountain fails, and the government is doing its best, even funding protestors through Canada summer jobs, to make that happen, this bill will preclude 31 first nations from actually coming up with an alternative to northern gateway through some of their traditional territories.

The Prime Minister is a master at rhetoric, but he is a disaster at delivery. He talks about consultation and reconciliation and does none of it. I stress that 17% of the land mass in the Arctic was struck away without a phone call. That not only violates the spirit of reconciliation, following what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission outlined, but violates Canadian law and case law on the duty to consult, going from the Sparrow decision to the Delgamuukw decision right through to last year's recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada on the Clyde River matter and the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.

Consultation has to be meaningful to those affected, particularly when it is about the adverse impact of a decision. That is what the duty to consult, in Canadian law, with our first nations means. The Prime Minister has failed at every juncture on that duty. He did not consult Chief Derrick, Dale Swampy, or Elmer Ghostkeeper when he unilaterally took away an opportunity for 31 first nation communities to provide opportunities for their people. Where was the consultation?

Where was the consultation with our first nation, Inuit, and territorial leaders when, with the stroke of a pen in Washington, he struck away the opportunity for them to provide and make decisions on their own territory? Now, with Bill C-48, and with Kinder Morgan teetering on the brink, he is going to block yet another opportunity for Canadians and first nations to chart their own destiny.

As I said earlier, apart from the tattoo, I have not seen much commitment from the Prime Minister. In fact, his lack of consultation is insulting. I worked on these issues before becoming a parliamentarian. I was not a bouncer. I was not doing drama. I was working with the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business on trying to provide opportunities by working with the resource industry. I have been blown away by some tremendous first nation leaders from across the country who are providing an opportunity for a new story for their people.

We have a Prime Minister who has killed northern gateway and energy east, and Trans Mountain is on the brink. I call him the serial pipeline killer. Not only do we have that happening to getting our resources to tidewater on our west coast, but the government is now going to block the opportunity for a new option with this moratorium, ignoring the fact that there has already been a voluntary 100-kilometre exclusion zone between Washington State and Alaska since 1985.

Once again, a government that talks a lot about reconciliation and building trust does not even have the courtesy to talk to the first nation communities that are going to be horribly impacted by their decisions.

The next apology I hear in the House of Commons I would like to come from the Prime Minister on his terrible decisions with respect to our first nations.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been looking forward to the opportunity to engage in this debate.

I am going to frame this discussion in terms of Canada's competitiveness and our future, what our future will look like for the coming generations if we continue to go along the path of sending terrible signals to the global investment community. My comments will actually focus on how Bill C-48 is poorly thought out and really does not reflect the reality of Canada's resource economy.

I am a proud Canadian, but I am also a very proud British Columbian. Unlike many of my colleagues in this House, I have had the chance to hike many of the different remote wilderness areas of British Columbia. I have had the chance to hike the Chilkoot Trail, where one hikes out of the coastal rainforest in Alaska into the drier interior area of British Columbia and follow the trail the early gold miners took to the Yukon gold fields. I have had a chance to hike the Bowron Lakes. In fact, we canoed the Bowron Lakes, 12 lakes connected with portages, where one is almost guaranteed to see moose and bear along the way. I have had a chance to climb the Rockwall and Skyline trails in the Rocky Mountains. I have had a chance to hike in the Cathedral Lakes area outside of Keremeos, British Columbia. Also, in the northeast corner of British Columbia, there is the Muskwa watershed, Gathto Creek, and Pine River. British Columbia is an awesomely beautiful province, a place we as Canadians can be very proud of. It is a legacy that has been left to us.

Anything that would threaten our coastal areas, any threat to the marine life in our oceans, is something I take very seriously. We know oil tankers have been plying our coastal waters for many, many years. Over those years, how many crude oil spills have actually happened in British Columbia waters? Does anybody want to guess? Zero. There have been zero crude oil spills as far back as we want to go. Why? Because we have superior pilotage, and we have tankers today that are double-hulled as opposed to single-hulled to make sure if they strike something, that object does not penetrate the hull. We now have a world-class marine oil spill response, and we love the government for doing that. That is good. We want to protect our coastal areas.

What we do not want to do is undermine Canada's prosperity as we do this, so we have to be careful how we implement policy. We have to ask ourselves what the Prime Minister's motive is behind imposing a moratorium on tanker traffic off our west coast. By imposing a moratorium, we are preventing Canada from getting its oil and gas products to foreign markets where they fetch the best price. What is the motive? Well, we could just follow the Prime Minister around the world on his global travels from costume to costume, leader to leader. Guess what? We found him in France, where he thought he was safe and he started badmouthing Canada's resource sector. More specifically, he badmouthed Canada's oil sands and lamented the fact that he had not been able to phase out the oil sands by now.

There is the hidden agenda. We have a Liberal government that wants to phase out our oil industry. It wants to put all kinds of impediments in the way of our resource sector to make sure Canadians do not get the maximum dollar that they should for their products.

The Prime Minister goes so far as to pretend he is one thing in British Columbia, where of course he is the champion of the environment whenever he visits, but when he travels to Alberta of course he suddenly becomes the champion of the energy sector.

In fact, what he did in Alberta was to say, “If you impose a massive carbon price on your residents, you'll be able to get the social licence to get the Trans Mountain pipeline built.” What happened? Alberta followed suit. It trusted the Prime Minister, which is something I think Canadians are now very wary of. Premier Notley trusted the Prime Minister when he said, “Hey, a carbon tax and you'll get your pipeline to tidewater”. Well, do we have a pipeline to tidewater? Today we have protesters, no leadership from the Prime Minister, and court challenges. What happened to the social licence? It is bogus.

Along the way, this moratorium on tanker traffic off our Pacific coast is just one more nail in the coffin of completely undermining Canada's competitiveness within the global marketplace. Every day that goes by, Canada becomes less and less competitive, especially vis-à-vis our partner to the south, the United States. I will mention a few things that this government has already done. If imposed, a moratorium on offshore drilling in the north undermines prosperity, because we leave resources in the ground that could have fetched good dollars, but we leave them there.

On the massive carbon tax that Canadians are now being expected pay, members can imagine how that undermines our competitiveness as we layer tax upon tax. Foreign investors wonder why they would invest in Canada and not go to the United States where the corporate tax rate was dropped from 35% to 21% and it got rid of all the red tape. The Liberal government funds a Canada summer jobs grant to an organization that is actually organizing and protesting against the Trans Mountain pipeline. The Prime Minister publicly says that it is going to build, but then gives cash to oppose it. That is our Liberal government.

Then, of course, there is Bill C-69, the new regulations that the Prime Minister would impose on resource projects. The bill would add more discretionary powers to the minister to extend and suspend timelines. There would be longer time frames. There would be new criteria added, including upstream and downstream impacts. This is how crazy it gets. The government would impose criteria, conditions, upon our own oil and gas producers that we do not impose on those who ship gas from foreign jurisdictions like Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. The oil that comes from those countries into Canada right now does not have to comply with any of those criteria, but our own homegrown producers of that product, which is the cleanest in the world, and is subject to the toughest conditions in the world, have to comply with those criteria. We wonder why we have lost 100,000 jobs in our economy. It is because of policies like that. Over 87 billion dollars' worth of capital has fled Canada because of the poorly thought out policies of the Liberal government.

As Conservatives, and the word “conservative” implies conservation, we believe that the highest environmental standards have to be complied with. When we extract our resources in Canada, whether it is mining, oil, or gas, Canadians expect that it be done to the highest environmental standards. Canadians also understand that those resources that lie in the ground represent huge opportunities for economic growth in our country, for jobs, for long-term prosperity, and for funding the programs that governments want to provide to Canadians. It is absolutely critical that moratoria, like the one the Prime Minister is trying to impose on our west coast, not proceed, because at the end of the day, Canadians will pay a very significant price for that. Quite frankly, if in fact the Prime Minister cannot get the job done, he should step aside and let the adults take over. Let someone else take over, someone who really understands the economy, someone who understands the environment, and the appropriate balance between the two.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, which would ban oil tanker traffic on the north coast of British Columbia.

I want to start by saying that this is a very poor name for this bill. It would be better labelled the “let's destroy Canada's opportunity for economic growth and prosperity, including for indigenous people” act, because that is exactly what this bill is going to do.

The government likes to talk about how the economy and the environment go hand in hand, and the importance of its relationship with indigenous peoples. I would like to illustrate how this bill is in fact a triple fail. It would actually hurt the economy; it would do nothing in terms of supporting the environment; and certainly many indigenous communities are very concerned.

Undeniably, the government's approach is incoherent and illogical. It is the furthest it could be from fact-based decision-making. Bill C-48 is one part of a bigger puzzle, in terms of the very incoherent approach the government is taking.

It is more rooted in government ideology. All we have to do is look at what the Prime Minister said last week in France, that he was sorry he could not phase out the oil sands more quickly. The Liberals, ideologically, want the oil sands phased out. All other pieces of legislation, whether related to pipelines or tankers, go back to their desire to take away the prosperity from our oil sands.

Venezuelan oil in Quebec is okay. Saudi Arabian oil on the east coast is okay. Canadian oil in Vancouver is okay, but it is not okay in northern British Columbia.

The Liberal government just released, on April 26, “Our Response to British Columbia’s Policy Intentions Paper for Engagement: Activities Related to Spill Management”. The government is telling British Columbians how it will be able to protect British Columbia, which I actually agree it can do through its marine protection plans.

This is a 62-page document. In talking about how the government is going to protect British Columbia, just a little further down the coast, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is, if it can protect a little further down the coast, what is wrong with a little further up the coast? I think the same principles would apply.

Again, it is a 62-page document put out by the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister of Environment, and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I am going to read some quotes.

Canada's actions have demonstrated our commitment to the highest environmental standards and strong Indigenous partnerships, while ensuring vital infrastructure for the Canadian economy moves ahead.

Our submission outlines the comprehensive scope of federal spill prevention and response activities to protect our oceans....

Then it talks about the $1.5-billion oceans protection plan.

Building on the existing safeguards, we are developing a marine safety system that rivals any in the world. The system draws on over thirty years of scientific research in spill prevention and response—including specific measures to ensure the safe transport of diluted bitumen.

Canadians can be assured that our coastline will benefit from a world-class marine safety system thanks to the implementation of the Oceans Protection Plan.

Then it talks about the science and the research.

If the government is confident that this could be done in Vancouver, then it could absolutely be similarly confident that the same protections could have been put in place, and it did not actually have to go forward with the tanker ban. That is one area of incoherence.

An article in the Calgary Herald looks at some statistics. These are really important statistics, from Statistics Canada's “Monthly Merchandise Trade Report—February 2018”, which tracks Canada’s international balance of trade.

The article states:

Hidden within those summary numbers was the revelation that imports of energy products into Canada advanced by a material 15.4 per cent to $3.4 billion, the highest level since November 2014, with the largest share of those imports originating from the U.S.

The importation of crude oil and bitumen advanced 15.4 per cent, with imported refined petroleum products up by 24.1 per cent, the latter due largely to increased imports of gasoline into British Columbia....

A recent study by the Canadian Energy Research Institute, using 2016 data, indicates that substituting Canadian oil wherever possible using space on existing pipelines, railcars and ocean tankers, could reduce foreign oil imports into Eastern Canada by a whopping 47 per cent.

Whether it is the energy east pipeline, because of the resistance in Quebec, or the northern gateway project, we are destroying not only Canada's ability to get the price it should be getting on the world market, but our internal domestic capacity. We have lots of imports, and we are cutting off our opportunities at the same time.

While a precarious B.C. government opposes oil pipelines, the Trudeau government’s avowed transition away from fossil fuels appears perversely to be directed solely at penalizing Canadian producers.

What is this? We are having more coming in from the United States; we are having more coming down the St. Lawrence seaway from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia; and we are not willing to let our own workers benefit, who produce in some of the most environmentally sensitive ways.

It goes on to state:

Canada is over-regulating domestic producers with misdirected policies that allow foreign petroleum imports—unimpeded by Canadian environmental laws, so-called social license, greenhouse gas reduction strategies and associated taxes....

The final point I want to make before I conclude is about our indigenous communities. The Liberals talk about the importance to consult, but they did not consult. They plunked down a moratorium with very limited discussion with the first nations that would be most impacted by these decisions.

This is one of the chiefs, on the day of the moratorium: “'I am just administering poverty,' despite sitting on some of the world’s richest oil and gas deposits, he said. 'I want the ability to share the wealth that has been taken out of our territories for the last one hundred years.'”

Another article stated:

“The reality is it is the only way forward. There's nothing else," [said] Calvin Helin, an executive with the Eagle Spirit Energy....

Helin said there are few economic alternatives for many rural and remote Indigenous communities where there are unemployment rates in excess of 90 per cent.

“Ordinary First Nations people want the same opportunities every other Canadian aspires to.”

Ellis Ross stated:

We were right on the cusp of First Nations in my region being able to look after themselves.

We were just starting to turn the tide on that opposition to everything. For the first time, since white contact, we were ready to take our place in B.C. and Canada. Instead, B.C. is not going to exist pretty soon in terms of investment. That is how worried I am.

We have a moratorium that is actually just shifting carbon pricing. We are getting more in from the States. If we can protect our coast in Vancouver, we can certainly protect the north with some of our best class pilotage in the world. This is an arbitrary political decision made by the government, which would certainly hurt not only indigenous communities but Canadians across this country.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-48.

While it is a proposed act that deals with the prohibition of oil tankers on the British Columbian coast, let us be honest and just call it what it is: part 3 of the Liberal government's plan to phase out the oil industry.

Let us recap. Part 1 is the carbon tax, which is just basically taxing investment and new jobs out of existence. Part 2 is to slowly kill off any pipeline to get product to tidewater. This part has been well under way since 2015. In fact, killing the oil and gas industry has been one of the few things that the government has achieved that will placate its militant left in British Columbia for votes in the next election, as my colleague just mentioned.

The Prime Minister said that he misspoke when he said that he wanted to phase out the oil sands, but we know this is just simply a mistruth. We can see it from his actions and the actions of his government. His environment minister is prepared to unilaterally impose a carbon tax and dismisses those opposed to this job-killing tax grab as climate change deniers. She has even committed to battling in court any province that tries to block the carbon tax, but on pipelines her answer is to please not take it to court. Her strategy is to ask those committed to the destruction of the oil industry to allow for a pipeline in exchange for a carbon tax.

There is no commitment to fight for the oil and gas industry, and one could say that the government is simply calling on paid protesters and saying “Well, I guess we'll allow that to occur.” No one is actually calling those paid protesters “job deniers”. As for the NRCan minister, who should be a champion of the natural resource industry here in Canada, he is actually just AWOL.

Here is the reality. The Liberals are beholden to an anti-oil activist group to keep their seats in the Lower Mainland and their hopes of picking up additional seats in Vancouver Island.

To those in the oil industry in my hometown of Fort McMurray who have lost their jobs due to the ineffectiveness of the Prime Minister on the energy file, the Liberals offer yet another slap in the fact to them. In Fort McMurray and across Alberta, we have people losing their homes. We have people committing suicide. We have an economic crisis happening, and the government could not care less. The Liberals would rather appease protesters and others who would kill jobs than stand up for those who actually want to go to work. Perhaps the oil workers left unemployed by the government's lack of leadership could find a summer job as an anti-pipeline protester now, since those jobs are available.

While the Prime Minister is happily jetting around the world for photo ops, his labour minister happily approved a grant to an anti-oil NGO to hire students to “stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline and tanker project”.

It pays only $15 an hour for a summer student and so will not necessarily pay for someone's mortgage or their home. As a former labour minister myself, I can say that it is a problem overall that we are against well-paying, great jobs, the type of jobs that Canadians need and should be receiving, while we are creating temporary jobs for individuals who want to kill an industry that is doing outstanding work for Canadians.

The Prime Minister refuses to use federal power to have a pipeline, built but he is happy to use them to impose a carbon tax. This country has not seen anything like this, and with so much division on the issue, since his father was prime minister.

Regarding, as I said, part 3 of his plan, the tanker moratorium, I will offer some suggestions on what can be done to help ensure we get our product to tidewater, and once at tidewater, to market.

First, increase the penalties for those engaging in acts of violence or vandalism designed to disrupt natural resource development. Second, ensure that those who provide support for the aforementioned resource disruption that disrupts the natural resource industry are actually charged. Third, classify environmental lobbying as a political activity to ensure transparency in their funding. This would prevent the Liberals from funding organizations that are acting in direct opposition to the scientifically reviewed, approved, and legal activity. It might stop the Minister of Labour from approving temporary jobs for summer students who want to protest against these projects and shut them down.

If the Liberals are really serious about getting oil to market, then they would pull this bill today. They would institute tough penalties, take real action to ensure that pipelines get built, and support getting the product to market once it arrives at tidewater.

However, they are not. The Prime Minister will talk about building Kinder Morgan while he funds opposition groups fighting against it. He will ban oil tankers from carrying that product to market, and he will impose a carbon tax on everything.

The Liberals' three-point plan to phase out the oil industry is well under way. In my opinion, 2019 cannot come soon enough, when we will form a new Conservative government, fix this mess, and allow Albertans, like my family and our family friends, to get back to working hard at their jobs, which they deserve.