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.

The Economy

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in this short parliamentary session, we are rushing through legislation to temporarily, partially, perhaps, override the very laws that have defined the Liberal government's decade-long war on development. Let us name them: Bill C-69, the “no new pipelines” act; Bill C-48, the tanker ban; the oil and gas production cap; and the industrial carbon tax. These laws have made Canada one of the slowest-growing economies in the developed world. Now, as we host the G7, our allies are still asking why Canada cannot get anything built.

The government's latest response is Bill C-5, which is a patchwork fix for which they hope no one notices the mess underneath. Selectively overriding laws is a fake approach.

Here is the real solution: Repeal these anti-energy laws, approve energy projects, create jobs and build again. Let us stop pretending and start delivering stronger paycheques and a better future for Canadians.

One Canadian Economy Act

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great humility that I rise today for my first speech in the House of Commons. I would like to use this opportunity to thank my constituents of Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk for electing me to represent them here. I am honoured to have earned their trust and to serve as their voice in our nation's Parliament. I would also like to thank my team for their dedication throughout my campaign and my family for their unwavering support in this new chapter.

The riding is a vast and diverse region, rich in natural resources, strong culture heritage and resilient communities, and I am committed to ensuring their voices are heard and their priorities are upheld.

Over the last Liberal decade, our economy has experienced the worst economic growth in the G7. We have become more dependent on the United States, and the buying power of our workers' paycheques has declined because Liberal laws have blocked resource development.

Despite having the most resources per capita of any country on earth, we continue to fall short of our economic potential. The recent tariffs from the United States have turned this problem into a full-fledged crisis, one that underscores the urgent need to rebuild economic prosperity for all Canadians. The Prime Minister has recently introduced Bill C-5. A very small number of interprovincial barriers would be eliminated by this bill, which is better than nothing, but tens of billions of dollars of obstacles at the provincial level would remain untouched.

In my professional experience as a forestry executive and through my 45 years of work in the forestry and mining sectors across northeastern Ontario, I have seen first-hand the barriers that stand in the way of productivity, investment and opportunity. Bill C-5, in its current form, fails to meaningfully address or eliminate such barriers. It is not the economic breakthrough the Liberal government wants Canadians to believe it is. Rather, it is a minor baby step and a missed opportunity to reach independence and self-reliance.

Bill C‑5 does not actually address the structural issues that are holding back Canada's economic development. Although the bill does not propose anything that slows down free trade or infrastructure projects, it lacks a practical vision for adapting to our current situation.

For those listening at home, Bill C-5 is split into two parts. The first part is about free trade and labour exchange across Canada. The second part is about projects deemed to be in the national interest, which will have their approval process streamlined by reporting to one point of contact. It includes provisions for the federal government to determine whether a major project is in the national interest based on consultation with provinces, territories and indigenous people.

Despite its ambitions, Bill C-5 falls incredibly short of delivering true free trade and getting major projects built quickly. There are simply too many fault points in Bill C-5 for us to accept the bill in its current state.

Bill C-5 does not present any concrete timelines. It does not provide for a public list of priority projects and it lacks clarity, and yet these key elements are essential to ensuring speed, accountability and public trust in the process. Without those safeguards, the bill cannot achieve its objectives or live up to Canadians' expectations.

The Liberals' own laws are barriers to development, and this bill is an admission to that. There is a way to fast-track unleashing Canadian resources. It is to remove the Liberal antidevelopment laws that block projects in first place, such as Bill C-69, Bill C-48, the oil and gas cap, and the industrial carbon tax.

This bill, like many of the Liberal government's bills, reflects a limited approach and reinforces the idea that maintaining its restrictive legislation is hampering much-needed economic growth.

Canada has 28 projects stuck in federal review, in nuclear, uranium, mining, oil and gas, hydro and roads to unlock critical minerals. Those are real projects with real proponents. By the Liberals' own argument, the obvious place to start, which would not even require legislation, would be to fast-track those assessments and approvals.

Look at what is already being done south of the border in the United States. The U.S. approves major energy projects, such as oil, gas, critical minerals and uranium, on federal lands in as few as 28 days.

The Liberals now promise a two-year timeline, where Conservatives proposed a one-year maximum wait time for approvals, with a target of six months for projects of national importance, and to also uphold the duty to consult and actually get projects built.

The Liberal government needs to get with the times. If it really wants to make Canada truly self-reliant and competitive with the U.S., we need to actually compete. The world is becoming only more chaotic and fast-paced. We need realistic times to deliver our projects, or we risk staying left behind. Canada has what the world needs. We need to give it to them when they need it.

The Prime Minister says this is an exceptional crisis. If that is true, why do we need to agree to a two-year wait time? In a real crisis, leadership calls for urgent action. Two years is simply too long. Canada is dependent on and vulnerable to the United States. The Liberals' proposal will continue to hold Canada back and leave its resources unused in the ground.

Conservatives want Canada to compete and to achieve true economic and energy security. That means shovel-ready economic zones and scrapping the cap on Canadian oil and gas. Canadians need affordable, reliable power and fuel so Canada can be self-reliant and achieve real economic independence from the United States. The way we handle our resources lays the ground for the future of our country, a country that is self-reliant and independent, and restores the Canadian promise that anyone who works hard gets a good life in our great Canada.

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

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I could not agree more. As we saw multiple times before the campaign and after the campaign, the Prime Minister took his fake little red book and signed it like he had some sort of presidential executive powers, which he simply does not. He is trying to jam this bill through as fast as he can. If he had really wanted to do it quickly, the fastest way to do it would have been to repeal Bill C-69, repeal Bill C-48, repeal Bill C-50 and remove the industrial carbon tax and the cap on energy production. That would have been the easiest thing to do.

That would have opened the door to investment and to Canadians. It would have shown them that we are open for business. However, the Liberals did not want to do that, much like Cinderella's stepmother. They want to bring people to the ball. They want them to come, but they are putting on some impossible things for them to achieve knowing they will not be able to do it. That is what Bill C-5 is doing.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I love the hon. member's assertion that we need to be bold, we need to be ambitious and we need to be audacious. This is not the time for Canada to be timid. We talked about this during the election campaign because of the threats coming from the United States, but this bill is anything but bold. It is anything but ambitious and audacious. It is a very timid bill because it does not repeal the things that are holding our natural resource sector and our economy at bay: Bill C-69, Bill C-48, the industrial carbon tax and other mechanisms that need to be repealed for us to be bold.

I wonder if the hon. member can comment a little more about that.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, imagine that we are renovating an old house and we do not worry about the shoddy foundation, the rotted joists or floorboards and the rusted plumbing; we just hope that the new buyer does not notice that we have put some lipstick on a kind of an ugly pig. That is very similar to what the Liberals are trying to do now; they are trying to put forward legislation without dealing with the root cause of the rotten consequences of bad Liberal legislation that has gotten us into this position.

We all want the one Canadian economy act to pass. We want it to succeed. As Conservatives, we want pipelines built. We want energy projects completed. We want to see interprovincial trade barriers torn down and removed to grow Canada's economy.

It has been said many times that the most lucrative free trade Canada could have is the one we do not have within our own country, but as we walk through the process and as we listen to the Liberals, we can see that they slowly walk down on what they have promised and what they can actually deliver. Bill C-5 clearly shows that what they are promising is very different than what they would deliver.

Canadians will notice that the Liberals are building a house on a shoddy foundation, because nothing will get built unless they listen to the opposition members and make some amendments to the bill to ensure that we get things built, like repealing Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, eliminating the production cap on oil and gas and repealing the just transition, Bill C-50. Those are the things that would actually make an impactful difference to ensure that projects get built in Canada.

I want to give an example. The Prime Minister first came out saying that we are going to be building pipelines and national projects, and that we are going to have a free trade agreement in Canada by July 1. What is now being said is that we will have pipelines if there is national consensus, that the projects probably will not actually include pipelines, that provinces will have a veto and that we are not really going to have a free trade agreement by Canada Day because there is a difference between federal interprovincial free trade and provincial interprovincial free trade.

As we have a chance to look at Bill C-5, we see what is going on. I want to give an example. The Prime Minister keeps talking about how only national projects within the government's own interest would be approved, and that they must include decarbonisation of oil. What does decarbonisation of western Canadian oil and gas mean, compared especially to oil and gas imported into eastern Canada?

For example, in 2023, eastern Canada imported, on average, about 790,000 barrels of crude oil per day, valued at almost $20 billion. Those imports were from the United States, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia for the most part. By implying that western Canadian energy has to be decarbonised, it would have to be produced and transported under very different regulations, making it uncompetitive with what is imported into eastern Canada. I asked the government earlier if the same regulations and non-competitive rules would be imposed on energy imported into eastern Canada from places like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. It would not answer that question.

A renowned energy analyst, Dr. Ron Wallace said, “A federal regulatory requirement to decarbonize western Canadian crude oil production without imposing similar restrictions on imported oil would render the one Canadian economy act moot and create two market realities in Canada—one that favours imports and that discourages, or at very least threatens the competitiveness of, Canadian oil export production.”

We cannot say we want to build projects and then put metrics and bars so high that Canadian energy projects and Canadian investment cannot actually reach that bar. We also cannot put the same regulatory burdens on energy imported to Canada. That is why it is so important to clear the deck. Repeal Bill C-69, repeal Bill C-48 and repeal Bill C-50. Send a clear message to the private sector and foreign investment that Canada is truly open for business and that we are serious about getting these projects built.

The Supreme Court, as my colleague from Alberta said earlier, said that Bill C-69 is unconstitutional, yet the Liberals refuse to repeal it. As a result of Bill C-69, 16 major energy projects have been abandoned, worth more than $600 billion. Of the 18 LNG projects proposed by 2015, only one remains viable, LNG Canada, and that project is proceeding only because it was granted exemptions, by the Liberal government, to Bill C-69 and the carbon tax.

Meanwhile, some of our most trusted allies, Japan, Germany, Ukraine, Poland and South Korea, came to Canada asking for LNG. They want Canadian energy that is clean, affordable and sustainable, but nonsensical policies and a decision by the Liberal government forced those countries, our important allies, to go somewhere else for their energy. In fact it was one of the few times that I was embarrassed to be Canadian, when our allies, in their time of need, came to Canada for something that we could supply, that we desperately wanted to supply, and we turned our back on them.

However, those decisions by the previous Liberal government, from which most of the ministers are still on the front bench, have consequences. Germany even signed an agreement with Qatar. Japan signed an agreement with the United States, our biggest competitor when it comes to energy, and the value of that agreement is a 20-year LNG agreement with the United States valued at $200 billion annually, supporting 50,000 American jobs.

Those jobs should have been here in Canada, and that is just one LNG agreement. That $200 billion a year should have been building schools and hospitals here in Canada. The revenue from that one LNG agreement should have been helping pay down our debt and lower taxes for Canadians here in Canada, but instead that $200 billion is going to the United States.

While the Americans are creating jobs in the energy sector, the Liberals' ideological policies, by contrast, are killing jobs here at home. For example, the just transition bill, Bill C-50, will cost about 200,000 jobs in the energy sector, 290,000 jobs in agriculture and 1.4 million jobs in construction and building. In total, the just transition bill, Bill C-50, will cost Canada 2.7 million jobs.

The member for Winnipeg North asked me where I got that information from when I mentioned it last week. Well, a memo to the Minister of Natural Resources from his own department said, “The transition to a low-carbon economy will have an uneven impact across sectors, occupations and regions, and create significant labour...disruptions. We expect that larger-scale transformations will take place”. In agriculture, it will be about 292,000 workers; in energy, about 202,000 workers; in manufacturing, about 193,000 workers; in buildings and construction, 1.4 million workers; and transportation sectors, about 642,000 workers. That adds up to 13.5% of Canada's total workforce in all parts of the country. Can members imagine a piece of legislation that is going to impact 13.5% of Canada's workforce and perhaps put another 2.7 million Canadians out of work?

In contrast, the Americans are creating tens of thousands of jobs by unleashing their energy sector while we stand by and watch. In fact last fall, the Bank of Canada stated that we all see those signs that say, “In case of emergency, break glass”, and it is time for Canada to break the glass. We are saying that it is not time to take baby steps, which Bill C-5 would be doing; it is time to be bold. It is time to be disruptive. It is time to grab the opportunity that President Trump has given us.

At no time in my life as a legislator, as an elected official, have I seen Canada united, with 75% of Quebecers wanting an east-west pipeline. Canadians across this country want interprovincial trade barriers removed, and at one time they probably did not even realize what we were talking about, but they understand the impact and the potential that Canada has if we just grab it. We cannot just dance around it; we have to be bold. Bill C-5 needs to be improved, and hopefully the Liberals will listen to the opposition and take the steps that are needed to unleash Canada's potential.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, again, it is too cute by half to try to separate out the bigger picture with the smaller picture in Bill C-5 and what it attempts to do.

The Liberals cannot get this economy built by saying one thing today and then, in two to five years, taking it back, which Bill C-5 attempts to do. Repealing Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and the industrial carbon tax, those are the real answers that last beyond two to five years, when the Liberal government may take the convenient action of just pulling Bill C-5 and having us back in uncertainty.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Foothills.

It is a privilege to rise in the House today on behalf of Edmonton Northwest, a constituency that borders the industrial heartland of Alberta, a constituency with some of Edmonton's largest industrial zoning, where men and women work on behalf of the energy sector.

Over the last 10 years of the lost Liberal decade, we have seen so much uncertainty. So much of our potential as a country continues to be held back. In a country with the highest amount of natural resources per capita in the world, Canada should not be in the position that we are in: the weakest economic growth among the G7; sending our allies, like Germany and Japan, to non-allied countries for energy; and sowing division amongst provinces, people and regions. As Conservatives, we want to unleash the power of our natural resource sector in partnership with all stakeholders, investors, indigenous peoples and all partnerships for the win-win benefit of all Canadians. Unleashing the economy needs to be measured and strategically done, rather than driven strictly by ideology.

One way of measuring success is by investment. Do the risk-takers feel comfortable enough to take that risk and make billions of dollars in investment? Well, it has been many years since investors felt safe to build large infrastructure in Canada. I personally was in a room hosted by British Columbia Investment Management Corporation just two short years ago, where a question was asked of those Canadian capital and investment bankers: What percentage of their portfolio was invested into Canadian infrastructure? The response was abysmal: maybe 5%, on average, with no outlook for growth.

Half a trillion dollars of investment has poured out of this country and into the United States over the last decade. This is due to Liberal anti-energy laws; the sowing of division in our country, pitting regions and provinces against each other; ignoring Alberta and the west in particular; and the villainization of our energy sector for all of Canada. It was not always this way, though. There was a time when provinces took the risk to invest in each other.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund invested hundreds of millions of dollars into other provinces. Albertans took the risk and made the prudent decision to invest in Canadian energy across provincial boundaries, such as in Hydro-Québec, the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, Nova Scotia Power and the Prince Rupert Grain Terminal. Still today, multiple generations of Newfoundlanders come to Alberta to build the energy engine of Canada in Fort McMurray.

These investments showed we can work together in energy development. Albertans took the risk on other provinces, their resources and their people because we believed in Canada, and it was worth investing in. We believed it would make us a stronger country, and it did. Contrast that with today. When we ask Canadians what they think of Albertan resources and investing in each other, I do not think we get the same response.

Bill C-5 has all the usual talking points, and that is what this has proven to be. It is the same strategy of safe talking points and rhetoric. What are the measures of success beyond just the rhetoric of Bill C-5 and the legislation? What is the number of projects? How many of these would cross provincial boundaries? What is the investment number? What is the growth in GDP? What are the timelines? How much of that half-trillion dollars would come back to Canada from the United States? Is this tough talk against the States just that, just talk?

Sure, we hear the current government wants to get things built within two years, but it does not put that two-year timeline in its own legislation. I believe we can build at the speed of business. There is evidence. Our country has the capacity, the manpower and the ability to do right by our energy sectors. We have no shortage of experience as a country to get large projects done. Take, for example, the TransCanada natural gas pipeline. Back in the 1950s, Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Ltd. built 3,500 kilometres of pipeline from Alberta to Montreal in just three short years. Still to this day, that Canadian, Albertan resource is heating homes in the east.

We proved as a country then that we can bypass the United States and build projects of national significance, proving that through natural resources, we are a strong, sovereign country. We can get things done. However, the ability to get things done has only worsened under the Liberals. They may tout Trans Mountain as a success, but the project, under them, went from a $5-billion investment to a $30-billion mismanaged project.

Is this the same level of excellence we should expect under Bill C-5 out of their new special projects office? The Liberals will also tout new investment of $5 billion into the national indigenous loan guarantee program, but I can tell members that $5 billion on a $30-billion mismanaged Liberal project would not cut it on Trans Mountain, and this same level of incompetence will not cut it on future projects.

Cedar LNG has raised the bar to 51% indigenous ownership on new projects, and this $5 billion that is supposed to highlight the new level of indigenous participation in this economy will certainly not meet that bar set by Cedar for the number of projects needed to make this country a superpower in energy. All of this uncertainty only undermines indigenous participation in the economy, sends mixed messages and sounds more like the usual reconciliation rhetoric. Uncertainty in indigenous spaces only means more uncertainty for Canadian investors and risk-takers to build the projects needed yesterday to make our country stronger internally and internationally.

Under this Liberal Bill C-5, the government will again have its own laws to make an excuse not to get things built. That is where the real answer lies. The answer needed to make Canada an economic superpower is to repeal Bill C-69, the no new pipeline law; repeal Bill C-48, the tanker ban; repeal the cap on Canadian energy; repeal the industrial carbon tax; repeal those things rather than being too cute by half with Bill C-5.

On this side of the House, we believe in building projects, as was proven and done in the past. What we do not believe in is more government rhetoric. We do not believe in playing politics of convenience with our national economy. On this side of the House, we do not agree with raising expectations of Canadians, the provinces, first nations and investors only to pull the rug out from under them, with excuses down the road from existing legislation. Every day that goes by, the Prime Minister and government are proving to be more of the same as the last Trudeau government, all about the photo op and not the result.

On this side of the House, we support building projects and unleashing the economy, and we will hold the Liberal government to account in that regard. On this side of the House, we believe in energy workers, and we believe in less red tape. We believe in legislation that would last beyond two to five years. We believe in government action that would last generations. We believe in energy security and going beyond photo ops. Canadians need affordable, reliable power and fuel so Canada can be self-reliant and achieve real economic independence from the U.S.

We believe in building things across this country for that mission. We believe in enhancing our ports for this cause. We believe in engaging indigenous nations effectively, rather than the same old talking points through third-party institutions. We believe in creating investment certainty for Canadian risk-takers. We as a country have done it in the past, and we can do it again with the repeal of Bill C-69 and those other laws.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to see Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 repealed.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is a nation rich in resources, talent and opportunity. From potash to petroleum, from uranium to wheat, our country has what the world needs, yet our potential is being held back, not by people or the land but by federal policies that make it harder to build and grow. As we debate Bill C-5, the so-called building Canada act, we must ask whether this legislation fixes what is broken or merely patches over the cracks.

This bill acknowledges that Canada's regulatory system has become a barrier to progress, but instead of fixing the system for everyone, it offers a shortcut for a chosen few. In my riding of Souris—Moose Mountain, we do not just talk about resource development; we live it. Our oil fields, potash mines and farmers provide food, fuel and fertilizer to Canadians and our global partners. We understand that development must be responsible, but also possible.

This bill claims it would fast-track national interest projects, but what qualifies as national interest remains undefined. Who decides, based on what and for how long? The answers are not in this legislation, and that is part of the problem.

Clause 5 of the bill would allow cabinet to designate certain projects for special treatment, but the criteria are vague, the process is opaque and the project list is not even public. That raises serious questions about transparency, fairness and accountability. What is more, the so-called fast-track powers expire in five years. That is not a solution. That is an admission that the government does not believe in its own regulatory framework. If it did, it would not need exemptions, and that is what this bill is, an exemption. It is not a reform or a replacement, and it would not streamline the system for its investors. It picks winners. It does not restore confidence in Canada's regulatory framework; it dodges it.

This is not how we build national prosperity. This is how we sow regional division, because when some projects leapfrog the process while others languish, people start to lose faith, not just in the system but in the fairness of our country. We have seen what happens when politics trumps policy. Major infrastructure projects are cancelled, pipelines are stalled and billions of dollars in investment are lost. That is not progress; that is paralysis.

Bill C-5 would do nothing to prevent activist litigation or intergovernmental obstruction. There is no mechanism in the bill to protect approved projects from being blocked after the fact and no real incentive for provinces or regulators to speed up their approvals. What is the point of declaring a project in the national interest if we cannot ensure it gets built?

Let us talk about timelines. The government says it wants projects approved within two years, but the bill would not in any way legislate a deadline. There is no guarantee and no enforcement. That means more uncertainty for project proponents. Let us contrast that with the United States, where certain federal energy projects are approved within 30 days. That is what it means to get serious about competitiveness.

Here in Canada, we say we are in a crisis, but we act like we are not. The Minister of Natural Resources himself said there is no investment certainty in Canada, but who created that problem? The Liberals have been in power for nearly a decade. Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and layers of overlapping regulation did not appear overnight. They were built piece by piece by the government.

Now we are told to celebrate not a fix but a workaround. What Conservatives are calling for is simple: to make Canada competitive again. Let us repeal the broken laws, create shovel-ready zones, cap review times to one year, fast-track permitting through a single, reliable process and, yes, use section 92(10) of the Constitution to declare major projects like pipelines and transmission corridors to the general advantage of Canada. That is how we ensure that national interest is not held hostage to provincial politics or activist pressures.

We also need to address labour mobility. We have thousands of foreign-trained doctors, nurses and engineers who could fill shortages all across the country but cannot work due to a patchwork of credentialing rules. A Conservative government would implement a blue seal standard, modelled after the Red Seal for trades, that would allow professionals to practise across Canada if they meet national standards. This bill could have included that. It did not. It is another missed opportunity.

I would like to share a story of a couple I met in Estevan. They run a small oil field service company. They are honest, hard-working and deeply committed to their community. They told me their biggest challenge is not financing or labour; it is uncertainty. They never know when the new rules from Ottawa will change everything. They want to invest, expand and hire, but not if the ground keeps shifting beneath them.

That uncertainty is echoed across this country. It is in mining, forestry, clean energy and even nuclear, where world-leading projects in Saskatchewan remain stuck in regulatory limbo. Bill C-5 offers no assurance that things will get better, only that some projects and some companies might get lucky. Dr. Jack Mintz warned that without regulatory certainty, capital will flow elsewhere, and that is exactly what we are seeing.

Investors are not waiting for us to get our act together. They are putting their money where approvals are predictable, often south of the border, and while Canada stalls, the U.S. moves. While we hold consultations, they build. While we argue over definitions, they approve projects in weeks, not years. We are falling behind, not because of a lack of resources or workers, but because we lack a government willing to make the hard choices.

Let me summarize our concerns. This bill leaves too much power in the hands of cabinet; lacks clear criteria for project selection; has no enforceable timelines; invites legal challenges; offers no protection against future political interference; sunsets in five years, offering no long-term certainty; and picks a few winners instead of fixing the system for all. Canadians deserve better. They deserve a regulatory system that is fast, fair and final. They deserve to know that when a project is approved, it will be built. They deserve leadership that does not just manage decline, but believes in building something greater.

Conservatives will continue to support projects that grow our economy, strengthen our sovereignty and create opportunity for all Canadians. We will work with any party to pursue real reforms, not just symbolic gestures. We will always stand up for the people who power our nation, from Estevan to Arcola, from potash miners to oil field welders, because we believe in their future and we will fight for it.

In Souris—Moose Mountain, we take great pride in being builders. Whether it is potash operations around Rocanville, oil wells of the Bakken formation or the grain and cattle operations that dot the landscape, we are a region that contributes to the economic backbone of this country. However, increasingly, people in my constituency are telling me they feel their efforts are being undercut by policy decisions made in Ottawa that fail to reflect the reality on the ground. They ask me this: Why does it take years to approve something that should be straightforward? Why are we losing investment to the United States and elsewhere when we have the resources and expertise to get things done here? Why does the government keep announcing grand frameworks that never seem to translate into shovels in the ground or jobs in our communities?

Bill C-5 should have been the answer to those questions, but it is not. Instead, it is a narrowly tailored mechanism that selects a few special projects for acceleration without addressing the fundamental problems that hold the rest of the country back. It creates a two-tier system: one for the politically favoured and one for everyone else.

What Canada needs is a one-tier system that works for all, for everyone in every region. We need a system that respects the regulatory rigour that our environment and indigenous people deserve, but one that does so in a way that is efficient, transparent and accountable. We need to stop creating special lanes and start fixing the entire road.

Our caucus has put forward common-sense proposals that would accomplish exactly that: a one-year cap on project approvals, a six-month fast-track option for strategic projects, transparent national standards that recognize provincial authority, and the repeal of burdensome laws, like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, that have made it nearly impossible to build anything of consequence. In short, we want Canada to be a country where great ideas get built, where workers get hired and where prosperity is not an accident, but is the result of deliberate, focused policy choices that support growth rather than stifle it.

It is not about ideology; it is about practicality. A strong resource sector helps pay for hospitals, schools, roads and the public services we rely on across the country. It supports jobs in urban and rural communities alike. When done right, it positions Canada as a responsible leader in global energy and environmental standards. Canadians do not just want a government that points at a few shiny projects and says, “Look what we did”; they want a government that builds a system that works reliably and consistently for all.

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

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague said, the bill is an admission that Liberal laws are barriers to development. The way to unleash Canadian resources is to remove antidevelopment laws that block projects, such as Bill C-69, Bill C-48, the oil and gas cap and the industrial carbon tax.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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