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.

Motions in amendment

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, in December, while the NDP-Liberals’ self-proclaimed socialist environment minister hung out with 70,000 sanctimonious politicians and wealthy elites at a sprawling air-conditioned steel complex in a major petro-state, without a hint of shame or irony, I might add, who all flew from around the world on publicly funded, commercial and private airplanes and jets, even though virtual attendance was also an option, to scheme up ways to make life poorer, colder, dirtier, slower, darker, more inconvenient, more isolated, more uncomfortable and more expensive for everyone else, the NDP-Liberals colluded to ram through and cover up the pinnacle of their anti-energy, anti-private sector, anti-capitalist agenda here at home.

From away, the minister announced yet more damaging policy for Canadians, and even bragged that he was the first environment minister in the world out of touch and radical enough to do something to Canada that no other major resource or oil and gas-producing country is doing to itself, no other country in the world at all, to impose a cap clearly designed to function as a Canadian oil and gas production cap, which really means a cap on the biggest private sector investor in Canada’s economy; a cap on affordable and reliable power and fuel; a cap on clean tech investment in Canada, which primarily comes from the energy sector; a cap on jobs, on businesses, on tax revenues for social programs and services for Canadians.

That is not leadership; it is putting one’s own radical activist ideology ahead of the best interests of the people he serves, which are supposed to be Canadians. It is not at all worthy of celebration.

No other competing oil and gas producer, for which global demand is expected to increase significantly for the foreseeable future, is doing this to themselves. They know it is bad for their citizens and bad for their countries. Rather, it is entitled, out of touch, powermongering and not worth the cost to Canadians.

The NDP-Liberals do not seem to know or care that petro-state dictators, terrorists and despots who control and weaponize the energy supply against others, and Canada’s best ally, customer and biggest oil and gas competitor, the U.S., are, at best, shaking their heads at our government’s self-inflicted harm on Canadians. Those countries are all ramped up to provide for the world’s energy needs, while Canada is home to an abundance of extraordinary resources, expertise and talent, which are, by the way, leaving in droves for friendlier jurisdictions.

The NDP-Liberals constantly roadblock, gatekeep, hamper, punish and kill, by delay, Canadian oil and gas development and exports. They reject every ally who desperately wants and needs Canada’s LNG. Their red tape prevents any meaningful production of critical minerals and rare earth metals, since mines can take up to 25 years to get going in Canada, Because of that, everything is broken and nothing can get built under these NDP-Liberals.

When the PM said he wanted to phase out oil and gas, many thought it was a gaffe, but, it was a tell, and every action, after eight years, shows it.

On one hand, it was appropriate that the announcement was there, given that it is exactly global planning gatherings for global economic and foreign policy like what happens regularly at the annual COP meetings, and many other global policy focused groups, where this whole concept of the just transition started and where it advances still.

On the other hand, it was very disturbing, because it truly shows how totally out of touch the NDP-Liberals really are with the realities of everyday life for the majority of Canadians and how far away the NDP-Liberals are from their long-ago empty claims that they valued inclusion, diversity, transparency and, most starkly, democracy.

The spectacle of the NDP-Liberal collusion and cover-up in the natural resources committee, to impose the globally-planned just transition on Canada and reject nearly all amendments proposed by Conservatives in the early hours of the morning and to silence and sideline every Canadian who will be impacted by the costly coalition’s anti-energy, anti-private sector agenda embodied in Bill C-50 immediately and in the long run, was almost shocking to witness, if it was not such a predictable pattern after eight years.

If there was any doubt left, it is more obvious than ever that the NDP-Liberals are focused solely on power, not principle; on power, not purpose; on their own partisan, political and parliamentary power and on currying favour with their fellow global policy elites, not on the Canadian people, not on the power of the Canadian people, not on the power to the Canadian people

Bill C-50 is the NDP-Liberals’ behind-closed-doors, top-down central plan for wide-scale, radical economic restructuring for Canada. It does not even achieve their own stated purpose for their power grab to ram it through, but what else is new with those guys?

The truth is that there is not a single tangible skills or jobs training program proposed or even outlined in the bill that the costly coalition says it has worked on, behind closed doors, for nearly two years.

What Bill C-50, which is the global just transition no matter what the NDP-Liberals call it, which is anything but just in every possible way, would do is create a government committee behind closed doors that would create another government committee behind closed doors that would give instructions to governments to centrally plan Canada's economy on a cycle, every five years; soviet-style planning, every five years.

The words are in the title, but Bill C-50 does not actually mandate any transparency or accountability about the committees, the cost, the membership, their plans, except for the government to table reports, but it is granted extraordinary power to direct governments to radically overhaul Canada's economy and redistribute wealth.

The NDP-Liberals also know that their agenda in Bill C-50 would kill over 200,000 jobs in energy and threaten 292,000 Canadian jobs in agriculture, 193,000 Canadian jobs in manufacturing, 642,000 Canadian jobs in transportation and 1.4 million Canadian jobs in building and construction. Those last two are 10% of Canada's employment alone. That is what the government's own internal memo about Bill C-50, the just transition, means when it cautions about “significant labour market disruptions” and “larger-scale transformations” to jobs and the economy. It is sneaky bureaucratese and “parliamentese” that is common in government, but its meaning is clear and it should make every Canadian uneasy.

The NDP-Liberals even know it will lead to lower paid, more precarious work for indigenous and visible minority Canadians, because it is in a memo. They should already know that since indigenous and visible minority Canadians work in the energy sector at double the rate of other sectors. However, the NDP-Liberals do not care.

They will stick with their cruel carbon tax, their energy export ban, Bill C-48, and their half a decade old unconstitutional Bill C-69 and fight for their crazy plastics as toxins decree, even though provinces, indigenous communities and entrepreneurs challenge the NDP-Liberals on all of those harmful anti-energy agendas and policies through federal court and to the Supreme Court.

The NDP-Liberals that know that some Canadians will be hurt more than others. People in Newfoundland and Labrador, in Saskatchewan and in Alberta will be “disproportionately affected”, but the NDP-Liberals do not care.

Bill C-50 would build central planning ideological bureaucracy, not Canadian skills training programs; bureaucracy, not Canadian jobs; bureaucracy, not Canadian businesses; bureaucracy, not Canadian clean tech.

Canadians might be wondering what the heck is going on here. The truth is that the NDP-Liberals cooked up up Bill C-50 behind closed doors for about two years, introduced it last summer, with a last-minute spin job name change, and no debate. Before the committee even reported on what, in hindsight, was clearly a collusion charade to appear to help create the legislation in the first place, they brought it back in the fall; shut it down with less than a normal business day of debate for all MPs of all parties; spent a month obsessed with blocking Conservative MPs at committee; and censored any MP and any Canadian with a different view or even with any reasonable questions about their plan, which they imposed through a top-down edict from the House of Commons. By the way, that was used only twice in urgent scenarios in nine years under the previous Conservative government, but has been used at least 10 times by the costly coalition.

Let us talk about the kinds of amendments that were rejected, amendments that were proposed by the Conservatives.

We proposed measures to: ensure access to affordable and reliable energy; ensure a strong export-oriented energy sector; avoid regulatory duplication and necessary delays; outline how the federal government would help ensure the affordability and reliability of energy; improve affordability and to facilitate and promote economic growth, private sector investment, the creation of sustainable jobs; ensure that major and clean energy projects under the federal regulatory framework could be delivered on time and on budget; the importance of collaborating with all levels of government, including provincial, territorial and municipal governments, and all relevant partners and stakeholders; the inclusion of representatives of provincial, territorial and indigenous governance bodies; measures to recognize local and regional needs, including indigenous communities; ways to create economic opportunities for indigenous communities; ways to promote economic growth, including the economic growth indigenous communities; mandate meaningful consultation and to account for the cultural values, aspirations, strengths; and to include at least two members who represent indigenous organizations, at least one of which has a substantial interest in Canada's natural resources sector.

The Liberals even rejected an amendment where Conservatives called on achieving a fair and equitable plan. The Conservatives will be—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hopefully, the colleagues who were all waxing eloquent about doing this efficiently today will stop interrupting.

I will continue.

As our common-sense Conservative leader said on Thursday:

For hundreds of years, First Nations have suffered under a broken colonial system that takes power away from their communities and places it in the hands of politicians [and bureaucrats] in Ottawa.

The [racist] Indian Act hands over all reserve land and money to the federal government. This means that First Nations have to go to Ottawa to ask for their tax revenues [that were] collected from resource projects on their land.

This outdated system puts power in the hands of bureaucrats, politicians and lobbyists—not First Nations. The direct result of this “Ottawa-knows-best” approach has been poverty, substandard infrastructure and housing, [unmet education needs,] unsafe drinking water and despair.

The former Conservative government, of course, made the historic apology for residential schools on behalf of all Canadians and launched the truth and reconciliation process and commission. More and more indigenous leaders and people across Canada after the last eight years call for overdue concrete measures towards what many indigenous leaders call “reconciliACTION” so that indigenous communities everywhere can move from managing poverty and gang crime to enabling prosperity and peaceful communities with abundant opportunities.

Last week, a visionary indigenous leader reminded me that many promises have been made by the Prime Minister after eight years. This Prime Minister says that the most important relationship to him is with indigenous people, but of course, he's failed over and over to deliver on his many big promises. That hereditary chief and former elected chief said to me that he says that the relationship with indigenous people is the most important one to him, but it's not Trudeau.

All parties should support this first nations-led optional tool because the first nations resource charge can help transform the status quo. Importantly, this is why it's an unprecedented proposal by a federal leader. It cedes federal tax room so that indigenous communities will no longer need to send the revenues to Ottawa and then ask for them back. It will make resource projects more attractive to first nations communities so that resource projects important to all of Canada and to every Canadian are more likely to go ahead.

This opt-in, optional program would permit first nations to collect 50% of the federal taxes paid by industrial activities on their land, with industry getting a tax credit in exchange. Under the tax-sharing proposal, businesses would pay tax directly to first nations in exchange for this 50% refundable tax credit. Of course, this proposal would respect existing treaties and uphold the Crown's constitutional duty to consult, and it could either replace or supplement any financial aspects of indigenous communities' pursuits of impact and mutual benefit agreements.

As many colleagues here will know, I come from Treaty No. 6 territory in Alberta, where indigenous communities and entrepreneurs have worked with the private sector and the government for decades to responsibly develop natural gas, heavy oil, clean and renewable energy, and oil sands. This is along with mutual benefit agreements and ownership positions in major projects, in energy infrastructure like power lines and pipelines, and in the service and supply sector. Oil sands and pipeline companies are, of course, the leading individual private sector employers of indigenous people in Canada, which is why the anti-energy just transition is so dangerous, particularly for them. Of course, indigenous employment in Canada is led by the mining and energy sectors overall.

Those indigenous communities all over Alberta have generated incredible own-source revenue, jobs, skills, opportunities and wealth for their community members and for future generations. They've created jobs and economic opportunities alike for their non-indigenous neighbours and for surrounding communities too. Opportunities and responsible resource development have helped indigenous communities teach the past, support their elders, heal people, help communities to learn and share languages and cultural practices, support essential health and well-being services, provide recreational and spiritual activities for youth, plan opportunities for future generations, and employ both their indigenous members and surrounding non-indigenous neighbours.

That's why radical anti-energy ideologies violate and undermine the aspirations and goals of hundreds of indigenous communities and people who want economic reconciliation for a brighter future with hope, opportunity and autonomy. Conservatives are especially mindful of how important it is to prioritize this kind of action because of all of the losses that eight years of the federal NDP-Liberal coalition's colonialist anti-energy, anti-private sector agenda has already cost all Canadians, especially indigenous people.

It's like the northern gateway pipeline, when Prime Minister Trudeau unilaterally vetoed the entire project in an order in council, instead of redoing the indigenous consultation—an option given by the court's decision on the shortcomings of that process. The Prime Minister's veto destroyed the years of work by indigenous leaders, who had secured dozens of impact and mutual benefit agreements worth almost $400 million. Those indigenous communities were not consulted on the Prime Minister's veto or about all of the major losses they would then sustain as a result, before the Ottawa-knows-best veto by Prime Minister Trudeau.

It's just like when the people of the Northwest Territories were caught off guard when the same Prime Minister unilaterally banned drilling—which was announced, of course, when he was in the United States. He stopped and blocked economic and energy investment opportunities in the north, where it's badly needed.

I'm thinking of the fact that the Lax Kw'alaams in B.C. were not consulted on how their rights and titles are undermined by the Prime Minister's imposition of Bill C-48, the anti-Canadian, anti-energy, anti-pipeline export ban. Of course, it wasn't a full tanker ban in the area. It only banned the onloading and off-loading at ports of vessels of a certain quantity and a certain size. It was deliberately to ban energy infrastructure and energy exports off of that coast, which indigenous communities wanted.

The Lax Kw'alaams are suing the federal government over C-48 because it violates their decision-making power over fishing activities and any pursuit of energy infrastructure and export opportunities, which dozens of indigenous communities leading to and in that area want to achieve.

I think of the brave Woodland Cree in Alberta, who went all the way to the Supreme Court in a multipronged effort to challenge this government's anti-energy, anti-private sector, pro-red tape Bill C-69, because it risks drowning out the voices of locally impacted indigenous communities who seek economic and resource opportunities on and around their lands. I make mention of the Woodland Cree because, despite all of the resources and the ability on the government's side, the Woodland Cree won.

It's been 122 days since the Supreme Court said that less than 10% of Bill C-69 is constitutional and that the rest is largely unconstitutional, yet those indigenous communities and all Canadians wait for this anti-energy, NDP-Liberal costly coalition to do something about that Supreme Court ruling, to fix that bill that Conservatives warned would result in exactly what has happened.

It's the fact that the Trans Mountain expansion was supposed to have been operating in 2019, but this federal government's deliberate, politically motivated failure to assert legal and political jurisdiction to ensure and prove that the project could actually get built by its private sector proponent delayed and risked the more than 40 indigenous mutual benefit agreements that their communities have worked years to secure with the private sector proponent.

That's even after the federal Liberals took the opportunity to redo their failed consultation after a federal court said they failed the first time around. After eight years, of course, the TMX is still not fully built or operational, and indigenous-led ownership groups are left waiting by this NDP-Liberal anti-energy coalition.

I think about the 15 losses of LNG projects since this government took office because of their anti-private sector, anti-energy red tape mess. We salute Woodfibre LNG, which has a groundbreaking partnership and proposal with the Squamish people as a regulator. They are entrepreneurial and leading their communities for economic and energy business opportunities.

LNG Canada was previously approved by the Harper Conservative government and then delayed by the NDP-Liberals. Thank goodness it's starting to be back on track. All 20 first nations along the route of the pipeline supplying LNG Canada have had elected band council signed benefit agreements with the private sector proposal from Coastal GasLink.

The Liberal red tape mess has killed energy and resource opportunity, over and over, for indigenous communities and for all of Canadians. I think of the indigenous communities who want to develop the ring of fire in Ontario and are speaking out because of the red tape mess of the regional assessments from Bill C-69. So far, they are lengthily delayed and roadblocked in their pursuit of essential infrastructure and economic opportunities in the region.

Both Webequie and Marten Falls first nations communities have proposed projects to support their development in the ring of fire region, but have been stuck in the Liberals' red tape mess.

I think of leaders like Dale Swampy of the National Coalition of Chiefs and Stephen Buffalo of the Indian Resource Council, who have fought against this colonialist, anti-Canadian agenda—

Indigenous Affairs

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the PM said he values indigenous people most, but that is only true when they agree with him. After eight years, indigenous leaders fight the NDP-Liberals' anti-private sector, anti-resource, anti-energy agenda.

There are 130 Ontario first nations that will take the NDP-Liberals to court over their colonialist carbon tax. It does what Conservatives warned. Everything is more expensive. Those who can least afford it are hurting the most. Rural, remote and northern indigenous, and all, Canadians can hardly survive. They are forced to choose between heating, eating and housing.

B.C.'s Lax Kw'alaams sued over the NDP-Liberals' export ban, Bill C-48, to make its own decisions about jobs, energy and fish. Alberta's Woodland Cree sued over the unconstitutional “never build anything” bill, Bill C-69. Five years ago, Conservatives warned both bills would hurt indigenous people. The Liberals ignored that; it is death by delay.

Indigenous leaders oppose the emissions cap to cut production and the central plan of the just transition bill, Bill C-50, to kill the Canadian jobs and businesses where indigenous people work the most. The Liberals block indigenous-backed pipelines, the oil sands, LNG and roads to the Ring of Fire. They stop all the deals for education, recreation, health and wellness.

It is no wonder that the NDP-Liberals censor and cover up their costly anti-Canada collusion. Common-sense Conservatives will turn hurt into hope for indigenous and all Canadians.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes, exactly.

I think it's important to note that this Liberal government has continued to put forward policies that divide our great country. Whether it be the carbon tax that I've talked about and will continue to talk about, Bill C-69, which is referred to as the “no more pipelines” bill, or Bill C-48.

Abraham Lincoln famously said that a house divided cannot stand. We need to have a country that is working together. We need from every corner, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, everyone rowing in the same direction and working together to make this the great country that we know it should and can be.

When we look across our country, we see individuals increasingly feeling as though they are being left out by this government, whether you are a logger in British Columbia or you're working in the oil fields in Alberta.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses for being here today.

My questions are for Mr. Bewick.

Thank you for so eloquently giving the temperature of what Alberta is feeling like and what Albertans are feeling like today. After eight years of this Prime Minister, we've never seen the country so divided or broken—whether it's anti-energy, anti-Alberta or anti-growth laws; legislation like Bill C-69, the northern pipeline bill or Bill C-48, the tanker ban; or the carbon tax.

We recently saw the Prime Minister do a massive flip-flop on this carbon tax, giving 3% of Canadians—in Atlantic Canada, where the Liberals' poll numbers are tanking—a break on the carbon tax on their home heating. We also recently saw a very out-of-touch, Liberal Atlantic and rural affairs minister say that, if the Prairies want a carve-out like what Atlantic Canadians got, they should “elect more Liberals”.

Well, there are Liberals in western Canada. There is one here in Edmonton who is a minister. I can't figure out whether he's irrelevant or whether he just has no voice at his own cabinet table.

I want to ask you this, Mr. Bewick: Is this unfair treatment to the rest of Canadians, and should all Canadians not have gotten this carbon tax carve-out for home heating?

Second Reading

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am rising today to express my serious concerns about Bill C-50. This bill is called the sustainable jobs act, which is typical of what Liberals do. They pick a name that sounds good. Who does not like sustainable jobs? I like sustainable jobs. I think all Canadians want sustainable jobs. It sounds really good, but the problem is that in this bill there is no plan to create sustainable jobs. This is a plan to get a plan.

The bill outlines how the Liberals are going to put together a council. Based on past behaviour, I suggest that it would be highly paid Liberal insiders who will get these jobs and advise on what the plan ought to be. As to the timeline of when they are going to come up with what the plan ought to be, it be should by 2025, coincidentally just after the next election.

The Liberals do not have a plan. Nothing says there is no plan like a bill that is introduced to get a plan. That is the first thing.

The second thing is the Liberals have another role, a secretariat, that is going to do some coordination, with another highly paid Liberal insider when they get the plan. The problem is that is it; that is all. It is a plan to get a plan, with some principles that are motherhood and apple pie and that we would all agree on, such as well-paying jobs, caring about the environment and the need to respect labour, all of these good things. They are all motherhood and apple pie, but the bill does not have a specific action that is going to help.

On the other hand, it is going to hurt. The analysts of the government have said that Bill C-50 would kill 170,000 direct Canadian jobs, would displace 450,000 workers directly and indirectly working in the energy sector and would risk the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians across all provinces. The bill would destroy as many as 2.7 million jobs when there is not a single action in it to create any sustainable jobs at all. That is a problem.

The other thing is that it is going to cost a lot of money. Right now the energy sector provides 10% of Canada's GDP and pays over $20 billion in taxes to all levels of government every year. Last year, $48 billion in royalties and taxes were contributed by the energy sector. This bill purports to get rid of that by eliminating the sector.

We can look at other places in the world that have come up with a sustainable jobs plan and are starting to implement it, Scotland being one example. If we took the cost per person of its plan and did the equivalent thing here, it would cost $37.2 billion. The Liberals are taking away as much as $48 billion and adding a cost of another $37 billion. If we do the math, they are increasing by greater than $70 billion the loss to the Canadian economy.

I do not know why the Liberal government cannot learn the lesson when countless people can, like former Liberal John Manley, who said that when it runs these huge deficits, it is putting a foot on the inflationary gas pedal, which is causing the Bank of Canada to put its foot on the brake with higher interest rates. This raises the cost of mortgages. Canadians are suffering from coast to coast, so definitely not only is the bill not going to create jobs, but it will come with a huge cost.

It is not like this is the first time there has been an attack on oil and gas and the energy sector. This has been a continual theme from the time I got elected in 2015. Let us start with the tanker ban, Bill C-48, to keep Canadian oil from getting out there when everybody else's ships are out there full of oil. Then we had Bill C-55, which created marine protected areas so we could do no oil and gas development there. Then there was Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill, which was just called unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. All of these things were intended to be a war against creating oil and gas projects.

There is evidence. When the Liberals took power, there were 18 LNG projects on the books and there were four pipelines. Zero pipelines have been built and all the LNG projects but one are cancelled. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our friends in Germany were going to give us $59 billion to replace their Russian oil and coal with our green LNG. The Prime Minister said there was no business case, so Australia took that deal.

Then Japan came up with a similar deal and again we would not take the deal, so Saudi Arabia took it. Then came France and the Netherlands. There were all these opportunities for Canada to be a leader, supplanting higher-carbon fuels with our green LNG, the most responsibly produced product in the world with the best human rights record, but again the Liberal government refused. Instead, it is focused on its own ideology and things that it wants to do that continue to destroy the economy.

We can talk about the electric vehicle mandates. That was another great idea. Let us give away $31 billion to create 3,000 jobs. For those who can do the math, if we just gave each of those 3,000 people $10 million, they would never have to work again and there would not be any footprint. There is a total misunderstanding of how to create a growing economy.

Then there is the clean electricity standard, another hugely divisive bill that was introduced by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, clearly not understanding that where the Liberals want to go with all the electric vehicles, electricity and the grid would require building the equivalent of 19 nuclear facilities, like the one from Bruce Power. They cannot build anything, so I do not know where they get the idea that they are going to be successful in achieving that.

At the same time, they are ignoring the fact that only 7% of the public even wants an electric vehicle because the technology is not there. No one wants to be trapped in a snowstorm at -30°C because the batteries do not work. They catch fire. In addition to that, they do not have a very long range. Instead, the government decided to pick a winner and loser with the battery plants that are being built.

Now Toyota has come out with a solid-state battery, with a 1,275-kilometre range, that works at -20°C and does not catch fire. That will make our technology obsolete, with $31 billion after the fact. Maybe the Liberal government needs a few more engineers so that it can actually make science-, fact- and data-based decisions, but that is not what is happening today.

The Liberals continue to move ahead with the carbon tax and the second carbon tax, putting punishment on the backs of Canadians and achieving nothing. Emissions have gone up under the government. At the 2005 level, we were at 732 megatonnes. We needed to get to 519 and now we are at 819. They are not achieving their targets and keep putting bills like this in place, talking about sustainability, the environment and creating jobs. They are not actually achieving that.

Sarnia—Lambton has a huge oil and gas sector, but it knows how to do a transition and is doing a transition. It is creating good-paying, sustainable jobs like the ones at Origin Materials, a net-zero plastics plant in my riding. My riding has one of the largest solar facilities in North America. There is a whole bio-innovation centre that is growing different kinds of bio-facilities that are all either carbon sinks or carbon-neutral. These are the kinds of actual solutions and actions we need. That is not what is in Bill C-50. It is a plan to get a plan with nothing else. For that reason, I will not be supporting Bill C-50.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time with my good friend and colleague, the great member for Foothills, who is from the great province of Alberta.

Before I get started, let me give another shout-out to another fellow Albertan, another colleague in this House who has done incredible work on this unjust legislation, the member for Lakeland. She has been an absolute advocate not only for our province but also for our world-class and world-leading energy sector.

The world needs more clean, responsible low-carbon energy. Not only does the world need Canada's world-class energy, but Canadians need it too. They need it not only to heat their homes, keep the lights on and fuel their vehicles, but for the economic benefit it brings.

After eight years of the incompetent Liberal-NDP government, it is just not worth the cost for Canadians or our resource sector. Canada is last among developed countries for GDP per capita growth. Canadians are suffering with the worst GDP per capita growth rate since the Great Depression, or since the 1930s. GDP per person in Canada today is just under what it was halfway through 2018. That means Canada has had five years' worth of economic productivity wiped out.

According to the OECD, Canada will remain last among developed countries for GDP per capita growth through 2060. The government has been doing one thing really well, which is chasing investment out of our country. As our leader once said, all of our exes are running away to Texas.

The costly Liberal-NDP coalition has not just been chasing investment out of our country, but chasing out jobs, people and talent as well. People do not want to move to this country because they do not see a future here anymore. When my family came here as immigrants, there was a hope in Canada that if one put in hard work, one would be able to see the fruits of that labour. However, after years of the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister, all that hope has been wiped away by bad economic policy that has told the world that Canada is not open for business anymore.

This unjust legislation would further hurt Canada's economy and reputation on the world stage, as if the Prime Minister's reputation has not already damaged Canada enough.

The Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada was formed just a few years ago to advocate against the government's anti-competitive and antiworker policies. Now half of its manufacturer members have already moved or are moving their operations out of Canada.

The green industry in Canada will not even make a dent in the kind of economic development and growth needed for recovery. In 2007, the clean-tech sector was 3% of Canada's GDP. Today, even after billions and billions of tax dollars and government subsidies and billions more in private sector investment, it is still only 3%, and 1.6% of employment.

Despite the anti-energy agenda by the Liberal-NDP government, the unconstitutional “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, the tanker ban bill, Bill C-48, cancelling Energy East, cancelling Keystone XL and not building any of the 18 LNG projects proposed when the Prime Minister took office, Canada's energy sector still represents 10% of our GDP and, with the related manufacturing that comes with it, contributes over $120 billion to our economy. Canada needs its energy sector to be strong to attract businesses, investments and jobs in order to get our economic growth and productivity back on track.

The Liberal-NDP government loves nothing more than to vilify profit or the success of large Canadian industries. When it comes to Canada's energy sector, it is like a sport for the left to see who can hate it the most. There is a big cost to these failed Liberal-NDP policies, these anti-energy and anti-Canada policies. These attacks will throw at least 170,000 people out of work across the country, many of them in my home province of Alberta and many in my riding of Calgary Forest Lawn. They will displace another 450,000 workers and risk the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians in all provinces and sectors, regardless of whether they are working class or middle class.

We know that people would lose jobs with the unjust transition the left is proposing. We already saw it in Ontario under Kathleen Wynne with the green energy program, which killed off nearly 100,000 jobs directly. The 50,000 green jobs those Liberals promised to create never materialized. In Alberta, the Rachel Notley NDP, in 2015, implemented a just transition, and in small mining towns like Hanna, just north of Calgary, workers were promised new green jobs once their coal mining jobs were wiped out. Just as in Ontario, over 1,000 workers left town because the jobs that had been promised were not there. This was in a town of just under 3,000 people, and 1,000 were driven out of work and out of town.

The sheer number of job losses we are talking about on a national scale is devastating, especially at a time when Canadians face a cost of living crisis. Sixty per cent of Canadians are choosing cheaper, less nutritious food because they cannot afford healthy options. Millions of Canadians are visiting food banks as families choose between keeping a roof over their head and keeping food on the table. Nearly a third of mortgage holders are concerned they will not be able to afford their mortgage, as interest rates could increase monthly payments by 40% or higher.

It is not just the jobs, livelihoods and communities that suffer when the Liberal-NDP government attacks our energy industry. It is also hurting Canadian pensions. The Canadian pension plan and Ontario pension plan invest billions in Canada's oil and gas sector because they know it is a good return on investment. In fact, seven of the largest pension funds in Canada remain invested in Canadian oil and gas. By firing energy workers and attacking our world-class energy sector, the Liberal-NDP coalition is attacking the retirement security of Canadian seniors and workers.

There is a huge impact of this unjust transition on communities and Canadians. There is nothing fair, equitable or remotely just in this blatant anti-energy attack. The Liberal-NDP government, with its war on Canadian jobs and paycheques, is not worth the cost. Canadian energy companies provide good-paying jobs, even good union jobs, for Canadians.

As an example, the Keystone XL pipeline project was to employ 1,400 direct and 5,400 indirect jobs in Alberta alone. The province and TC Energy partnered with Natural Law Energy, an indigenous-led and indigenous-run company. Many of the Canadians who worked on the project were indigenous. The economic benefit for Albertans in surrounding rural communities kept people employed and businesses running.

Canadian energy companies are also leaders in the investment and development of clean technology. Seventy-five per cent of private sector investment in clean technology comes from the oil and gas sector.

Canada's energy sector contributes $48 billion in taxes and royalties to all levels of government. These continuous attacks on our energy sector drive up the cost of gas, groceries and home heating. We do not need to go very far to ask a Canadian about that. We have talked to Canadians all across this country who just last winter were hit with the failed policies of the Liberal-NDP government when we saw the cost of heating homes double and saw gas prices at record levels. All of these things are contributing to the cost of living crisis we see today with the failed carbon tax scam that the Liberal-NDP government continues to introduce.

It was not like this before the Liberal-NDP government and it will not be like that after the Liberal-NDP government, because when the member for Carleton becomes prime minister of this country, we are going to bring it home. Conservatives will bring home energy production to Canada to produce energy here and create jobs to get Canadians good paycheques instead of giving dollars to dictators. We will green-light green projects like tidal water, hydro, hydrogen and LNG. We are going to make sure that we support our seniors by axing the failed carbon tax to bring down the cost of gas, groceries and home heating and bring home lower prices. We are going to bring it home for Canadians.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, sadly, no.

We repeatedly hear from the Liberal government that it has Canadians' backs. We hear this phrase quite often in this place and outside this place. It is a term the Prime Minister likes to use almost incessantly. The question is, does it really have their backs? That is what I want to explore in my time today.

The reality is that many Canadians are finding life difficult. They are dumfounded by the Liberals' lack of care, lack of concern and lack of wisdom. Food prices continue to rise, energy prices continue to skyrocket and Canadians continue to need to beg to receive some sort of positive difference. That should not be the case.

In preparation for this fall economic statement, we asked for two things on this side of the House. We asked that there be no new taxes applied to workers or seniors. We also asked that there be no new spending and that every dollar committed to would have an equal dollar in savings; there would be a match. Sadly, these two requests were entirely ignored.

The Liberals' inflationary scheme will triple the carbon tax, which means the cost of home heating, gas and groceries will continue to rise. During question period, when my Conservative colleagues and I have asked the members opposite if they would demonstrate a wee bit of compassion and perhaps relent on tripling their carbon tax, the folks across the way have pulled out these crazy talking points and obscure studies to try to convince Canadians they are better off. It is as if to say that Canadians do not understand the reality that is happening to them. It is as if to say they can be demeaned and that it should somehow help them. How heartless is that?

I have heard from many constituents who are struggling to meet their daily needs. They are hopeless and they are desperate. The Liberals can continue to use their tired talking points, but at the end of the day, the senior who is turning her thermostat down to 17°C to afford her heating bill will not be comforted by a Liberal talking point. The 1.5 million Canadian families that are accessing a food bank in a single month will not be comforted by a Liberal talking point. The one in five Canadians skipping meals to try to make ends meet will not be comforted by a Liberal talking point.

These are realities. This is the reality Canadians face each and every day. Make no mistake: The Liberal carbon scheme is not an environmental plan; it is simply a tax plan. It is punitive. It goes after the Canadian people who are working to put fuel in their vehicles so they can continue working. It goes after individuals who need to heat their homes because they live in Canada. It goes after individuals who continue to produce food for us despite the attacks of the government, because they care deeply for their land and the people who live here.

The government is forcing the Canadian people to pay a whole lot to get a whole lot of nothing in terms of environmental impact. Canadians are struggling to get ahead and are asking for help, not help in the sense of a government handout but help in asking the government to please back off.

We are living in a credit card economy. We are consuming more than we produce, we are buying more than we sell and we are borrowing from the world to buy from the world. We are sending money and jobs to foreign countries, and we are bringing goods back in. Others get the job, others get the investment and others get the savings. Canadians get left with the debt.

Governments do not have money of their own. What they have comes from taxation and borrowing, and that is it. The less revenue that is brought in through taxation, the less the government has to spend on things like social programs, health care, infrastructure or education, unless it chooses to borrow, and we know this government has chosen to borrow a whole lot.

When the Liberals shut down the development of natural resources and drive investment out of our country, it is individual people, including moms, dads, seniors and workers, who have to pick up the bill. They are the ones who have to carry an astronomical tax burden placed on them by the government. It is therefore perplexing why the government chooses to drive industry out of our country and chooses not to develop agriculture, not to develop manufacturing and not to develop natural resources.

Let us talk about our superpowers. By halting energy development and penalizing farmers, the government is choosing to restrain two of our country's superpowers. Instead of focusing on the economic prosperity and the security of our country, the Prime Minister has advanced anti-energy policies such as the carbon tax, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, proving that he is far more interested in his own plan and agenda than he is in looking out for the well-being of Canadians.

Canada has the third-largest oil reserves and we are the fifth-largest producer of natural gas. The world needs more energy and we have the answer; we just need the political will. We could be stepping up and taking our place as a leader on the world stage to meet the demand. We could displace the reliance on dictators' oil. However, the Liberals have done all they can to block our own energy sector and prevent us from thriving within this market space. The Liberals instead insist that Canadians as individuals should be picking up the tax burden, and hence the cost of living continues to rise.

Let us talk about agriculture. The production of food is another one of our superpowers. It is incredible. Canada has been blessed with abundance. In my constituency of Lethbridge, the bounty is incredible. We send produce all over the world. However, instead of being proud of our producers and farmers, we have a government that wants to be punitive toward them by implementing a carbon tax on their ability to produce food and implementing reductions in fertilizer use, which reduces the amount of food that can be produced. This ridiculous policy will certainly not save the planet, but it will definitely cost Canadians a whole lot more because it will drive up the cost of groceries. This means Canadians will get punished too, and the cost of food is already significant.

The Liberals have added more debt to our country than did all former governments combined. If we let that sink in for a moment, it is pretty scary. They say they did it in the name of COVID, but we know that 40% of their spending had nothing to do with COVID. They are spending a whole of money just for the sake of spending, and of course why would they not? They spent $54 million on the arrive scam app, which could have been purchased for $250,000 and built over a weekend. They spent $6,000 on a hotel room that included a butler. The Liberals are able to spend like this because they know that at the end of the day, they do not foot the bill; Canadians do. This is the type of government we are staring at.

I am calling for a government that puts the Canadian people first. Ronald Reagan famously said, “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one who gets the people to do the greatest things.”

Frankly, Canadians are tired of being told by the Liberals to sit down and shut up. They are tired of being put on the benches. What coach benches his best players? Canadians are the problem-solvers, the solution makers and the wealth generators that this country needs for getting back on track. It is time to put Canadians back in control of their lives.

Building a Green Prairie Economy Act

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this chamber to speak in favour of good legislation and against bad legislation. This evening I am doing the latter.

Bill C-235 represents yet another top-down, Ottawa-knows-best approach to the western Canadian resource sector, continuing a legacy that goes all the way back to Pierre Trudeau's national energy program, and also includes more recent legislation, such as Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill, and Bill C-48, the west coast oil tanker ban.

Opposition to this bill from elected politicians in western Canada should come as no surprise to even the most casual of political observers. This bill applies to the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba only. When we voted on this bill at second reading, of the 62 members from those three provinces, only 10 voted in favour; 51 voted against, and one MP abstained. Put another way, this bill is opposed by fully 82% of the MPs from the provinces to which it applies.

When this bill was being studied at committee, this opposition was echoed by our provincial counterparts. The committee heard from two of the three affected provincial governments, and they basically said the same thing, that this legislation was neither wanted nor needed. The only provincial government we did not hear back from was Alberta, because it was in the process of installing a new premier, who had just finished campaigning on a platform of asserting provincial sovereignty and resisting interference from Ottawa. I am quite confident that if we had heard from Danielle Smith, her feedback would have been very similar to what we heard from her counterparts in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

I hope that the views of these provincial representatives are not lost on the members of this House from the other parties and from the other provinces when they are making up their minds about how to vote on this bill. Just imagine for a minute if there were a federal private member's bill about Hydro-Quebec or Quebec's aerospace sector that applied only to Quebec. If 82% of Quebec MPs voted against the bill, and Premier François Legault testified at committee against the bill, I cannot help but think that the MPs from the other provinces would take notice, and those MPs who voted in favour of the bill at second reading would be thinking that maybe they should reconsider before they vote for the bill again at third reading.

The stated objective of Bill C-235 is “the building of a green economy in the Prairies”. While the bill never defines the term “green economy”, I think that in general, the term “green” has become synonymous with “environmentally friendly”. However, the bill does not seem to recognize the good, environmentally friendly work already being done in the prairie provinces independently of the federal government.

In addition to hearing from provincial government representatives, the committee also heard from municipal representatives, organized labour, the mining sector, oil and gas workers, farmers and ranchers. They all spoke in considerable detail about the work that is already being done on the Prairies to be more environmentally friendly, often because being good environmental stewards makes good economic sense as well. In fact, about the only people the committee did not hear from were representatives of Canada's indigenous peoples. I will leave it to the proponents of this bill to explain why they were not consulted.

Particular concerns were raised about paragraph 3(3)(b), which focuses on fostering job creation and skills transfer in regions that rely on traditional energy industries. It is implied that these actions will be necessary because of the Liberal government's continued opposition to the development of the western Canadian resource sector and the continuation of the Liberals' policy of leaving Canadian oil and gas in the ground where it does not do anybody any good.

In any case, at committee, Mr. Bill Bewick cautioned against transitioning workers out of the oil and gas sector too quickly and argued in favour of recruiting more workers to the sector to increase production. I would like to quote what Mr. Bewick said at committee. He said, “If you really care about the environment, the single greatest thing Canada can do to reduce emissions is to get LNG flowing in copious amounts off our west coast.”

Mr. Bewick went on to explain that Canadian liquefied natural gas should be exported to China, which would enable that country to shelve its plan to dramatically increase coal production and energy generation from coal. Doing so would save emissions equivalent to the size of Alberta's oil sands. This would be far preferable to landlocking Alberta's oil sands, as some Liberals have advocated for in the past.

The war in Ukraine was also discussed. Here we are, more than nine months into Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the images on our TV screens are just as disturbing as when the war began back in February. Vladimir Putin and his thugs continue to commit genocide against their peaceful neighbours. Where does Vladimir Putin get the money to buy all the tanks, missiles and artillery that make up the Russian army? Even the most high-level analysis of the Russian economy will show that it is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports to western Europe. Instead, if we could export ethical Canadian oil and gas to western Europe, we could seriously inhibit Russia's ability to wage war against Ukraine or any of its other neighbours.

This next point is very important. Even if the war in Ukraine were to end tomorrow, and even if Vladimir Putin decided that he wanted to be friends again with the international community and to give everyone a big group hug, it would be profoundly irresponsible for the international community, and Canada in particular, to allow western Europe to once again become dependent on oil and gas from Russia. The world needs more Canadian oil and gas, but we cannot do this if we are transitioning workers out of the oil and gas sector, and this is why Bill C-235 is so problematic.

Finally, I would like to touch on the issue of Senate reform. If there are any political science students watching this debate, let me tell them right now that if they ever have to write a paper about Senate reform in Canada, Bill C-235 should be one of their examples. This bill applies to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba only, and the vast majority, 82%, of MPs elected from those provinces voted against it.

Unfortunately, this bill is probably going to become law, because unlike bicameral legislatures in other countries, Canada does not have an elected Senate with equal representation from all provinces. This is a problem that is not experienced by our American neighbours south of the border. If there were ever a bill in the U.S. Congress to take all of the money from North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana and give it to, say, California and Texas, such a bill may very well pass in the House of Representatives, but it would not pass in the Senate.

That is because, although the seats in the House of Representatives are allocated by population, in the American Senate, every state, large or small, has the same number of senators, and every senator is elected. That means the large states like California and Texas cannot gang up and enact legislation that is detrimental to the small states, because any such bill would be defeated in the Senate.

Sadly, there are no such safeguards in the Canadian parliamentary system. The larger provinces, namely Ontario and Quebec, can outvote the smaller provinces, in this case Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and there are no safeguards in the Senate to stop it. However, given that I am almost out of time, my thoughts on Senate reform will have to wait for another day.

In conclusion, Bill C-235 represents an additional, unnecessary layer of federal government bureaucracy that will only get in the way of the good work already being done by provincial governments and the private sector. The only provinces affected by this bill, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, did not ask for it. They do not want it, they do not need it and they are better off without it. I would encourage all members to vote against Bill C-235.

National Council for Reconciliation Act

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to speak today in support of Bill C-29, which would establish a national council for reconciliation.

It was, of course, the previous Conservative government that first launched the TRC, along with other measures that sought to better the outcomes and the lives of indigenous Canadians, especially indigenous youth, the fastest-growing group of young people in Canada.

Unfortunately, it must be said that the Liberals took far too long to bring in this bill, given they have been in power for seven years and that the Prime Minister claims the relationship with indigenous people is the most important to him.

That is why Conservatives pushed an amendment to ensure that it is the Prime Minister who will respond to the national council’s annual report, as the TRC’s call to action says, unlike the Liberals’ original draft, which delegated this responsibility to a minister.

That was just one improvement of the 19 substantial amendments from Conservatives to uphold the principles of transparency and independence, to increase accountability and accelerate the timelines for government responses, and, most importantly, to implement concrete, measurable targets and outcomes.

What is crucial is ensuring that good intentions and well-meaning words deliver actions and better outcomes. It is a testament to the good will, spirit of collaboration and shared aspirations that all parties supported 16 of the 19 Conservative amendments.

I am proud to represent nine indigenous communities in Lakeland, just as I am proud to represent every Canadian in the 52 communities across the region. As always, those people and those communities are foremost on my mind, so, like my neighbour from Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, I will address an extremely consequential Conservative amendment that was inexplicably rejected by the MPs of all the other parties. Conservatives wanted to ensure that one seat on the board of directors of the national council would be filled by an indigenous economic national organization.

It makes little sense to talk about mutual commitments between governments and citizens to tell the truth about historical, systemic and paternalistic injustices for societal reconciliation but to also simultaneously reject entrenching economic reconciliation as a priority so communities can move from managing poverty to generating prosperity. There are so many ways that can help resolve the disproportionate socio-economic challenges that indigenous people and communities face as a consequence of generations of oppressive and discriminatory government policies and programs.

This especially matters when it comes to ongoing challenges for indigenous leaders and entrepreneurs who want to secure jobs and create jobs, equity ownership, mutual benefit agreements and other economic opportunities in natural resources development. These are a main source of employment, and often the only source, for communities in rural and remote regions. It also matters in the public policy debates and duties around definitions of decision-makers, roles in consultation, consent and consensus, identity and local impacts.

In Lakeland, four of the nine indigenous communities are Métis settlements, half of all the settlements in Canada. They are unique to Alberta, with legislated Métis land bases, local governments and infrastructure costs, like water treatment facilities, roads and schools. They pay taxes, including carbon taxes.

For years I have pushed for their recognition, and I was finally able to get an indigenous and northern affairs committee report to cite them as “distinct entities with unique needs”.

In September I urged the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to include the settlements in Bill C-29, because it is an obvious hindrance to reconciliation if they are excluded from meaningful participation in the council, but I am still waiting for a response.

Representatives of the settlements in Lakeland often tell me they feel abandoned and forgotten by the government. Lee Thom, a Kikino Métis Settlement councillor, says that the Métis settlements must have a seat at that table to advocate for their indigenous communities, which are stand-alone and not a part of existing Métis nations in Alberta and nationally.

Still, the settlements have never been mentioned in a federal budget and are often excluded from federal initiatives. To me, this remains a glaring omission.

It is particularly relevant to the pursuit of economic reconciliation because the Métis settlements in Lakeland, along with most of the first nations, are currently, and have been, heavily involved in energy and natural resources development for decades. Many have previously met all their community needs with their own source revenue from their businesses and contracts.

The NDP's and Liberals' anti-energy agenda and aim to phase out oil and gas, which have already driven away investment, cost over $150 billion in lost projects and hundreds of thousands of jobs, have hit indigenous communities as hard as everyone else.

Last year, the indigenous and northern affairs committee tackled barriers to indigenous economic development. We heard from dozens of witnesses and one thing was clear: Empowering indigenous communities to set up businesses, develop their natural resources and create wealth for their communities and surrounding areas is crucial.

In later work, witnesses said that housing, health care, governance, infrastructure and emergency preparedness challenges all come back to the core concept of economic reconciliation. Several elected leaders from Lakeland participated.

Chief Gregory Desjarlais, of Frog Lake first nation, talked about the importance of access to capital to get projects built, like the carbon capture proposal led by Frog Lake and Kehewin, both in Lakeland. Frog Lake is heavily involved and invested in energy operations, whether through jobs or their community-owned Frog Lake Energy Resources Corp.

The benefits of indigenous-owned businesses are many. As Chief Desjarlais put it:

Look at these projects.... Look at indigenous ownership. If you involve the first nations, you allow them to build homes. You allow them to send kids to school. You allow them to send people to treatment. You allow them to deliver water to these homes. You allow them to remove mould. That's problem-solving. That's a takeaway, instead of all the money leaving Canada and still having poorer first nations living on CFAs and begging for handouts.

These benefits were echoed by Stan Delorme, chair of the Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement, as they would help to meet their major infrastructure needs for the disproportionate number of unemployed youth and to lift Buffalo Lake’s average annual income of $27,000 a year.

The ever-increasing carbon tax hurts them even more, as the cost of lumber, fuel, and home heating skyrockets, and the accessible oil and gas jobs that used to exist for them have disappeared because of the Liberals’ anti-energy agenda. Lee Thom says, “Our settlements are communities—living, breathing—with roads, schools and water, with everything that comes with a small municipality and are in dire need of funding.”

Those are three of the nine indigenous communities in Lakeland who are now part of the 23 communities that are now all proud owners of over a billion dollars' worth of pipelines in the Athabasca region.

Many other indigenous-led and indigenous-owned projects and partnership projects have been outright killed by this anti-energy government, like the Prime Minister’s unilateral veto of the northern gateway pipeline, which destroyed the aspirations of and all the work of 31 communities, which had mutual benefit agreements, and he did that without consultation, or all of the projects that are at risk by anti-energy policies and activists who threaten projects and are often not even from the locally impacted area.

The outright cancellation or the deliberate policy-driven delays to force private sector proponents to abandon major natural resources development and infrastructure projects have all been major concerns, and often totally devastating to numerous indigenous communities, leaders and business groups.

Those projects are opportunities for economic reconciliation. They are tools for indigenous communities to meet their core social and economic needs, invest in their cultures, and preserve and nurture their heritage and their languages for future generations.

For example, Chief Councillor Crystal Smith from Haisla Nation opposes Bill C-48, the shipping and export ban, and supports Coastal GasLink as a way to bring her community out of poverty.

Last week, Calvin Helin, an indigenous author and entrepreneur, said that what really irks indigenous Canadians involved in responsible resource development is the meddling and interference from “eco-colonialists”, these groups whose only interest is in stopping projects, and government interference where the government is only listening to the side of the project that supports their politics.

There are countless examples of the Liberal government trampling on indigenous Canadians’ work and hope, roadblocking their pursuit of self-determination, including Eva Clayton of the Nisga’a, whose LNG export facility is on hold because of Liberal red tape; Natural Law Energy, 20 prairie first nations who lost a billion-dollar investment opportunity when Keystone XL was cancelled due to Liberal inaction; the Lax Kw’alaams, who are litigating against the Liberals’ Bill C-48 export ban, which violated their rights and title and ruined their plans for a deep-water port and oil export facility without consulting them; and the 35 indigenous communities with the Eagle Spirit Energy Corridor proposal, whose work and hopes for economic benefits were quashed by Bill C-69, the no more pipelines act.

The Liberals and the anti-energy activists’ anti-resource, anti-business and anti-energy agenda, usually outside and far away from the local indigenous communities, sabotages all their efforts to benefit from natural resources development and to participate in their local economies.

These actions look a lot like those of a centralist, colonialist government imposing its views against the goals and priorities of the majority of directly impacted indigenous people and leaders, like those in Lakeland.

While Conservatives will support this bill, the Liberals still need to fix their own paternalism that prevents economic reconciliation to ensure that indigenous voices, not just those that align with Liberal political priorities, are all represented in reconciliation efforts.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, your government is projecting that, next year, Canada will only have a 0.7% growth in GDP. Your government had 15 good LNG projects on the table when it took over in 2015. Not a single one has been completed. You oversaw the cancelling of northern gateway, energy east and Keystone XL. Your government brought in Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill, and Bill C-48, the tanker ban, which shut out Canada's potential to supply the world with Canada's responsible oil and gas, at a time when there's energy poverty around the world. It's caused home-heating costs to almost double.

In 2020 alone, 28,000 direct and 107,000 indirect jobs were lost in the energy sector, according to CAPP. The carbon tax is killing the energy sector, which is now unable to invest more of its capital into clean technology and emissions reduction. The Liberals demonize the energy sector, which is the same energy sector that helped any growth on the government's books. That's quite ironic. Also, the OECD predicted that Canada will be the worst-performing advanced economy over 2020 to 2030.

Would you agree that, without the success of Canada's energy sector growth, growth would be far lower than 0.7%?

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by wishing you a belated happy birthday.

I am pleased to rise on Bill S-5. I have not spoken in the House for a while. I have been too busy covering committees. It is nice to be back.

Of all the hundreds of bills I have debated, this one has to have the sexiest title: an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act, and to repeal a couple of words that I cannot pronounce Virtual Elimination Act. This bill basically replaces Bill C-28, which the government brought in during a previous Parliament.

When introducing this bill, the environment minister talked up the usual propaganda. He talked about Canadians knowing the urgency of the need for this bill and said that the government is responding to this urgency. I have to laugh, because, again, this bill existed in the previous Parliament, but the environment minister was part of the government that called an early election and effectively killed the bill, using crass political opportunism to take advantage of what were favourable polls at the time and also to kill the Winnipeg lab inquiry. Basically, it killed the bill, the same one that is so urgent that the government was seized with it but decided to waste a year by killing it with a cynical election.

Generally, as my colleague from Oshawa commented before me, we support Bill S-5. Our chemical management plan is probably the best in the world, along with our chemical engineers, especially in Alberta at DuPont. I used to work in Fort Saskatchewan, at a chemical plant there, with lots of great jobs, lots of very strong investment and high-paying jobs, which is very good for Canada.

This bill will also modernize the CEPA and ensure it sticks with a risk-based approach to management, as opposed to the more burdensome red tape and growing hazards-based approach.

The bill also recognizes a right to a healthy environment, which I generally support. I mean, who would not support a right to a healthy environment? However, I have to say I have great concerns that it does not define what that is in this bill, and it gives the government two years to do this. The failure to define this issue can have great implications in the future. I am very wary of a bill from the Liberal government that says, “Just trust us on this issue and we will get back to you.” There were five years of consultations on this specific issue, and the government is asking for two more.

Of course, I have to say that five years late from this government is not bad. The government is seven years behind on icebreakers; seven years behind on joint supply ships; seven years behind on fighter plane replacements; seven years behind on the offshore patrol ships; six or seven years behind on fixing the Phoenix pay fiasco; years late on buying handguns for our armed forces; years late on the frigate program, which has gone from $92 billion to $306 billion; years late on introducing whistle-blower protection; years late in getting ATIPs processed. I actually have some ATIPs that are so late and so old that they could have gone through a graduate program at university in the time it has taken for them still not to have been brought before this House. That is just to give colleagues the idea.

Those are just the examples that I am dealing with out of the operations and estimates committee. I imagine every single person in this House has further examples. While I fear outright malfeasance from the Liberals in leaving this issue open, I generally accept it, knowing that given the incompetence of the government, it will never get done.

Speaking of not getting stuff done on the environment, we have had lots of big announcements from the government. As I mentioned, the environment minister, when introducing Bill S-5, talked about the urgency of getting it done. He said Canadians have an urgency; the government has an urgency.

The Liberal government talks a lot but delivers very little. At the same time, we have the same environment minister in the paper this week, with a headline saying something about the environment minister slamming oil companies for sitting idle on the climate. That is from the government that killed Bill C-28, this bill, the urgent bill that was before the last Parliament, yet it is blaming the oil companies for not taking action.

We have some Alberta oil companies and transmission companies that are working on the environment, not sitting idle.

TransCanada PipeLines is investing in solar and wind for both its customers and to power its ops. Enbridge is building green energy to power its products. It is investing in 24 wind farms, five waste-heat recovery facilities and hydrogen facilities as well. These are companies that are investing in green technology, despite the government planning to phase them out and despite getting slammed by the environment minister for doing nothing. Both these companies, as well, have committed to zero carbon emissions by 2050, or neutral anyway. Suncor, CNRL and others, since 2012, have spent $10 billion on green energy R and D. Suncor, CNRL and Synovus have spent over a billion dollars in 2020 alone in green R and D.

If members remember, in 2020, during the worst of COVID, oil had a negative price. Oil companies and people had to pay to store the oil. CNRL lost a quarter of a billion dollars in 2020, Imperial Oil lost $1.3 billion and Suncor lost $3.2 billion, yet they were still investing in green energy R and D. Those are the same people the environment minister is slamming for sitting on the sidelines. They are actually getting stuff done while the government is not. That was $5 billion in losses just for those three companies, yet they still invested a billion dollars. It was $10 billion alone in the last decade.

This is from an industry that has had to weather the downturn in 2014 in oil, the 2020 crash and the Alberta provincial NDP trying to block the pipeline. The former NDP premier actually went on TV and said that she would block northern gateway. Of course, we also had the Liberal government with Bill C-69, which was the “no more pipelines” bill; Bill C-48; and everything else it has been trying to do to destroy that industry, which is investing in green R and D.

The environment minister attacks the companies for not doing enough, but they are doing their part for Canada. I would suggest to the environment minister, when he attacks these people for not doing enough, that people in glass houses should not be throwing rocks, or in his case people in glass greenhouses should not be throwing rocks.

I am going to look at the minister's own department results. These are numbers from the Treasury Board. These are not my numbers. These are not made-up numbers. This is from GC InfoBase, from the departmental results. In 2021, the environment minister achieved, with his department, 14% of its targets. That is one out of every seven. In 2020, it was 27%. In 2019, it was 23%. In the department's best year in the last three years, it barely got to 25% or one-quarter of its targets.

The minister has the gall to attack Alberta's oil industry for not doing its part. He attacks Canada's largest exporter of goods. The minister attacks the largest industrial employer in Canada of indigenous people. The largest investor in green R and D in the private sector, he attacks for not doing enough, yet he presides over the abysmal failure in his own department of just 14%. I am wondering if the environment minister would have stopped at scaling just 14% of the stairs at the CN Tower when he was illegally doing his protest and consider 14% a success.

There are other failures from the current government. The Auditor General reports in the “Greening Government Strategy” report that the government has failed on its results. Those are the exact words from the Auditor General. The report states:

...government decision makers, parliamentarians, and Canadians do not...know...whether the government will meet its...target.

It actually gets worse. The Treasury Board requires, as part of the greening government strategy, that assistant deputy ministers sign off on the integrity of the government's emissions reduction reports. Seventy-four per cent of the bureaucrats have refused to sign off on their mission targets.

We will support Bill S-5, but we actually need action and not just talk from the government.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I first want to say happy Bandi Chhor Divas and happy Diwali as well.

I have sat through the Bill S-5 debate, which has been riveting. I think the pages are wide awake, maybe not so much after my time.

Bill S-5 deals with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which has not been significantly updated since it was passed in 1999. Bill S-5 is the first major update since 1999.

We agree that this outdated act needs to be updated, but we have some concerns. Throughout the course of my 20 minutes, I will speak to that. First off, it is hard for us to take lessons from a government that has failed at every step of the way in the last seven years. It has promised a lot and talk a big game, yet it has failed every step of the way. Earlier on, I mentioned that the government likes to fly the flag and say that it is here for reconciliation and that it is the environmental steward of our economy and our country, yet it is still approving billions upon billions of litres of raw sewage being dumped into our waterways right across the country.

I do not need to remind the House, although I will, that this is also a government that has waged war on our natural resource sector from day one. The Prime Minister apologized. He said that under his tenure Canada would be known more for its resourcefulness than its natural resources. That is not true. He has absolutely waged war.

I will remind the House that it was the government that brought in the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, which absolutely punishes Canadian producers. The government has waged war. It has sided with these third-party groups that helped the Liberals get elected in 2015. I will remind the House of that. Over 105 different organizations waged war against the Conservatives and sided with the Liberal Party to get it into power, and now it is paying them back. These organizations have infiltrated even the highest offices of the PMO.

Bill C-68 was an act to amend the Fisheries Act. I debated and studied that. I stood in the House and talked about it for hours on end. That is the act to amend the Fisheries Act where we looked at the harmful alteration or destruction of fish habitats, which we showed and proved. Not one government scientist or biologist could prove that any of the changes that were done by the previous government resulted in or had harmful alteration or destruction of fish habitats.

Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, is another one where the government waged war on our natural resources and energy sector. It essentially said that any tankers coming to the west coast to get Canadian products would be banned, yet American or other foreign vessels could come. Nothing similar was done on the east coast, where hundreds and hundreds of tankers each week are bringing in foreign dirty oil into our country.

I know that we have just a short time before we get into a riveting session of question period. I am excited about that, too. I know the gallery is, and so are my colleagues. We have a lot of concerns about this, notwithstanding the 24 amendments that were passed, 11 of which I will get into when I have more time after question period.

The government talks a good game on climate change, yet it has failed to reach any of its targets in the seven years since it was elected. It really has no plan. It was the member for Timmins—James Bay who mentioned this. My colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands said she has many concerns about what is in this bill and that amendments need to be addressed.

However, we have heard the government say over the last seven years to just trust it and that it will deal with it in committee, yet it failed to do that. Trust is earned; it is not just given. Time and again, the government continues to burn that trust and any goodwill with not only the opposition, but also Canadians.

[Raymond Orb]

The environmental Impact Assessment Act—I think that's the bill you're referring to, Bill C-69—does have implications for rural municipalities and our rural economy. Part of that is actually the Navigable Waters Act. SARM was really concerned about that, about the federal government making a new bill and bringing in amendments that would affect how municipalities do business from day to day. It has to do with transportation on rivers and streams and being able to build bridges in some places. It would be very expensive to do that because of the bureaucratic red tape created by that bill. That's a big concern to us as well.

The tanker ban, the moratorium in Bill C-48, was something that we were concerned about because we saw that it was taking away from our western transportation system for the movement of oil. We're satisfying part of our country, but we're hurting another part of our country. We had a big concern about that as well. We testified on a few occasions that we were opposed to that act.

The carbon tax is something that we have been working on with our province to try to figure out how we could come up with something that would appease Ottawa. It's something that hurts our farmers right now, even as far as trying to convince the federal government that we need rebates for grain drying, for propane especially. We still haven't seen any meaningful action on that file. I think that's something that hurts agriculture, because it puts our farmers in Saskatchewan at a disadvantage compared to American farmers, who are our competitors. It's really unfair that the federal government is not acting sooner on some kind of rebate plan.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

This bill is not the first time that the federal Liberal government has waded into the debate about oil and gas in western Canada. We've had Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill; we've had Bill C-48, the west coast oil tanker ban; and, of course, we've had the ever-increasing carbon taxes.

I was wondering, Mr. Orb, if you could comment on the effects of these policies on Saskatchewan.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair. It's nice to see you again. I enjoyed working with you on the public safety committee.

Mr. Carr, it's nice to see you again. I did enjoy working both with and against you on natural resource issues during your years as natural resources minister. I also want to recognize your service both in Manitoba and to Canada, and it's nice to see you well and in person.

Far be it from me to be surprised today to agree with an NDP member from Ontario, but I'm just here to speak on behalf of the Alberta constituents I represent. Following up on the point that our colleague from Ontario made and also our Conservative colleague here from Saskatchewan, I think your bill, seven years into the Liberals being in government, is quite a negative commentary on this federal government's track record on negotiating and consulting with prairie provinces. It seems to me that your aspirations and intentions in this legislation, which I know are good, would imply that consultations so far between the various levels of government have been ineffective or lacking.

I guess what I'm curious about is how you sort of reconcile what you clearly have identified as a need for this sort of legislation against a federal government that is, for example, facing lawsuits from all three provincial governments on the carbon tax, on the shipping ban, Bill C-48, the “no more pipeline spills”, and Bill C-69, which will also have major consequences, of course, not just for resources projects but all kinds of other economic development.

On those three issues, the vast majority of prairie representatives who happen to sit federally in the Conservative caucus as well as those prairie provincial representatives say they are among the top threats destroying economic development in their provinces and livelihoods of their citizens and of the people I represent.

It just seems that you are asking for a committee and politicians to create a framework and a mandate, which I presume is going to cost something, to enable a process to occur, which clearly already should be happening, but we are sitting here where we are in reality with the federal government that is being opposed on all kinds of major pieces of legislation and their policy agenda by those very provinces.

Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be in the House and to speak on behalf of the people of Calgary Midnapore, and here I am today addressing the BIA.

I will start with an anecdote. Last Friday, when my husband picked me up at the Calgary airport, we were making the left-hand turn we usually do in an effort to merge onto Deerfoot Trail. Halfway through our turn, the light turned yellow and my husband stopped in the middle of the intersection. I turned to him and said, “James, what the bleep are you doing here?” Well, that is what I have to say: What are we doing here? What is the government doing here?

When I arrived here in 2017, there was the same sentiment that existed in 2015 when the Liberal government came into place. Among Canadians, although we were disappointed as Conservatives and sorry to see the departure of former prime minister Stephen Harper, I think there was a feeling of hope and enthusiasm across the country. We often think of sunny ways at that time, when the Prime Minister and the Liberal government came in. Those same sentiments existed when I arrived here in 2017. I was just outside those doors getting ready to be walked into the House of Commons for the first time, and there was still that same feeling of excitement and of sunny ways.

I have to say, that is not there anymore, and this budget reflects it. This budget is a mishmash and a patchwork of legislation. Any individual reading through this content could not determine the goals, aspirations and theme of the government. Is that not what leadership really is? What are we doing here?

When I reflect upon the reasons for the lack of direction we now see from the government, I would attribute it to three things. Number one is now the failure to implement any vision the government to the Prime Minister might have once had. The second would be an unuseful and impractical adherence to ideology. The third would be ignoring the real problems affecting Canadians. I will take some time now to expand on each of those.

When I talk about the failure to implement the vision, I am talking about the sunny ways and hope and enthusiasm the Prime Minister and the government arrived here with. Unfortunately, when they have tried to execute these sunny ways and implement them in Canada and Canadian culture, it has been nothing but an absolute failure. We saw that with the attempts for democracy reform. We saw it when the attempt was made to go to proportional representation, which was a 2015 election promise. It was failed upon by the previous minister for democratic institutions, who is no longer in the House. That is one example of the failure of the implementation of vision we have seen from the government.

We saw this with the climate plan. We saw this with the Paris climate accord. I sat back there in my second week, having to vote on the Paris climate accord. The fear and division it created in the House, which I will expand upon, was for no reason. These targets that we voted upon and that divided us were never actually achieved by the government, so what is the point?

It is the same thing we saw with the Liberals' grand idea of planting two billion trees. As I look around this room, I see nary a tree. They have failed on these climate initiatives as well.

The third is unity, and I will speak to this from two perspectives. The first is regional. Liberals have pitted region against region in this country, needlessly creating division at a time even before the pandemic descended upon us. Of course, with the pandemic, it was the Prime Minister who used inflammatory language, name-called and attacked Canadians who had valid concerns about the mandates. He actually rejected a Conservative motion to create a plan to roll back the mandates, which could have lowered the temperature, and he then of course invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canada's history. We, on this side of the House, are still reviewing that to this day. It created terrible disunity not only in the House, but among Canadians.

The second is a unuseful adherence to ideology. We have seen this in two places in particular. The first was the killing of the natural resources sector. As an Albertan, I take personal offence to this. How has the current government done this? It has done this by not providing support for Line 5. My colleague, the member for Calgary Centre, has talked and encouraged ad nauseam about this. Of course, at this moment in history, while Ukraine faces its most difficult time, the most difficult time we have seen in recent history, the government failed to pass a motion to get natural gas to Europe. At a time when our natural resources could be used for good in this world, the government turned its back against it. It brought in Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, and who can forget Bill C-69, the no new pipelines bill, which again showed an unuseful adherence to ideology.

We also saw that with the mandates, the mandates that still rest with us today. I can tell members of the House that the parliamentary precinct, and frankly airports and airplanes, are the only places now where I am required to wear a mask. The government should lift the mandates on that and stop using this unuseful adherence to ideology. It is not helpful for Canadians at all.

What I think is most important here is that, if we look at the ways the government has failed and how this budget reflects that, it shows an ignorance of the real problems that affect Canadians. What are they? I will list a couple.

At the industry committee we saw a rejection to support the lithium mine, which would have been very important for semiconductors, something that is becoming increasingly important as we evaluate supply chains going into the future. In addition, we saw a government that was useless and unwilling to take a stand until the very last moment on the CP Rail strike, which would have had devastating impacts on not only western Canada, but also all of Canada.

We have seen this lack of action in labour shortages. The CFIB's recent report “Labour shortages are back with a vengeance” found that 55% of businesses could not find the staff they needed. Food and Beverage Canada said that it lacked 300,000 workers within its industry and has companies with vacancy rates of over 20%. The government throwing money at this is not helping. It needs to address the backlogs it has within its immigration processes.

We hear about housing endlessly here, with the average price of a home now reaching $874,100, a jolting 27.1% increase over the last year. The initiatives of the government, such as the first-time homebuyer incentive and the shared equity mortgage fund, are failing terribly.

I can talk about the failures of the government and how this budget and the budget implementation act do not address the cost of living and inflation. For the first time in 31 years, prices are up 6.7% compared to a year ago. Families are spending nearly $1,000 more a year on groceries and gas. Gas and home heating are costing more, and housing prices have doubled since the Prime Minister became the Prime Minister. More than half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills or rent, with three in 10 already falling behind at the end of the month.

In conclusion, the government has run its course. It has received a minority not once, but twice now. It just had to buy a mandate until 2025. When it was elected in 2015, there was a sense of hope, optimism and possibility. That is gone now. This budget reflects it, and the budget implementation act reflects it. What are we doing here?

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this chamber and to represent the people of Regina—Wascana. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today on the budget.

My grandmother would always say to me, when I was growing up, “If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all.” While that may be good advice for getting along with the neighbour kids, it does not work so well as an opposition member of Parliament. I would like to at least partially take some of my grandmother's advice today and focus on one area of the budget on which I think there is broad agreement. That is the need for Canada to support Ukraine as it defends itself from the Russian invasion.

When the finance minister was presenting her budget earlier this month, I believe she received one standing ovation from both sides of the House, and that is when she said that the Russian army invading Ukraine needed to be vanquished. I agree. Vladimir Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine is completely and totally unacceptable. Countries around the world, including Canada, need to do their part to ensure that free and democratic countries are not overrun and annexed by a dictator like Vladimir Putin.

The finance minister went on to say that it was the brave people of Ukraine who would be doing the fighting against convoys of Russian tanks rolling into their country. There is one fundamental principle the minister did not mention in her budget speech that I believe everyone needs to understand. Every time one of those Russian tanks is destroyed by the Ukrainians, it is soon replaced by another Russian tank rolling off the assembly line.

If we are going to help the Ukrainians win this war and make the world a safer place for our children and grandchildren, then it is not enough to simply destroy the Russian tanks and other weapons on the front lines. We must also stop Vladimir Putin's ability to buy more of them. Tanks cost money. Bombs cost money. Battleships cost money.

Where does Vladimir Putin get his money to buy all these weapons? By far, the biggest source of funding for the Russian war machine is oil and gas exports to western Europe. That is Vladimir Putin's steady paycheque. That is Vladimir Putin's spending money: oil and gas exports to western Europe.

In fact, western Europe imports approximately 3.4 million barrels of oil and gas every day from Russia. The money western Europe spends on this oil and gas goes toward Vladimir Putin's war machine. He spends the money on tanks, bombs and battleships, all of which go toward the Russian war efforts against the Ukrainian military and toward committing atrocities against Ukrainian civilians, such as the bombing of a hospital maternity ward in Mariupol and the slaughter of civilians on the streets of Bucha.

If the international community could figure out a way to send an additional 3.4 million barrels of oil and gas to western Europe, we could seriously inhibit Russia's ability to wage war. How can the international community make up this shortfall? Canada alone could provide almost that entire amount from just four projects. These four projects have been debated many times in the House over the past few years. They are the Keystone XL pipeline, the energy east pipeline, the northern gateway pipeline and the Trans Mountain expansion.

All four of these projects have either been cancelled or significantly delayed over the past several years because of the government's Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and other roadblocks it keeps putting in the way.

Recently, the Minister of Natural Resources announced that Canada would increase oil exports to western Europe by only 300,000 barrels per day from existing infrastructure. Unfortunately, the minister has also described this increase as a short-term solution and only a temporary measure to help our friends and allies fighting in Ukraine.

I would strongly caution the government against reverting back to its old policy of keeping Canadian oil and gas in the ground, for a couple of reasons.

First, no one knows when this war will end. As many of us probably learned in high school history class, when World War I broke out, all of the experts of the day said that the war would be over by Christmas. Four years later, the war was still raging. Today, we are 62 days into the current conflict and it would be foolish for anyone to try to predict with any degree of accuracy when this war will be over. It could very well be the case that our allies in western Europe will need oil and gas for the foreseeable future from countries other than Russia.

Second, even if the war were to end tomorrow, it would be foolish for us not to learn from our past mistakes. One of the reasons why the world is in this situation is because, for far too long, peace-loving democratic countries have fallen into the bad habit of relying on petty dictators for their energy needs. All the while, Canadian oil and gas has stayed in the ground.

If this country could increase its oil and gas exports by 3.4 million barrels per day and displace Russian exports to western Europe, it raises the question of what Canadians could do with this extra money. The short answer is they could do whatever they wanted. Many people who work in the natural resources sector would love the opportunity to pay down their mortgages, save for their children's education or take a well-deserved vacation, especially after the last two years.

It is not just oil and gas workers in the private sector who would benefit. In my home province of Saskatchewan, in any given year between 10% and 15% of the provincial government's budget comes from natural resource royalties. That is money that can go toward roads, schools, hospitals and other services that people rely on. Over a decade ago, when resource royalties were at their height, the provincial Government of Saskatchewan announced that it would build a new children's hospital in Saskatoon. This hospital opened just a few years ago and it has since helped thousands of children.

I believe that the vast majority of people who let their names stand to run for public office do so with good intentions to make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren, but we all know what they say about good intentions. The cost of our inaction could not be more clear and the contrast could not be more stark. Instead of oil and gas revenues going toward bombing children's hospitals in Mariupol, they should be going toward building hospitals here in Canada.

Clearly, any objective observer would have to agree that Canada has a tremendous amount of potential to do a great deal of good on the world stage. It is not necessary for democracies in western Europe or the rest of the world to rely on petty dictators for their energy needs. It is not necessary for them to fund the war machine of Vladimir Putin or any other hostile regime.

Canada can be a force for world peace and stability by simply extracting and exporting the resources that we have in this country literally sitting beneath our feet and not doing anyone any good. If Vladimir Putin's army is to be vanquished, to use the finance minister's term, then we need to get serious about building pipeline capacity in this country so that western Europe and the rest of the world can buy their oil and gas from Canada instead of from Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, when I said the quote the member pulled out, I was referring to our Canadian energy sector. I represent mothers and fathers who have lost their jobs because of bills like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, the tanker ban. Oil companies have moved from Canada to other places in the world. Why are we buying oil from those places? Why are we supporting them when we have the most ethical human rights and environmental regulations in the world? I am sorry, but when I have parents contacting my office saying they cannot afford to put food on the table to feed their children, it is because the government took away their jobs through its policies.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have demonstrated, as I indicated in my speech, that we have supported legislation in moments of crisis when it was absolutely necessary for Canadians. What we will not do is give the NDP-Liberal coalition a blank cheque. We will not do that. We are responsible to Canadians to watch the spending of the NDP-Liberal coalition.

If this member is so passionate about legislation that helps Canadians, then why did his government put forward Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, which hurt so many Canadians?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I cannot sing, but it was still nice to hear my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, with whom we form the opposition in the House.

We are here today to talk about Bill C-8, of course. This is not long before we are actually going to be presented with the next budget, so I think it is very important that Canadians evaluate the past performance of the NDP-Liberal coalition before deciding to even consider approving the next budget.

I want to start by saying that my colleagues and I, here in the official opposition, have been very positive in our spirit of collaboration in the last couple of years as we have gone through the difficult time of the pandemic, but we also certainly have our limits, as individuals and groups must have their limits, in terms of what they are willing to accept.

I look at the beginning of the pandemic, when we passed, in November of 2021, Bill C-2, the first COVID relief package, worth $37 billion. There was certainly a lot of funding there. We went on to pass other legislation in the House with significant price tags, including Bill C-3, which went through the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. That was a $7-billion price tag.

In December 2021, we also had Bill C-8, which we are debating here today, with additional spending of $71.2 billion. These are not small amounts.

I will say that we certainly have done what was necessary throughout the pandemic. Everyone in the House, certainly on this side of the House, supports Canadians and wants to see Canadians get the help they need, but it has certainly become incredibly excessive and even growing, perhaps, with this new NDP coalition. We have to be wary about the items that we are seeing in the new NDP-Liberal coalition, which will cost billions upon billions of extra dollars, potentially.

At the same time that we saw the House helping Canadians, eventually leading to overspending even beyond what was necessary, we can go further back than that to something that I brought up today in question period: the destruction of the natural resources sector. This is something that did not start two years ago. This started seven years ago, when we saw the initial election of the NDP-Liberal coalition government, which continues to play out today.

To start, we saw it in November of 2016, when the northern gateway pipeline was rejected by this coalition. We look to October 2017, when TransCanada cancelled the energy east pipeline project as a result of pressure from this coalition.

This is something that this NDP-Liberal coalition likes to do. They create impossible environments for industry, whereby industry has no other choice but to abandon these projects. Then the NDP-Liberal coalition says that it is not their fault because it was abandoned by industry, when they have made conditions impossible to complete these projects.

We cannot forget January 2017, when the Prime Minister said he wanted to phase out the oil sands. He said, “You can't make a choice between what's good for the environment and what is good for the economy.... We can't shut down the oilsands tomorrow. We need to phase them out. We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels.”

Right there, we see the Prime Minister had committed to his continued path of destroying the natural resource sector, with the help of the NDP-Liberal coalition. This, of course, led to April 2018, when Kinder Morgan halted the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion because of “continued actions in opposition to the project”, which was not surprising.

In May of 2018, we saw the NDP-Liberal coalition buy the Trans Mountain pipeline for $4.5 billion, but it again created impossible conditions for the project to be completed, whereby Kinder Morgan eventually abandoned the project. Once again, the government created impossible conditions for this industry.

Of course, I cannot help but mention Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium, and of course Bill C-69, which were both passed in June 2019 and completely destroyed that sector. We often refer to C-69 as the “no more pipelines” bill.

Therefore, I find it very rich that I hold in my hand here a Canadian Press article from March 20, 2022, which indicates that Liberals may find extra spending room in the budget created by rising oil prices. It is reported that it is a position similar to the one the Liberals found themselves in last December when a rosier economic picture gave the government $38.5 billion in extra spending room. Guess what. The NDP-Liberal government quickly ate up $28.4 billion with new expenditures. This extra funding, as a result of the natural resources sector, could be up to $5 billion, but we know that the NDP-Liberal government will eat that up in a moment before spending even more than that.

In fact, the former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page said, “It would be a policy mistake for the government to assume that higher-than-anticipated inflation will create extra fiscal room which could be used to deficit finance longer-term programs,” many of which we are seeing in the NDP-Liberal coalition. That is very interesting.

We see that the government has a habit of spending any money we give it. It will not pay down the record debt or the record deficit. Instead, it will spend it, so why should we trust it and give it more money? Why should we not look at this upcoming budget with scrupulosity and hesitancy?

More insulting than the government's spending what it does not have, and spending it on the back of the industry that it has destroyed entirely, is that it announced yesterday that now it plans to boost oil exports 5% in an effort to ease the energy supply crisis. This was an announcement that the Minister of Natural Resources made yesterday, following the second day of meetings at the International Energy Agency's annual ministerial gathering in Paris.

He said that Canadian industry has the pipeline and production capacity to incrementally increase oil and gas exports this year by 300,000 barrels per day, comprising 200,000 barrels of oil and 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in natural gas. The Alberta natural resources minister had a response to that. She said:

We can increase production if we can get more infrastructure built and I think that's what was missing in the conversation.... It's really not ambitious to talk about a short term potential of 200,000 barrels when we sit on top of the third largest [oil] reserves in the world.

In addition to that, we have seen a labour shortage. The NDP-Liberal government fired hundreds of thousands of workers when it set out to destroy the natural resources sector, so this sector has been struggling with a lack of workers since last year, according to a Canadian Press story, when rebounding oil prices first spurred an uptake in drilling activity in the Canadian oil patch.

In conclusion, on this side of the House, we have tried to work with the NDP-Liberal coalition. It has shown it cannot handle funds responsibly, time and time again. Now it is turning to the industry it destroyed. Now it has decided it is time to step up given that Ukrainians and Europe are suffering, while Canadians have suffered for a long time under this coalition.

Equalization

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

Mr. Speaker, my next petition is from people from across Alberta. These petitioners note that Alberta is the single largest per-capita contributor to the federal equalization program, contributing over $600 billion since the 1960s. They comment that the current equalization formula was set when Alberta had record growth. Since then, we have experienced job losses and high unemployment. Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 and the failure to build pipelines have devastated the Alberta economy.

They are calling on the government to fix the equalization formula, and they are calling on the government to defend and advocate for the building of pipelines so that Keystone XL, in particular, and others can be built.

Opposition Motion—Housing Supply

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, we add affordability and inflation to this mix.

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

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

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

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1

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

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

Offshore Health and Safety Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act

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

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

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

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

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

The purpose of this Act is to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

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

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

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

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

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Swampy, thank you for being here today.

Coming out of COVID, we're going to need enormous economic growth in this country, and we had anemic growth prior to COVID. We were about 1% of GDP, so it was quite slow. You're offering some alternatives, saying that first nations people want to participate and were willing to participate with northern gateway.

How frustrating is it for you, with the added regulatory burdens to try to stop major projects like this? Bill C-48 would be an example of that, the tanker ban, as well as Bill C-69.

I want to hear more from you. Are you frustrated, because it sounds like you want to be part of the solution?

[Dale Swampy, President, National Coalition of Chiefs]

Good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on the study of competitiveness in Canada.

My name is Dale Swampy. I'm a Samson Cree Nation member and a COVID survivor. I'm honoured to be presenting to you from the traditional territory of the Tsuut'ina Nation and the Treaty 7 first nations in southern Alberta.

I'm the president of the National Coalition of Chiefs, or the NCC, a coalition of industry-supportive chiefs. Our mandate is to defeat on-reserve poverty through participation in our country's development of its natural resources. We work in co-operation and in partnership with natural resource proponents in an effort to enhance the economic prosperity of reserve communities. We also support indigenous-led natural resource projects.

I appreciate that you have included an indigenous perspective on the panel today, because Canada's ability to attract investment is a major challenge, more so today than at any other time in our country's history.

As you are aware, Canada has experienced a significant loss in its ability to compete on the international market, as well as within its own boundaries. We are no longer able to trade effectively even between our own provincial borders. Many would agree that this is a direct result of restricting regulatory barriers that have been introduced over the past few years.

For example, we believe the tanker ban, or Bill C-48, was passed in order to ensure that Alberta's oil does not cross the borders of British Columbia and on to tidewater. International trade of our most valuable commodity would have increased the standard of living of all Canadians, including first nations. First nation communities in B.C. and Alberta lost $2 billion in benefits when the northern gateway project was cancelled. The cancellation had no effect on world greenhouse gases. It only created uncertainty for would-be investors in Canada's economy.

The new national regulatory regime, or Bill C-69, was forced onto an existing regulatory process, the National Energy Board, which was already a world leader in safety, integrity and environmental protection. We feel there was no need to amend this process.

The new UNDRIP legislation, Bill C-15, will create additional uncertainty and legal ambiguity in an economy that is already hindered by major project delays caused by lawsuits that challenge our own Constitution. The NCC has already expressed its issues and concerns regarding this legislation, and has asked, through its participation in hearings, that the federal government consider alternative legislation to fulfill its promise for reconciliation with first nations in Canada.

The NCC believes that increased indigenous community participation in the natural resource industry, through employment, contracting and ownership, will increase Canada's competitiveness. We want the federal government to give first nations a share in ownership and control of Canada's natural resources in a manner similar to what the U.S. gave the 13 tribes in Alaska.

Who better to give ownership of natural resources and natural resource development than first nations. Our people have lived on this land for thousands of years. We respect and want to protect the land. Many people will come and go, but first nations people will never leave this land. We have a spiritual tie to the land. We will never sell our lands or resources. Since 1971, the Alaskan tribes have had the authority to sell their lands and resources, and not one tribe has ever considered selling their land.

We have missed out on 150 years of natural resource development in this country, along with countless billions of dollars' worth of projects, projects that would have supported thousands of jobs in indigenous, rural and remote communities. It is time for Canada to grant first nations the right and ownership of their natural resources.

Instead of using new legislation, such as UNDRIP, as a form of reconciliation, the NCC requests that the federal government consider an act similar to that of the Alaskan tribes, which will provide ownership of lands and resources currently owned by the Government of Canada.

In 1996, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, in a report issued by the Liberal Party under the leadership of Jean Chrétien, recommended that the federal government grant to aboriginal peoples of Canada 30% of all the lands and resources owned by the federal government as a form of reconciliation. Through this report, the federal government possesses the ability and justification to grant this to all first nations in Canada.

We are hoping your study will provide our chiefs with an opportunity to create a reconciliation process that provides real and tangible benefits for first nation communities and supports Canada's economic growth and competitiveness. Together we can defeat on-reserve poverty.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions and further discussion.

[Stephen Buffalo]

Traditionally when we produce oil and gas it's controlled by the federal government, and right now it seems we have one customer and that's the United States. The pipeline capacity we see that was supposed to go to foreign markets is not there with the legislation that's been put forward in Bill C-48. Now the challenge is to build further infrastructure with Bill C-69.

With the oil and gas prices where they're at today, it's been increasingly difficult. In the past the ripple effect is that the federal government looked at some of the producing nations as rich, which isn't true. Obviously we have a lot of needs. Our populations are growing, and our demographics are growing. A lot of the social issues plaguing a lot of our communities are rampant, and we need to deal with that. The price of our resources is very important, but right now it's not getting to where it used to be.

[Stephen Buffalo, President, Indian Resource Council]

Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak today. I am in the Treaty No. 7 territory. My name is Stephen Buffalo. I'm the president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council of Canada.

Our organization represents over 130 first nations across Canada that produce or have a direct interest in the oil and gas industry. Our mandate is to advocate for federal policies that will improve and increase economic development opportunities for our first nations. Few will be more impacted in the short term than the 130 members of the Indian Resource Council if the proposed UNDRIP legislation is not clearly drafted. Otherwise this will compromise the ability of our members to engage in resource development.

The members of the Indian Resource Council, like all first nations, obviously find a lot to like in the UNDRIP, which we support without question. I'm personally from the same nation as Dr. Willie Littlechild, one of the architects of the declaration. I've spoken to him at length about understanding the spirit and the intent behind it, but I'm very concerned about the unintended consequences of this legislation. I think, in practice, it will slow down or even reverse the economic development that we've achieved in our nations.

Within our communities, the majority of our members support involvement in the oil and gas industry—not all but most. That's because the royalties and profits we generate from this sector have been essential to the well-being of our people. They pay for things like elder services, housing, cultural programs, bereavement costs, recreation centres and other programs and services that are chronically underfunded by the federal government, or not funded at all. They provide us some autonomy in spending that we do not have with federal funding. They allow us to exercise our self-determination.

In my own community of Maskwacis, we've created a trust company, Peace Hills Trust, a scholarship fund to encourage our youth to pursue post-secondary education. The energy sector has brought many benefits to us, and we don't need any additional barriers that will impact or eliminate these benefits. Creating a competitive and stable investment environment in Canada would help bring new development projects in our territories. Having sufficient pipeline capacity, for example, would allow our members to earn full value of their products instead of having to accept a discount due to transportation and market constraints, as we see now today.

We've already seen countless jobs, procurement opportunities and equity stakes lost in the cancellation of tens of billions of dollars from energy projects across western Canada as a result of legislation such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. We have a lot to lose if this legislation, in its current form, further impacts our ability to attract investment.

Let me share with you the biggest concern about Bill C-15. The legislation says that indigenous people need to provide consent for a project to go forward, but it doesn't say who can provide or deny consent and how it's to be demonstrated. If you're saying consent is provided by chief and councils through band council resolution or referendum, then that's one thing. But if you're saying that a small group of indigenous activists who declare that their consent is required, and that they have the right to blockade any project they do not like, or just to get a standing in court to contest it, then that's a recipe for disaster.

It would be much better if this committee could define “free, prior and informed consent” in the legislation and determine who can represent and make decisions on behalf of indigenous peoples for the purpose of project approvals. Better yet, this committee can engage indigenous people across Canada to come to a consensus on what “consent” means before passing this legislation, because you know as well as I do that some people think it's a veto, and if the committee doesn't think it's a veto, then they should make that clear.

Putting the declaration verbatim into federal legislation without these definitions is going to allow special interest groups to weaponize the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a tool to stop any extractive project they do not like. This isn't my being paranoid. This is in our communities and in our projects all the time. I even heard it from some MPs using UNDRIP as a reason to cancel TMX, for example.

Many of our members are actually involved in negotiating and purchasing it, but whether or not you support the oil and gas industry, it's the right of the 130 first nations in our organization to develop their resources as they see fit.

At the end of the day, if the bill remains vague, as it is in its current form, I believe some judge down the line is going to decide what FPIC means in the context of resource development. No one is going to want to invest in any major projects in this country until that day comes.

IRC members want better protection for indigenous rights, and there's obviously a lot of good that can come from using the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a shield and framework for reconciliation. However, investment requires certainty, and if we're going to self-determine, reduce our dependency on government and move beyond meagre royalties, we'll need to attract investment of our own.

Thank you for the time. I'm happy to take questions.

Employment Insurance Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Okay. That's a “no”, Minister. Thank you very much.

My second question has to do with a project that you've mentioned several times and that your colleagues in the last meeting mentioned as well. It's the Alberta irrigation project. Actually, every time I hear the name of this project, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me, because I'm not certain how you could possibly feel that one infrastructure bank project could replace an entire industry, which your government, under your helm, destroyed, and that is the natural resources sector. That was a result of the implementation of Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and the carbon tax.

Also, just yesterday, your government had an opportunity to help offset that by supporting the agricultural sector, which you claim you are trying to help with the Alberta irrigation project, by supporting Bill C-206, and instead, you and your government didn't support it. You voted against it.

How can you possibly feel that a single project for Alberta could resolve the entire destruction of the industry here under your leadership over the last five years?

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

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

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

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

Environmentally Conscious Labelling

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I guess we have changed our speaking times. My apologies for the confusion for the Chair, and for the table as well. I am sincerely sorry.

They started a warehouse format. As I said, I have had a lot of time to reflect on wicker and rattan throughout the years. We are very fortunate. My younger brother made the decision to accept the business from my parents after several years.

Upon reflection on the business and, most important, the product of the business, I recognized maybe five years ago that it was to be of more interest to Canadians, society and the world in general. People were thinking of buying responsibly and choosing responsible products, and for years my family had been contributing to the environmental cause by selling a renewable product.

This is something that struck me as quite significant. All this time, as this evolution in the world had been going on toward the environment and a greener existence, my family had been contributing to this effort for over three decades.

My message is that the market will always determine these things. The market will make the decision as to the products that are successful within our society and the products which are not successful. Oddly enough, unforeseen to my family and my family business, this pandemic has been a time when wicker and rattan have thrived, as Canadians, Calgarians and people B.C., where we have extensions of our business as well, look to have products to beautify their environments and their back yards, since they are stuck at home at this time.

My fundamental point regarding all this is that there are already voluntary rules that exist for this. Business owners, if they feel so inclined, may certainly put whatever labelling they want upon their products in an effort to indicate what is within the product or how environmentally friendly it is. As the story of my family's business proves, the market chose an environmentally responsible product, and I am very proud of this.

It is always very dangerous when the government tells us what we should buy and what we should not buy. The current government has been terrible at that. It has consistently chosen winners and losers throughout industry and throughout our economy.

Unfortunately, I have seen up close the end result within two sectors. The first is the natural resources sector in my home province of Alberta, where we have seen industry-killing legislation such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. This is what happens when government intervenes incorrectly, as could be the case with this private member's bill, which is that industry dies.

I have also seen this up front and personally with the airline sector. This was a case where the government should have intervened. It should have come forward with rapid testing, testing on arrival and on departure, and certainly with, what we had hoped for, what should have been the good distribution of vaccines. Unfortunately, to the disappointment of all Canadians, it has not. Again, it is always very dangerous when the government intervenes within business. We have seen this in both the natural resources sector as well as the airline sector.

I would like to point out the incredible burden that this would place upon businesses, and small businesses in particular. We know that the government has been no friend to small businesses at all during its time.

Who can forget 2017 and the changes that the government tried to implement against small businesses, things that would have major impacts, such as income sprinkling, passive income, passing on businesses within families, something I referenced earlier in my speech? Thank goodness my colleague, the member for Brandon—Souris, put forward legislation that would at least attempt to go against that. Fundamentally, it is never a good thing when government attempts to intervene, to control and direct markets. Also, that legislation would do what the government does not do well, and that is to keep focused on the big picture. At this time, coming out of this pandemic is about restoring the economy and bringing jobs to Canadians.

This motion would not allow businesses to focus on this. It would force them to focus on labelling at a time when they should be thinking about increasing revenues, employing more Canadians and bringing the economy back. Unfortunately, the motion does not focus on that.

Who could have foreseen the legacy of my family business, which started and thrived in Alberta and beyond, would have been with the use of an environmental product. In fact it was, it succeeded and the market chose that. We see the government's intervening has destroyed the natural resources sector. Make no mistake about it. It was a joint effort in Alberta with all levels of government to bring my poor city to the place it is now. This year, 2021, brings the opportunity for change at the civic level and perhaps we will see that.

Unfortunately, I cannot support this private member's motion. I do not believe the opposition will not be supporting it. The market knows what it is doing and this private member's motion does not support that.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues who spoke on this bill. Whether they agreed with it or not, I appreciate that they took the time and effort to speak in the House today.

When I ran for office, I was incredibly concerned about the Canadian economy. I am a proud Canadian and a proud Albertan, and I am absolutely proud of our resource sector, which has been fuelling a lot of our economy.

Bill C-48, which would be displaced by my Bill C-229, was never about marine traffic transportation safety or ecological life in northern B.C. It really was a bill that restricted the ability of the strong oil and gas sector to continue to grow. It has become even more apparent now, with the debate over Keystone XL and our ability to get our products to market.

There has been a massive exodus of energy dollars from Canada. We can argue that is world demand, but I am not part of that argument. If we look at recent history, Norway has planned a massive expansion into the Arctic for expanded oil and gas. In Russia, Vostok Oil is planning a massive expansion. The U.S. has become one of the largest exporters of oil and gas, and a lot of that is coming out of Canadian reserves.

Canada has this fantastic position, in that we are the third-largest reserve in the world and we have this enormous opportunity to extract our resources in a safe and environmentally friendly way and play into the market.

Over the last few days, we have been discussing a trade agreement with the U.K. It is interesting to look at the U.K. Where do its imports come from? Norway, the U.S., Algeria, Russia and Nigeria are its big suppliers. Canada is not even a player. Canada is 97% into the U.S. and 3% into the international market.

I firmly believe that we can safely extract oil and gas within our country and ship it in a safe fashion. It is not like we do not have tanker traffic in this country. We have tankers going up the east coast, delivering crude to refineries there, and we all realize that the St. Lawrence has consistent tanker traffic day in and day out. We are able to do that in a safe fashion and protect the environment and our citizens.

Let us not forget that our federal debt-to-GDP ratio is at about 15% and growing. We are looking at a federal debt in excess of $1 trillion by the end of the year. We have the highest unemployment rate in the G7. Oil is one of our largest exports, primarily to one customer.

Does anyone really think that Canada can come out of this massive recession without a strong oil and gas sector and without being part of the international market? We have the opportunity to gain market share. We have the opportunity to displace players who do not follow the same rules we do as Canadians.

This is a bill that would right a wrong and fix an incredibly discriminatory piece of legislation. It is a bill that is essential for an industry that has helped fuel the economy of Canada, and I am incredibly proud of it. It is essential for the thousands of workers who are proud of their work in that sector and the product they produce. It is essential for manufacturing in Canada in a variety of fields. It is essential to the environment. If Canada has the opportunity to displace those bad players, we can do that with some of the most stringent environmental and labour standards. It is essential to respect the right of the provinces to get their product to market.

I live in a province that feels that it has been left out. I believe this is an opportunity for us to right a wrong, get Albertans and Canadians back to work, and be proud of the work that we can do here in Canada.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands. Yes, I know that is liked. However, the fact is that what we have actually seen is the huge disconnect between the economy and the environment, so I would ask that we have a more balanced approach.

We have talked about Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 of the 42nd Parliament many, many times. We know that the current government has put through policies that are stopping any of the oil sands work that is being done and not focusing on what we need to do here. We are a country with great resources, and it is very important that we ethically source these resources and then get them out for export.

We are a country that currently is bringing in our fuel from places like the U.K., and I still cannot fathom that, as well as from Algeria, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. We should be looking at what we have in our own backyard. Knowing that it is ethically sourced and knowing that we can do a great job here in Canada, we should be doing made-in-Canada projects.

I respect the members who are talking about this bill and talking about what we can do on the west coast. This has very important impacts on knowing what we need to do to keep on with our environment. When we speak about first nations and indigenous people, we have to understand that many indigenous groups are asking for work like this to be done. They recognize that the environment can be used with environmentally friendly methods.

I hope we can have an honest discussion where we try to find a balance between the economy and the environment, unlike what we are doing right now.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had an important time here, listening to this debate, and listening to the members of the government and of other opposition parties talk about why Bill C-48, or this bill, Bill C-229, should not be reversed.

Regarding some of the issues and decisions that were made by the previous government, we have seen an incredible negative impact on many of our communities throughout Canada. Specifically, the previous speaker, the deputy House leader, was talking about how we want to focus on western alienation, trying to make this a political matter.

As a member from southwestern Ontario, I can say that I too am very concerned about the direction we are going. In our own communities, we are talking about things such as Line 5. Line 5 is a pipeline that continues to come from Michigan into southwestern Ontario. It provides all of the natural fuels that we need, including propane. On the propane issue, we saw back in 2018-19, when there were some problems with getting fuel by train, our farmers were running out, the people in Quebec were running out, and the east coast was running out of propane to fuel and heat their homes.

These are types of concerns I have because the types of policies we are putting forward today sometimes do not look at the bigger pictures and some of the negative impacts. I have heard and really do appreciate all of the great comments made on the environment because I believe that we do need to make sure that we are leaving this country and this globe better for the future.

At the same time, I am very concerned with some of the decisions that we make that put a trap and handcuffs on our own economy. These are the things that we have to have a balanced approach to. For all the other members who are speaking to this, yes, I hear them and members of the Conservative Party hear them, but we are trying to find a balanced approach where, as our former minister of the environment used to say, the economy and the environment can go hand in hand.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when I think of Bill C-229, the first thing that comes to mind is that the Conservative Party is not necessarily in tune with the expectations Canadians have with respect to the responsibilities and the need to commit to protecting our environment, whether it is the land or water. It will be interesting to see if the entire Conservative caucus supports Bill C-229.

Bill C-229 would repeal Bill C-48. Members might recall that Bill C-48 was the oil tanker moratorium act, which passed back in June 2019. If members were to review the Debates, they would find that it was fairly well discussed, whether in committee or on the floor of the House. However, at the time, the only party that took Bill C-48 to task was the Conservative Party. The New Democrats, members of the Green Party and the Bloc supported it.

I like to think that the Government of Canada has done a good job in balancing the important issue of our environment and economic development. It has been demonstrated by policy decisions. Examples of that include Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, which received support from the above noted parties. Many provincial jurisdictions were very supportive of the need for the moratorium.

We can look other issues. For example, the government worked very closely with the provincial NDP premier and were able to achieve the LNG, which is good for the Province of British Columbia and therefore good for Canada. It was the single largest private-government investment in infrastructure and ensured that LNG would in fact get off the ground. However, it would not have been possible had it not been for the support of the NDP in the Province of British Columbia.

We can look at Trans Mountain, which, ultimately, will be successful. The project is under construction and will ensure we are able to move a natural resource to the coast. The former government under Stephen Harper was never able to do that.

I like to think the reason we have been successful in recognizing these valuable projects is because, as a government, we are also very much aware of and sensitive to our environment, indigenous concerns and to what Canadians expect us to respond to. At the end of the day, Bill C-229 would move us backward. The first thing I think of when I see legislation of this nature is what else we can anticipate from the Conservative Party that will move us backward.

I suspect that if we were to canvass Canadians, we would find that there is fairly good support on environmental initiatives and when we get the type of general acceptance those initiatives, the Conservative Party needs to wake up and sense that reality.

This whole Conservative spin seems to be more focused on trying to give a false impression that we cannot handle the environment and the economy in such a way that development of natural resources can continue. It can, and we have demonstrated that. Canadians expect the Government of Canada to balance economic needs with environmental goals.

The tanker moratorium that was passed in 2019 is an excellent example of how we can balance and achieve just that. The moratorium provides the highest level of environmental protection for British Columbia's northern coastline. It is integral to the livelihoods and cultures of indigenous and coastal communities that are located there and ensures the protection and preservation of that.

This is another example of the Government of Canada delivering on commitments to Canadians. After all, no one should be surprised. We made this commitment. It was in the mandate letter given to the minister at the time. The federal government met with many different indigenous groups, communities and a wide spectrum of stakeholders. We listened and gathered input on the moratorium. Our engagement was extensive. It was passed back in 2019 because of the amount of that engagement. We wanted to ensure we got it right.

Whenever bold initiatives are taken to try to move forward on important files, we will always get some criticism. There is no doubt about that. However, what surprises me is the level of criticism and amount of spin coming from the Conservative Party of Canada. One has to wonder what the motivation is for that. Is it purely the political optics of espousing false information about how the government does not care about western Canada, in particular the province of Alberta? That might have a lot more to do with the political motivation of the official opposition. If those members were to put their motivation to the side and start to focus their attention on the environment, on protecting our waterways, they could maybe see the true intrinsic value to the legislation.

I call upon members of the Conservative Party to think again about this legislation and understand that the consensus out there in favour of the current law. Are we to assume that if the leader of the official opposition were to become prime minister some day, heaven forbid, that he would get rid of the moratorium? That is the impression they will give when it comes time to vote on this. Will the leader of the Conservative Party support this private member's bill? I think a lot of Canadians would be gravely concerned to see that.

If that is the case, I for one will be one of those individuals who will be talking about that in the next federal election. I believe that the people who I represent, and Canadians as a whole, understand and appreciate the moratorium that was put in place through Bill C-48.

Hopefully, we will see the Conservatives come on side and recognize what Bill C-229 would do and vote against it.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise virtually today to join the debate on Bill C-14, an act to implement certain provisions of the economic statement.

The bill has seven parts, mostly containing items to which I do not object and aims that I support under the circumstances that Canada currently finds itself. Having said that, I have three main criticisms of the bill. First, it does not contain a plan or indeed any reason for hope for the millions of Canadians who own, work for or otherwise depend on small businesses, especially new businesses that have been ignored in aid measures that have been either adopted or proposed by the government. Second, the bill contains nothing to address the significant problems that were facing the Canadian economy before COVID. Third, the government should not be granted the unnecessary increase to the borrowing authority contained in the bill.

To my first two issues, some would say that it is not fair to criticize a bill for something it does not say. Ordinarily I would agree, but this is not an ordinary bill, nor is this an ordinary time.

The government is closing in on two years without a budget. The fall economic statement is as close as the government has come to tabling a budget, and that statement followed a period of chaos and crisis management. Here I am not referring to the COVID crisis, but to the tumultuous months during which we saw a government that should have been procuring vaccines, approving and distributing rapid at-home test kits and figuring out ways to allow the economy to function, if and when the second wave would hit. Instead, it was consumed by the scandal that saw the resignation of the former finance minister, prorogation of this Parliament and the appointment of a new finance minister. The bill is the government's missed opportunity to help small businesses that have fallen through the cracks in its aid measures and to fix its series of failures that left Canada on the brink of a recession before COVID.

As the shadow minister for small business and the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, I have spoken to many small business owners who had been left behind by the government. These small business owners are the pillars of our communities.

There are millions of owners, workers and customers who depend on small businesses and who are paying the price for the government's failures, like the owners of the Bitter Sisters Brewing Company in Calgary, whose owners live in my riding. They do not qualify for the wage subsidy or the rent subsidy, because they reopened their business in March 2020 after spending most of 2019 refurbishing it. The owners of this business exhausted their capital. They went through a lengthy period when reinventing their business, and they opened literally within days of the declaration of a global pandemic. They do not have access to government aid measures. I spoke to another constituent last week who had expanded his successful tattoo studio in early 2020. As a result, he does not qualify for either the rent subsidy or the wage subsidy. His rent is $30,000 a month and his revenue is zero.

I know that every member of the House has heard similar stories from their constituents and from other members during debate on the bill. The fall economic statement and the bill do not help these constituents.

It is easy to forget the extent to which the government's fiscal and economic mismanagement was coming to a head before COVID. This is a government that was elected in 2015 on a promise, which it immediately broke, to run modest deficits to fund infrastructure for three years, returning to surplus in the fourth. Its maximum deficit of $10 billion was to be its fiscal anchor.

That anchor was cut immediately after the Liberals took office, and the 2015 election promise was seemingly obliterated into an Orwellian memory hole never again to be acknowledged by the government. It was replaced by a new anchor: that Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio was low and would always shrink.

The finance minister clung to that anchor until it was clear, before COVID, that the deficit was going to rise as a percentage of GDP, and replaced that anchor with the last one, which was maintaining Canada's AAA credit rating. That anchor was cut loose as well, and there have been no fiscal anchors articulated by the government since then.

We saw all of this backsliding into a serious structural deficit before COVID. The Liberal government piled on nearly $100 billion in new debt at a time when it should have been running surpluses, like the one it inherited, in order to prepare for a financial disaster like COVID, but it did not. Furthermore, the government piled on job-killing laws, like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 that devastated the western economy and will harm Canada's ability to recover from COVID.

This bill does not contain elements that would undo the damage the government did to our economy that prevent and reduce our ability to recover from COVID. It brought in a carbon tax in the last Parliament and has announced that it will almost immediately break its promise not to raise it in this Parliament.

There is nothing in this bill that will address the hostility of the government to the energy industry, which is an essential part of the federal government's tax base. It is historically Canada's largest and most valuable export. It is the creator of great high-paying jobs in every province across Canada, not just in Alberta.

The fall economic statement that this bill is to implement does not address the past economic mistakes the government made and that had Canada teetering on the brink of recession before COVID. It does not repeal the red tape that killed projects, like Teck Frontier, and scared off the private sector investors that would have built Trans Mountain without taxpayer support.

There is nothing in this bill for the thousands of Canadian workers who will lose their jobs due to the devastating Keystone decision or those already without jobs, whose hopes for returning to work are now reduced in the wake of the Keystone decision.

There is nothing in this bill to rein in the culture of wasteful corporate welfare that the government has and the ease with which it ran up significant debt, again, before COVID.

This brings me to my third criticism of this bill and that is the unprecedented increase to Canada's borrowing limit. Make no mistake, and I will say this again, that at a time when governments force businesses to close and lay off workers, governments need to support them. Governments do need to support Canadians who are being compelled not to work and to support businesses that are being compelled to close their doors.

This crisis has created a temporary necessity for extraordinary spending measures to support Canadians, but the government's proposal in this bill to increase its borrowing limit to $1.8 trillion is simply not justified. It is not justified by the government's present needs, not by its short-term needs, not by its medium- or long-term needs, and certainly not by its past enthusiasm for non-crisis deficit financing.

Parliament at its most basic function exists to authorize taxation, expenditure and borrowing by the government on behalf of the governed. As legislators, we have a responsibility to vote whether or not to grant the government these powers, and there is simply no reason to grant such an extraordinary sum for the government to borrow when its own fall statement and the estimates that have already been voted on do not require the authority for the level of borrowing that is contained in this bill.

If the Liberal government, or indeed a future government, needs to increase the national debt to $1.8 trillion, then that should be left for a future debate in this Parliament or a future Parliament. In the meantime, I urge the government to focus on establishing a coherent COVID policy, one that would result in a vaccinated population, a reopened economy and a full employment workforce fuelled by private investment into Canada's economy, unshackled by job-killing regulations.

We must return to an employment-based economy as soon as possible. While there are items in this bill that would help some Canadians cope with the difficult circumstances of the present, I urge the government to get serious about giving Canadians more hope for the future, especially for those small businesses that have consistently fallen through the cracks of the government's aid measures.

With that, I look forward to questions from the floor.

Broadcasting Act

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

Madam Speaker, to the latter point by the hon. member, we have seen that a lot of the legislation introduced in this place really has had that power consolidated through the executive branch of government. I look to some of the environmental bills that we have dealt with in the past, such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, for example, where the minister has the ultimate say. The power is not distributed among Parliament or even within the government, but within the executive branch. I am not surprised by that assertion, quite frankly, given the history of this government.

Secondly, the example in P.E.I. speaks to the insatiable appetite that people have for news, not just national or international news, but local news as well. It is not surprising to me when people push back as they did in P.E.I. They are seeking the truth as well.

[Kim Moody]

The continuation of the wage subsidy and rental subsidy will certainly help, but non-budgetary matters, such as quickly approving resource projects and accelerating permitting time for construction projects would greatly assist the acceleration of employment.

From the perspective of my home province of Alberta, it's my belief that Bills C-48 and C-69 should be repealed, which would go a long way to restoring foreign investor confidence back in our oil and gas sector.

Finally, as many presenters have told you in the past, this country needs comprehensive tax review and reform. Yes, I know, many of you are tired of hearing this. Your committee has recommended this very thing and so has the Senate. Perhaps there is something to all the smart people that have appeared before you. Perhaps certain academics, bureaucrats and parliamentarians who think that comprehensive tax review is not necessary or that Canadians are not ready for such a review are simply wrong. Just maybe....

In my view, Canadians are ready, ready for real and refreshing change for the better, ready for positive change to assist our taxing statutes to get ready for the next generation. Forget the cries for patchwork quilt fixes. In addition, ignore the calls by some who want significant change, such as the addition of a wealth tax, without comprehensive review and reform.

Any big changes should only be made after a well-represented panel of tax experts, economists, academics, public policy experts and other stakeholders conduct a thorough and well-represented review of our current system and recommend a new system for our future, a bigger and better future.

Thank you. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Opposition Motion—Measures to Support Canadian Businesses

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

moved:

That, given that, (i) Canadian businesses are in distress and need help to survive as a rapid testing and vaccination plan rolls out, (ii) according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, 46% are worried about the survival of their business, (iii) the federal government must support employment by removing barriers to job creation, such as taxes and regulation,the House call on the government to: (a) provide complete details on the Highly Affected Sectors Credit Availability Program by December 16, 2020, including criteria, when businesses can apply, which sectors are eligible, when repayment will be required, and how much forgiveness will be offered; (b) fix the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility by reducing restrictions and amending the interest rate schedule; (c) postpone the increase of the Canada Pension Plan payroll taxes planned for January 1, 2021; and (d) postpone the increase of the carbon tax and the alcohol escalator tax planned for 2021.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to propose that we move from the credit card economy to the paycheque economy.

Let me tell colleagues what I mean by that by illustrating the difference in approach between the government and us here in the Conservative opposition.

Last week, the finance minister made an interesting observation. She told BNN, “I want to thank you, first of all, for really zeroing in on the preloaded stimulus idea”. That idea is the following: “[Households] do have quite a lot of money that they have saved because there has not been much to do in the pandemic. Certainly, it would be great if that money could go towards driving our recovery.... If people have ideas on how the government can act to help unlock that preloaded stimulus, I am very, very interested.”

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, those who have money in their bank accounts should lock it away. They might even want to put it under their beds before the government finds out that it is there. The government thinks people are saving too much and wants to empty their bank accounts as the best way, it thinks, to get the economy started.

Now some will say that the minister did not meant what she said, and that what she was trying to say was that we need more consumer spending in this miserable economy. Certainly that debt-induced spending would create activity, but never confuse activity with achievement.

The CIBC has reported that a very large share of the government's COVID emergency spending has been leaking right out of Canada altogether, because the debt-funded money that consumers are spending is actually going to imported goods. All of those Amazon and Alibaba deliveries are of products imported from abroad, and when those products come in, our money goes out. That is how our economy has been functioning for the last five years. Five years in a row, there have been five trade deficits.

Here is what a trade deficit is: We buy more than we sell and we borrow to make up the difference. We buy from the world and borrow from the world. They get the money, investment and jobs. We are left with the debt. Day by day, we become more and more reliant on the People's Republic of China and other economic powerhouses that send us their goods so that we can send them our money.

More and more, our population becomes enslaved to debt. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is now 384% when households, businesses and governments are combined. This is a record-smashing level of debt. It is the second-highest in the G7, behind only Japan. It means that for every one percentage point increase in the effective interest rate, we will have a 3.84% increase in the economic cost of our debt on the world stage.

The House will hear more of this from the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, with whom I am splitting my time. He too is concerned about the fact that money is the best servant but the worst master. If someone invests their money, it will serve them. If they borrow money, it will be a master over them. That is what is happening with Canadians today. This high level of debt to fund short-term consumption has only made us weaker and more vulnerable to the rest of the world. We do not need to come back out of this pandemic lockdown with even more debt. In fact, we need precisely the opposite.

We need Canadians to save, earn and invest. First we save to prepare for the future and a secure retirement, and then we invest. Much of those savings are converted either by being lent out by banks to small businesses or converted into TFSAs and RRSPs, into equities and other investments that build factories, dig mines and develop intellectual property and patented technologies.

Those assets then produce ongoing income to power our economy into the future. Instead of debt-fuelled consumption, we have investment-fuelled production. We are seeing none of that right now.

The Bank of Canada, which is pumping $400 billion of printed money into our economy, inflating assets for rich people, while devaluing the wages of the working class, has reported that over the next three years investment will only grow by 0.8%. In fact, it will not be until at least 2023 that we get investment levels back to where they were in 2019. Meanwhile, consumption will grow by 4.7%, six times faster than investment. Of the growth over the next two years, 80% will come in the form of debt-fuelled government spending and consumer spending. Again, that means more debt and more vulnerability.

How do we make the switch from this credit card economy to a paycheque economy? We do it by unleashing the mighty force of our 20 million Canadian workers. Let us end the war on work, by which I refer to a tax and benefit system that claws back as much as 80¢ on the dollar of some people when they go out into the work force and earn another hundred cents.

For example, if single parents get a job and earn an extra dollar from $55,000 to $55,001, they lose as much as 80¢ of that dollar to clawbacks and taxes. These penalties exist right across the income level and they ding the lowest-income people the hardest. Some people with disabilities lose more than a dollar of income for every dollar increase they have in wages. That is the war on work, punishing people for making an effort.

Let us reform our tax and benefit system so it always pays more to work. Let us reverse the insane system we have right now, which means that it takes 168 days longer to get a building permit for construction in Canada than in the United States. We are 34th out of 35 OECD nations in the delay to build a factory, or a plant or a mine, or a shopping centre. We should be number one. This should be the fastest and simplest place to get a building permit, to build a structure and to fill it with well-paid workers.

Let us knock down interprovincial trade barriers, so Canadians can actually buy and sell from one another instead of just importing cheap products from abroad. Let us speed up the recognition of the incredible skills and qualifications of immigrants who come here with knowledge in the trades and professions, so they can earn the full salary for which they are qualified rather than be forced into a low-wage job because regulators ban them from getting a permit to work. Let us open up our free enterprise system by removing red tape and shortening the amount of time our small businesses must spend filling out tax forms, so that resource can be dedicated to serving customers and hiring workers. Let us repeal Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, so we can unleash the force of our energy and resource sectors to bring tens of billions of dollars back into the country.

We have a $14-billion LNG project awaiting approval in Quebec. We have a $20-billion oil sands project sitting around waiting in northern Alberta. We have pipelines, we have rail lines and we have transmission lines that are ready to go as soon as the government gets out of the way. Therefore, let us get the government out of the way, open up our economy and transform ourselves from a credit card economy into a paycheque economy, so our 20 million brilliant and strong Canadian workers can stand on their feet and build our economy.

Natural Resources

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Madam Speaker, since I came here in 2015, the government has waged a full-fledged attack on my home province of Alberta. It began with flippant statements by the Prime Minister even before he was elected as the Prime Minister. I remember when he forgot to mention Alberta on Canada Day. There is the carbon tax, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. These are all attacks on Alberta.

We are now seeing the new clean fuel standard, which is once again a full-fledged, frontal attack by the Liberals on what the energy sector is all about. I have some statistics: 30,000 jobs nationally and approximately 20 billion dollars' worth of capital will leave Canada if we put in the clean fuel standard.

Yesterday at committee, I had the opportunity to ask the minister about the CFS. He told me not to worry, as the government is diversifying the economy, and that Alberta should be thankful for the new standard being put in place. Nothing could be further from the truth.

About a month ago, Alberta released a brand new recycling hub idea to recycle plastics in the province. Not even 24 hours later, the government labelled plastic a toxic substance. What will that do to the energy sector and Alberta as a whole? It attacks the workers and the jobs in that sector. At the end of the day, vehicles are largely made of plastic, as are the pipes that go into the ground. This is yet another unfortunate piling on by the government.

We have seen the government add red tape and cause constant delays in approval processes. When I got here in 2015, I could not have imagined the extent to which the current government, the Prime Minister and the ministers have gone on to attack my province.

Thankfully, we were able to change the provincial government. Unfortunately, we had a Notley NDP government there for a full four years, which added more burden to the energy sector. We still have yet to get rid of the federal government.

Issues have now been going on for five years. Why does the government continually insist on implementing policies that hurt Albertans?

Employment

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

Mr. Speaker, the 591 families do not want CERB, they want jobs. Four jobs are created in Regina for every one job at Evraz. This is devastating for Regina’s local economy and is a direct result of anti-energy bills, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, and the Liberals’ ever-increasing carbon tax.

These layoffs are not an unintended consequence. They are a desired outcome. The Prime Minister promised to phase out our energy sector, and apparently this is the one promise he intends to keep.

When will the government stop attacking western Canadian families?

Aeronautics Act

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Bloc Québécois member. I am sure he worked hard to draft and introduce Bill C-225.

We should ask ourselves two very important things every time we look at a piece of legislation at this point in history. First, this is a time to come together as one nation. When we review legislation, we have to consider whether the legislation promotes the good of Canada. Second, and this is very important with the fall economic statement coming out later today, this is a time to build the economy.

Every time we review a piece of legislation in the House we should be asking if it brings Canada together and if it will further Canada's economy. This is not just because of the fall economic statement, but as we emerge from the pandemic and start to consider how we will do vaccine procurement and distribution, we have to think about these things.

I want to go over Bill C-225 briefly for those listening who may not be aware of what it proposes.

The bill would amend six federal acts. It would change legislation regarding land use and development and environmental protection. The Bloc is very motivated to put forward this legislation for two reasons. First, the Supreme Court sided with the federal government in numerous court cases where federal jurisdiction overrode provincial jurisdiction. The Bloc is looking for more provincial power. Second, several of these cases actually originated in the Province of Quebec. For these two reasons, Bloc members are very motivated to change this legislation.

In my observation, Conservatives are concerned because of potential jurisdictional disputes. We think that more cases would have to go before the courts. It is not good to tie up the courts because of discrepancies between two pieces of legislation or determining which one takes precedence in which situation.

As well, we are very concerned that some sections of the bill could be considered unconstitutional. It is surprising to me that the Bloc would put something forward that would be deemed unconstitutional, considering how hard the party fights for the principle of the two founding peoples of the nation and, in particular, the province of Quebec. However, I would say how good both my leader and my colleagues from Quebec have been regarding the modernization of the Official Languages Act. I had the pleasure of sitting on the official languages committee for a brief period of time. When it comes to the Constitution, I would expect the Bloc to consider it.

For those who are not aware, my leader was on Tout le monde en parle yesterday. If members did not have an opportunity to see him, I would suggest they watch it.

Going back to my main points, it is time to come together as a nation and build the economy.

There are concerns that the bill before us could have negative economic implications, as it may deter private investment and infrastructure projects because of additional red tape. Provinces could amend their legislation on land use and environmental protection to block federal projects. Also, and this is very relevant to me as a member of Parliament from Alberta, the bill could block federal economic development projects, such as the Trans Mountain pipeline or other infrastructure projects.

In a time when we are looking to come out of the pandemic united, we really need to think about legislation that will be nation-building. I would certainly count on my colleagues from Quebec to support infrastructure projects all across Canada, as I would, as a member of Parliament from Alberta, support any projects that are in the national interest of Canada. I think it is very important that we all take this into consideration as parliamentarians for Canada. We really have to think about the effects of legislation such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 and the way they so negatively impacted the natural resources sector here in Alberta.

People have to put themselves in other people's shoes. If legislation such as this bill were to come across that another province could potentially have the possibility to impact an infrastructure project that would be of benefit to Quebec, I do not think that they would like to see that any more than we do, as members of Parliament from Alberta who see the potential of this happening to us. More importantly, at this time, I think we really have to question what legislation like this would do.

This is the time to build this economy. This bill would create more insecurity around investment in Canada at this time. I will hand it to the Prime Minister and his cabinet, who have done a masterful job of driving away investment from Alberta, the Prairies and the entire energy sector to the detriment of Canada. We are all suffering as we come out of this pandemic with the trillion-dollar debt that we have in front of us; the hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit that we have. We really need to come together as a nation to think about how we are economically going to respond to this. The Prime Minister and his cabinet just do not seem to get that when one part of the nation benefits, the entire nation benefits. I would ask my Bloc colleague to consider this at this time as well.

With that, I ask Canadians to really listen to the fall economic statement today. I really hope we do not see what we saw in the Speech from the Throne, which was a complete disappointment with more poor ideas based upon ideology as opposed to real, solid ideas to build the economy going forward. That is what I am expecting more of today.

When Canadians are listening to the fall economic statement today, I want them to ask themselves three questions:

Number one, will this improve the economy? Listen to what they are saying. Will it improve the economy for Canada? Goodness knows, we need that coming out of this pandemic.

Number two, will this protect my job if I have a job? Is there anything in the fall economic statement to protect my job? I am in a place where I have seen so many people lose their jobs. There is another round of layoffs coming from a major employer, Imperial, this week here in Alberta. It is terrible to hear about. Again, I completely blame the Liberal government for this, for its investment-destroying legislation. I do believe this bill will add to that.

Number three, will this fall economic statement create more jobs?

Will this improve the economy? Will this protect my job? Will this create more jobs? Those are the three things that Canadians have to be asking themselves. At the end of the day, I believe that Canadians have to ask their parliamentarian and government if they are taking actions and passing legislation to support the country and economy or taking actions and passing legislation that is destroying the economy, which is essentially destroying Canada. That is what is happening bit by bit.

This is the time to come together as a nation. This is the time to build the economy. The Liberal government has not done this and Bill C-225 does not do this either.

Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to start off with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “We are made wise not by the recollection of our past but by the responsibility for our future.” I think that is a timely comment as we are talking about a bill that is not going to take effect until 2050.

I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-12, the important issue of climate change and how we must rise to meet the challenge of the country. I want to take this important time to point out some things about Canadian energy producers and why our industry can be a part of the solution to climate change, not a contributor to the world problem.

First off, we cannot talk about climate change without acknowledging that this is truly a global issue. The atmosphere cannot distinguish between two sides of a political border or even opposite sides of the planet. Environmental policy abroad impacts us here at home, and vice versa. When it comes to the planet, all of humanity is interconnected, whether we like it or not.

There is no question that Canada must do its part to fight climate change through increasing the use of renewable resources, employing Saskatchewan's innovative carbon capture and storage technology, expanding our use of nuclear power generation and using new technology to make our existing infrastructure greener and more efficient. I am confident that we can, should and will be leaders in the fight on climate change.

I will say once again that climate change occurs, and human activity influences this. However, our strategy must always keep the global nature of this problem in mind. Canada is not an island and cannot assume that rivals, or even allies, will follow our lead. We need to work with countries from around the world collaboratively to find ways that Canada can minimize environmental impact in the short term while investing in long-term solutions.

When we measure the total life-cycle emissions of liquefied natural gas and coal based on extraction, production, shipping and burning, liquefied natural gas burns roughly 40% cleaner than coal. If Canada were to expand its production capacity and increase LNG exports to developing countries currently using coal to bring electricity to underdeveloped regions, we would be taking a huge step forward, a concrete step in reducing emissions in the short term.

China currently has a coal-fired electrical generating capacity four times larger than the United States' and plans to increase that number by over 25% in the coming years. If only a quarter of China's coal-fired plants transitioned to liquefied natural gas, it would result in emission reductions of around 750 megatonnes per year, based on current levels. For reference, Canada's total emissions in 2019 were 729 megatonnes.

The old saying “perfect is the enemy of the good” comes to mind here. While this government repeatedly fails to meet its emissions reduction targets, our energy industry, which is a world leader in environmental sustainability, continues to be crippled by regulations like Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and the ineffective job-killing carbon tax.

Instead of leading a global strategy to reduce emissions based on research and development, technological innovation, and finding economically viable climate solutions, the Liberal government has reduced Canada's ability to compete and receive a market share with countries with zero track record when it comes to fighting global emissions.

Canada needs to strive toward energy independence, create a business environment that mobilizes green innovation in the private sector and export those green innovations around the world. Shutting down energy production in Canada would do nothing to impact the behaviour of countries whose entire economies relies on oil production. If anything, it would drive up global oil prices due to decreased supply and create even more incentive for oil production abroad.

Until we have long-term renewable energy solutions that are economically viable, natural resources such as oil and natural gas will continue to be a part of our way of life. It is not a matter of choice, but a matter of necessity. None of this is to say that it is acceptable to sit back and do nothing about this issue.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle often scapegoat Conservatives as people who are indifferent about the environment or claim that we do not care about our children's future. Nothing could be further from the truth. We care, and we also want to work hard to bring our climate crisis under control.

We need to find solutions to these problems to guarantee the future of my three children, James, Sinclair and Nixon, alongside that of every child in Canada. We want them to grow up on a healthy planet.

We need to reduce global emissions to avoid reaching the point of no return. I also know that Canada cannot sabotage our own industries as the rest of the world sits back. We cannot be the only country making drastic changes to our energy production capacity, and we cannot assume that we are setting an example for others. Currently, I cannot think of a single country that is looking to emulate Canada's emission reduction strategy and hamper its own ability to grow its economy.

If Canada wants to be a world leader in the fight against climate change, what we do to change our share of global emissions is not enough. We must invest in economically viable green energy solutions that we can export to the rest of the world. Canada has been behind countless green energy innovations. We have been an examples to the world.

One source of Canada's climate innovation is the careful management of our vast boreal forest spread across the country. Canada's network of forests is massive at over 347 million hectors, or 9% of the world's total forest area. Canadians continue to plant hundreds of millions of trees every year without the help of the federal government.

Canada's forest industry alone plants an additional 600 million trees every year, making its commercial activities sustainable for generations to come. Canadian energy companies are doing their part as well. Syncrude has planted 11 million trees, Suncor has planted 8.9 million trees, and the faster forests initiative has planted over five million trees, just to name a few.

Using forests as a natural climate solution is about keeping thriving forest ecosystems alive. Around 70% of carbon in the forest is stored within soil and debris on the forest floor. I know the government has set a target to plant two billion trees, but they have planted zero. Even on Father's Day, my wife asked me to plant five trees in our backyard, so I am doing more than our federal government.

Alongside capturing and storing carbon emissions, our forests are also home to another solution: biofuels. Canada exported 498.3 million dollars' worth of wood pellets in 2019, a solid renewable biofuel that grows back and recaptures the carbon that it emits when the biomass is burned.

I also want to talk about carbon capture and storage solutions. As a Saskatchewan MP, I am proud of the innovations we have made and are leading on this technological front. As an innovator and pioneer, Saskatchewan is proud of our carbon capture. Experts agree that carbon capture and storage is a solution that simply works.

Dr. Julio Friedmann, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, says that when industrial facilities implement variations of this solution, they see emission reductions of between 55% to 90%. About 300 million tonnes of CO2 is captured from large-scale carbon capture, utilization and storage facilities every year. The technology is effective and could lead to real world emission reductions in the short term if we embrace it. The downside is that currently 70% of this is done in North America when it should be done throughout the world.

These are just a few examples of solutions that can drive economic activity, create jobs and act as long-term investments in emissions reductions. None of them involve new taxes, energy austerity or hurt our economy. In fact, all of the solutions I have raised would create new jobs and increase economic activity, instead of dampening it.

I believe in green innovation and I believe in clean technology, but I also know that shutting down Canadian oil and gas production would do nothing to change the course of history. The only way that Canada can have a meaningful impact on this issue is the same way we changed health care forever, through the development of revolutionary technologies like insulin and pacemakers. Both of these inventions saved millions of lives around the world and would have never been possible without Canadian ingenuity and perseverance.

We can meet these ambitious targets. I have unlimited faith in the sheer intelligence and capability of Canadians, but I also know that if we are not focused on solutions, we cannot be embraced by the rest of the world. It will be too little, too late, and our contributions will be in vain. We need the rest of the world to join us in our commitment to reducing emissions.

Net-zero emissions does not mean net-zero growth in the oil and gas industry, the agricultural industry and the manufacturing industry. We need to continue to rely on those very important sectors in our community.

For every step taken, we must take into account Canada's existing obligations to provide secure energy to all of our global customers.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Madam Speaker, through you to the parliamentary secretary, forgive me for consulting with my constituents on certain questions that are before the House.

Obviously my personal view is that we can certainly get to net zero, but it is working with the opposition. It is not going through with a photo op of walking across a field pretending this is something that is visionary. There is no plan here.

We are hearing over and over again in Alberta that this, on top of everything else that has already been put on us, is just so debilitating to jobs and the economy. We have already suffered through Bill C-69 and BillC-48, the clean fuel standards and now this: a plan to have a plan. Again, I want to make sure we get this right. I am more than prepared to work with the government to do that, but we need to do it and we need to it soon.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join members from beautiful Edmonton Riverbend, albeit it is a little snowy here today.

I am pleased to participate in the debate to speak to Bill C-12. I want to start specifically by addressing how bills like this impact my home province of Alberta.

Most Canadians are aware of how tough the times have been here in Alberta over the past several years. Thousands upon thousands of jobs have been lost in the energy sector and my city of Edmonton has an unemployment rate of over 12%. Calgary is about the same. These two cities already had some of the highest unemployment rates in the country before the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has made the situation even worse. Unfortunately, many businesses will not reopen and many Albertans will have no jobs to return to after the pandemic is over.

Why have times been so tough for Alberta? Federal government legislation that appeared designed to decimate the energy industry and rapidly deplete the oil and gas industry has been introduced. Bill C-69 overhauled federal environmental assessment processes for construction projects, effectively deterring investment in Alberta. Bill C-48 bars oil tankers from loading at ports in northern B.C., making it impossible to export Alberta oil to new markets. On top of all that, we suffered through a regulatory attack like no other from the Notley NDP government, which really set us back decades. Just as all this was occurring, the government announced a new clean fuel standard, which is yet another blow to Alberta.

Honestly, it will be impossible for Alberta to fully recover, with yet more regulation that makes our province unattractive to investors. Our leading-edge energy industry will not be competitive against other countries if we have so many regulations tacked on by the federal government.

To help counteract this attack, the Alberta government just launched a natural gas strategy that would see the province become a leader in hydrogen production and liquefied natural gas for export. Natural gas will be regulated under the clean fuel standard. No other jurisdiction in the world is applying this type of standard to liquefied natural gas. However, the clean fuel standard will once again exacerbate the economic depression, as reported by Canadians for Affordable Energy, which estimates this standard will cause 30,000 job losses nationally and at least $20 billion of capital will leave Canada. Alberta will disproportionately experience this loss, but all Canada will be impacted.

I agree with my colleagues across the aisle that it is well intentioned to strive toward net-zero emissions. However, we do differ on how to get there. Harnessing the energy sector and its talent is, in my opinion, key to meeting that target. We must include energy industry stakeholders when developing any environmental plans. From what we have been hearing initially on Bill C-12, the government has failed to do just that.

At the end of the day, climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. For decades more, the world will continue to use oil and gas. The question then becomes as to whether energy will come from democratic countries like Canada with strong environmental protections or from dictatorships with no environmental protections or respect for human rights.

Domestic energy production, including oil and gas, is an important part of making our country more self-reliant and more resilient in the future. In today's world, we cannot afford to become reliant on energy from any other countries and, quite honestly, we have no need to. Getting to net-zero emissions in the energy industry requires a plan, not just a plan to have a plan. What we see here is a mission to develop a plan in the future and the government's plan is already being poked full of holes. The focus could have been on harnessing energy and the use of technologies from sources such as nuclear and wind carbon capture, with the government providing incentives similar to those that were used to stimulate the early development of the oil sands. Many governments have a long record of practical and successful environmental initiatives.

Under our previous Conservative government, Canada successfully tackled acid rain, expanded national parks and removed dangerous chemicals from the biosphere. We must persevere on our shared environment for future generations without sacrificing the jobs Canadians need today or damaging the economic engine that helps fund our vital social programs.

Our recent report from the Canada Energy Regulator found that, even with policies in place to curb emissions, oil and gas will still make up two-thirds of energy sources in 2050. This report also found that there will be increased demand for natural gas, which I mentioned before as a fuel that will become more heavily regulated under the clean fuel standard. This is again a deterrent for investors in foreign markets. We have an opportunity to help with emissions globally, by being part of the switch from coal-fired plants in Asia and other parts of the world to natural gas, a much cleaner form of energy.

Exporting our natural gas, technology and talent to other parts of the world will go a long way in the fight against climate change. Removing coal-fired plants makes a huge dent in emissions globally. We all agree everyone has a role to play in tackling climate change and Canada is no exception, but aggressively regulating our energy industry when there is still known demand for its products is short-sighted.

We can do more good globally by using our technologies in oil and gas to help tackle climate change both abroad and in Canada than by abruptly shutting it down. Natural gas is a huge opportunity for Canada to be a world player in other markets. More excessive regulation by the federal government not only hinders this opportunity but threatens the livelihoods of many Canadian families.

The bill before us would set targets to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. This is a laudable goal and I want to be clear it is one I fully support, but it is once again a big shiny object over here being used to distract Canadians when the government cannot be clear on what the vision of its plan is to get there.

Is this a bill to strike a 12-person committee? If it is, then be honest and tell us that. Do not promise this is a visionary piece of legislation that requires three ministers to walk across an open field that some communications person somewhere decided would make good optics to distract the Canadian public.

We see the government continue to make new environmental commitments, while still failing to meet its previous climate promises. The government's own projections show it is not even close to meeting its current commitments, yet it is setting new targets that are higher and even further into the future. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Canada is on track to significantly miss its 2030 emissions commitments. What about the two billion trees promised in the last election? I have not seen a single tree planted by these guys. Actually, there is not even a plan to plant a tree, let alone a budget to do it.

I, for one, would really like to work with my colleagues across the aisle to produce a comprehensive plan to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and to meet net-zero emissions by 2050. I have kids and I desperately want their future to include a safe and healthy environment. It is hard to support the government when it delivers an optical illusion of a plan that continues to include more regulations and taxes that hurt our economy by deterring investment in Canada. Life has become more expensive for Canadians as a result. Eventually Canadians are going to ask, “At what cost?”

I truly believe here in Canada we can develop a plan that harnesses the technology and brainpower of our energy industry to help other countries transition to energy sources that are much less harmful to the environment. We can make Canada and Canadian energy independent instead of importing oil from countries with brutal regimes and human rights abuses. We can remove regulations and red tape, and at the same time make Canada more attractive for international investment.

I am here and fully on board with achieving a net-zero goal. We can do this by creating a comprehensive plan and policies. We simply need the government to work with us in opposition as opposed to continually pretending to the world it cares without any necessary targets required. I plead to the government to please consider working with us, especially at the environment committee, to strengthen the bill so we get it right for all Canadians.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the ministers who are present today. I'll be sending my questions in the direction of Minister Joly.

First I want to thank Mr. Duguid and Minister Joly for giving me a glimpse into the psyche of Liberals when talking about western Canada. It's a rare opportunity when I can see two Liberal members have that discussion.

Minister Joly, you were very happy about saving 23,000 jobs in western Canada—except, prior to COVID-19, Alberta and western Canada lost almost 200,000 jobs, so it's really like cheering in a hockey game after scoring your first goal, but you're still down 10 to one.

That's something you guys should keep in mind. Before COVID-19, there was a double whammy in western Canada. It was called Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, the no-more-pipelines bill and the anti-tanker bill. As well, the carbon tax has continued to cripple our economy. You increase the carbon tax every April 1, which is a terrible April Fool's joke on western Canadians.

I'm going to focus some of my question towards the regional economic growth through innovation program. In the estimates now, the spending was supposed to be $631,000,726. It combines southern Ontario, Quebec, western diversification and northern Ontario economic diversification. I'm wondering if there's a complete list of programs that this has funded and if you could table that with the committee.

Keystone XL Project

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on an imperative matter for discussion requiring urgent consideration by the House, pursuant to Standing Order 52.

A new administration has just been elected in the United States, and it indicated during its campaign that it intends to cancel the Keystone XL project. Of course, the Liberal government has made it clear that it will give no more than a half-hearted, supposed attempt at advocacy for such an important project for this country.

This is a vital project that would bring billions of dollars to the Canadian economy every year, and it requires urgent and sustained advocacy immediately from the government. That is why Parliament must give this matter emergency consideration.

“We are all in this together” is a phrase we have heard often as of late, but it appears to only be empty rhetoric for the Liberal government when it comes to standing up for Alberta, for our natural resource sector and for the Keystone XL project.

Within days of the Liberals being elected in 2015, the American administration rejected the Keystone XL proposal and the Prime Minister infamously refused to stand up for this important project, instead saying, “The Canada-U.S. relationship is much bigger than any one project and I look forward to a fresh start”. In other words, he was just brushing it off and brushing it aside. He refused to initiate a NAFTA challenge for the project. He refused to support any legal challenges in support of the project. In essence, he refused to show any actual tangible support for the project.

The Prime Minister has also been abundantly clear on his plan to landlock Canadian oil with Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and his comment that the oil sands need to be phased out.

Every day I hear from Westerners about how they are struggling to make ends meet, feed their children or pay their rent because they are out of work. I received a text from my brother recently, after I asked him if he had been able to find a job. He is one of many people in this situation. He said to me that he had phoned 18 different companies the other day, like he does basically every week, and that not one of them had a job right now. He said that last winter they all would have had at least one project on the go and some of them would have had two or three projects, but now none of them do. He said that out of all the guys he knew from the industry, and he has worked in the industry for decades now, only three of them were working right now. That is three out of the dozens and dozens of people he knows. He talked about how on his street alone basically none of his neighbours were working right now and four of them had homes up for sale.

That is very typical of what we see in my province of Alberta right now, and that is because the government has shown no attention, care or concern for the need for this project and for the need to put this industry, which supplies so much for this country, back to work. The responsibility clearly then lies directly at the feet of the Liberal government and its misguided policies that have absolutely kneecapped the Alberta economy.

I want to make it clear that this is also bigger than just Alberta or the west. This is a project for all of Canada. It is a way forward for economic recovery post-COVID-19. For every direct job created in the oil sands industry, there are two and a half indirect jobs created in the rest of Canada, so when Alberta succeeds Canada succeeds.

I am thankful for your consideration on this very important matter, and I sincerely hope you will grant this request. Thousands of jobs and thousands of families' livelihoods are at stake. Frankly, the very unity of this country could be at stake.

Environmental Restoration Incentive Act

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

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I join this debate on the second reading of Bill C-221. I am very honoured to support my friend and colleague, the member for Lakeland. As this is my first speech over Zoom through the virtual Parliament, it will take a little while to get used it, but I am looking forward to adding my voice to those who think this bill should be supported by all parties.

I will go through a couple of discussions on why this is a bill that should unify members of Parliament to come together to support this option of doing the right thing environmentally and making sure we have an idea of how we are going to clean up orphaned and abandoned wells.

I have listened intently to my colleague's speech, as well as those of the members from the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal party, on what should have been done and the now growing issue of abandoned wells. Obviously we can look to the past and say some things were not done right, but as the government is famous for saying, we need to take a team Canada approach. What we need to do now is look at options for getting these orphaned and abandoned wells cleaned up.

One thing that has come to light that shows why a bill like this should be pursued is the recent Redwater decision of the Supreme Court. None of my colleagues from the opposition parties have mentioned this, so I will mention it. As a result of the Redwater Supreme Court ruling in 2019, federal bankruptcy laws do not supersede provincial environment obligations. This results in many companies no longer being able to find the financing to drill wells to increase their cash flow because, in the case of bankruptcy, investors and creditors would only get paid after all well closures and reclamation costs were incurred.

What we have to do now is figure out how oil and gas companies are going to get access to liquidity in order to continue operating, so these wells can be cleaned up in the long run, as it comes to the environmental part of Bill C-221, an act to amend the Income Tax Act or the environmental restorative incentive act.

For a quick overview, Bill C-221 aims to provide support for the energy industry by implementing a 13% non-refundable tax credit for oil and gas well decommissioning costs. It also instructs government to evaluate the feasibility of flow-through shares.

The bill has received support from many key energy industry and government stakeholders that are focused on orphan well cleanup instead of new extraction projects. Opposition from environmental groups has been minimal. This bill is an attempt at a win-win for energy and the environment. It is being presented as a Conservative solution to an environmental crisis, as well as a way to help energy companies survive and create new jobs.

The member from the Bloc talked about unemployment rates. Right now unemployment rates in Saskatchewan and Alberta continue to climb because of new proposals and policies brought forward by the government. I listened to the member for Lakeland talk about two of the main issues behind the oil and gas sector not doing well. She forgot the third and fourth issues, but she said the two issues were oversupply and pricing during COVID-19.

However, a third and, I would say, more prominent issue that explains why the energy sector is not doing well is the government putting in place policies that have been damaging. We can talk about Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, as well as the continued overburdening with regulations, which energy sectors have continued to meet.

My Bloc colleague brought up the fact that the government bought a $7-billion pipeline. I would respond to the member by saying the government would not have had to buy a $7-billion pipeline if the regulations had been in place and it had not kept moving the goalposts.

A private company would have built that pipeline at zero cost to taxpayers across our country. If those regulations had not been changed, we would have had a private proponent building the pipeline and allowing our energy sector more options on how to transport goods to market.

Another thing about the environmental restoration incentive act is that it is for small and medium-sized producers. As we have talked about already, through no fault of their own, some of the policies that have been put in place have really hamstrung their ability to make ends meet and continue to work and employ people across our country.

The reality is that oil and gas wells that companies intend to decommission are now being suspended, so I think all members in the House can come together and say that we need to ensure we are able to clean up oil and gas wells. I do not think that is a debate among members of Parliament. I know they have been talked about many times.

I think our NDP, Bloc and Green party colleagues should take long look at this bill to make sure that the environmental measures are going to be met and that we will have the ability to clean up these wells once they are decommissioned and abandoned.

I will read a couple of quotes from either late shows or things that have been said in the House of Commons. The NDP member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay rose in the House on February 21, 2019, and stated:

There are over 122,000 inactive wells across western Canada, and most of those wells have absolutely no prospect of ever operating again. That is almost a quarter of the wells out there. Most will require cleanup and reclamation in the near future. Many are on private land, on farms, where they impact the work and lives of farmers who are no longer receiving rental payments for those wells.

That is absolutely true. I agree with his statement. So far there have not been many proposals from the NDP on how we are going to make sure these wells get reclaimed, and I would ask the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay to take a look at this bill once again, because it does bring forward a reasonable approach to ensuring some of these wells get cleaned up and the land goes back to its original state of being.

The former member for Edmonton—Strathcona rose in the House on February 20, 2019, and said, “[the] government did commit $30 million in budget 2017, when the cost, according to some people, is $260 billion, in support of Alberta's efforts to advance the reclamation of orphan wells.” The former member Linda Duncan is in favour of work to reclaim these wells, and I would like to have an idea of where she would be on this. I think she would be in support of this private member's bill.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on June 17, 2019, during the climate emergency debate, stated:

We must, in that process, include a transition for the skills of workers.

One great example that I will give are the orphan oil wells. There are thousands of them throughout Alberta and northern B.C., which have tremendous potential for geothermal energy production.

Therefore, there are ways to work together on this. Many MPs from across political stripes know that we need to have a policy in place to ensure these orphan wells are cleaned up, and I am looking forward to working with them on Bill C-221, so we do have the ability to ensure that the Government of Canada is coming together for the environmental purpose of making sure these orphan wells are cleaned up.

The other side of this is that it also has the ability to create jobs and employment in the hard hit sectors across Alberta right now. I want to say that this bill would allow friends and families across western Canada to go back to work and help provide for their families once again. I need to know that the federal government is going to be there and is in support of the energy sector.

The Liberal MP who was on her feet today spoke about the support her government has shown to energy and oil workers in the energy sector, and I would like to see that support continue. It has been a minuscule amount of support at this point in time, but with this bill we could put in place the opportunity for companies across Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and B.C. to continue to stay afloat. We are looking for the ability of these companies to have options to keep their people employed and keep people working across our sector.

On one final note, I realize that a couple of my colleagues have said that the energy companies need to step up and they need to be responsible. I do want our colleagues to stop looking backward. That was in the past. We need to have these companies stay in business and work together to allow them to clean up the orphan and abandoned wells.

I am proud to support the hard work of the member for Lakeland. She is a tireless advocate for her constituents and I am happy to be able to be seconding this bill, Bill C-221.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise today to second the motion by my colleague for Edmonton Centre. His private member's bill, Bill C-229, would repeal the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which has held back the country's economic development, the country's environmental development and the country's social development since it was passed over four years ago. This bill came about after Bill C-48, which was one of the last pieces of legislation the government enforced in its last mandate in the 42nd Parliament.

Undoing the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act is obviously very important. It is very important for the country for so many reasons, but it is very important to recognize the value it adds, if we were to repeal this, for our entire country. We cannot talk about the repeal of this act without talking about infrastructure in Canada. We are talking about ports and we are talking about pipelines. As much as we can talk about ports because this is a repeal of a shipping ban on oil products above a certain quantity, we really have to speak about pipelines because this emanated from the pipelines.

To get our resource to market, because our oil resource industry in Canada is inland, it has to traverse a long distance in order to get to the ports that will take it to market. Those pipelines are inextricably linked with the industry that supplies their product. That product, of course, continues to expand in Canada and legitimately continues to expand in Canada because it is a very well-known, environmentally friendly resource that the world needs at this point in time and is going to need for decades to come. For us to turn our backs on that reality at this point in time is short-sightedness on our part.

We are competing in a world where oil is produced in much less environmentally friendly jurisdictions around the world. We need to make sure for the environment's sake that we get the better product to market, which has much less of a footprint around the world.

The thing about the oil and gas industry is that it looks to getting its resource to market efficiently and economically. That requires a constructive regulatory environment to build infrastructure like pipelines. Getting a pipeline to the coast to get that product off the coast and to its customer is essential. Long-term planning and economics are involved in all of this. Every one of the companies that builds these or plans these puts those perspectives together at the outset so that it actually knows what the transparency of the outcome is going to be. That is something that has been lost in Canada, as far as getting projects built goes, and we need to address that.

Let me talk about a concept called “monopsony”. I am sure the members on the opposite side know that a monopoly happens when there is one supplier. A monopsony is when there is one customer for a product. That is what we have in Canada with our oil industry at this point in time. All of our exported oil from Canada goes to one international customer and that customer, of course, is the United States.

Getting oil offshore is essential to break that monopsony and, therefore, get a better price for our oil and gas resources. That is not happening right now. When we quantify what that means for the Canadian economy, it equates to about $16 billion per year on what we are currently producing in oil alone. Sixteen billion dollars is disappearing from the pockets of Canadians to somewhere else. That is because we get such a discount, what is called a “differential”, on our price in the American market. Sixteen billion dollars a year, for the last five years of the current government's mandate, would equate to about $80 billion to the Canadian economy. That is $80 billion. I know it seems small in relation to the amount of money that is going out the door right now, but $80 billion is real money.

The shame of this is that we export much of this product to our monopsonistic partner, the United States. It goes to refineries and some of it comes back to Canadians where we pay the world price for it, so we are not only losing money on the export but we are actually paying money on the import, which is a shame across this country.

Let us talk about the oil and gas industry here. It is a high-cost industry in Canada. It is high cost for a reason. Part of that reason is the regulatory and environmental demands we put on the industry to make sure it produces a product that is accountable to Canadians but also meets an environmental standard that is world class. It is the most environmentally friendly oil produced in the world.

I want my colleagues in the House to become more educated on the full-cycle environmental costs of the production of Canadian oil. It beats the world. We have many things to consider in this regard. Cost is one, but environmental performance is very important.

Canada produces about five million barrels of oil per day. Of course, this is before COVID. We have all cut back. The pre-COVID demand was about 100 million barrels per day. We have the third-largest reserves in the world, but we are down as far as production goes because of other constraining factors. We have a great resource and a great value to add to the world in this respect.

I would like to add something else economically that I am sure people in the House understand, which is the balance of payments. Canada right now has about an $18-billion balance of payments on its goods deficit in 2019. When we go back to how much we are not getting world price for our oil product, that is $16 billion. Our goods deficit would be whittled down substantially. There is no product we produce in Canada that contributes more to our balance of payments than oil does at this point in time.

We need to think about that because it means something. That means jobs and benefits for Canadians as they pay their taxes, get their pensions and contribute to social services across the country. Taxes, services, governments and individuals, we all prosper if we have a more economically beneficial industry.

Where is this $16 billion per year going? Who is making that money? It does not just disappear. Someone else is taking that world price; we are not. Somebody is making money and there is an interest here that has not been identified openly, which is an economic interest in the United States. They are also collecting taxes on a value-added product that we do not receive the benefit for here in Canada.

Into this mix on pipelines entered Enbridge in the mid-2000s, thinking it could solve so much of this with a new project called northern gateway and get our oil to market. That was a $7.9-billion project on paper.

It went through almost a decade of regulatory hearings. A total of $100 million was spent on the regulatory process in Canada in order to get our oil to market. This would have solved so many things, including breaking the monopsony, creating jobs, increasing production from an environmentally friendly resource across Canada and contributing, in a beneficial way, to the world environment.

In addition, indigenous participation was written into the agreement. They actually had equity participation in the pipeline, which was the first of its kind. This is something that is being replicated now, but this project was the first one that had indigenous equity participation.

In June 2014, that pipeline was approved with 209 conditions. Those 209 conditions included a spill response mechanism for the north shore of British Columbia. That spill response mechanism was essential to get around the moratorium on oil shipping that had been in place since 1972. I know my colleagues in other parts of the House would say that was necessary to ensure we did not have any oil spills off the north coast, such as they had, one time, in Alaska.

The 209 conditions, including the spill response, would have effectively solved that. There is risk here. There is risk in the U.S. continuing to export oil in the areas where Canada excludes the export of oil. This environmental benefit does not exist if it only constrains Canadian oil. It does not constrain any other oil that is in the area. This is not acceptable to Canadians.

The pipeline was overturned by the Liberal government. The Prime Minister, when he came in, made no bones about it. He was going to play to special interests without the balance of considerations about who was going to actually benefit from the cancellation and carry those costs. There are no costs without benefits, and there are no benefits without costs. That assessment was not made properly. I suggest that this ban on foreign shipping was wrong-headed and that this motion to undo it is completely acceptable. I support it, 100%.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Conservative bill, Bill C-229 before us, which seeks to repeal the oil tanker moratorium on the north coast of British Columbia, an internationally renowned area also known as the Great Bear Rainforest.

I have learned in my short time here that one of the greatest honours of this position is not the opportunity to share our own ideas, but rather to carry the voices of others, the voices of the people and the places we represent. Today I rise on behalf of the people of northwest B.C. to speak in opposition to a bill that would tear up an oil tanker moratorium 50 years in the making, place coastal livelihoods at risk, trample on indigenous rights and threaten the integrity of one of our country’s greatest natural treasures.

When I heard about this bill, my thoughts first turned to the Heiltsuk people. In the early hours of October 13, 2016, the Heiltsuk awoke to news that the American-owned tug and articulated barge, the Nathan E. Stewart, had run aground on the rocks at the entrance to Seaforth Channel just west of Bella Bella. On board the boat was 190,000 litres of diesel fuel. At 9:30 a.m. the boat sank and, despite the valiant efforts of the Canadian Coast Guard and the Heiltsuk people, 110,000 litres of diesel spilled into the marine environment. The epicentre of that spill was a mere 50 metres from the spot where the Heiltsuk’s creation stories have the first ancestors of one of their tribes descending from the skies. Four years later, the clam-beds, so vital to Heiltsuk culture and sustenance, have still not recovered, so today my thoughts go first to the Heiltsuk, Wuikinuxv, Kitasoo, Nuxalk, Gitga’at, Metlakatla, Haida and other nations of our coast whose lives are so closely linked to the marine ecosystems that crude oil tankers would threaten.

I am also reminded of the hundreds of northwest B.C. residents who came before the joint review panel hearings into the northern gateway project. From all walks of life, they came forward to share their opposition to crude oil on our coast and provide a positive vision of a more sustainable future. Taken together, the transcripts of those hearings read as a love letter, a witness statement and a thesis defence all wrapped into one from a people unfailingly committed to the place where they live.

I am reminded as well of the local governments that amplified their residents’ opposition by passing formal resolutions in opposition to oil on our coast, the Village of Queen Charlotte, the City of Terrace, the City of Prince Rupert, the Town of Smithers, the Village of Hazelton, the Village of Fort St. James and others.

My thoughts turn to the good people of Kitimat. If there is any community in Canada that has a level of comfort with big industry, it is Kitimat. This town was built around an aluminum smelter and today is home to Canada's largest industrial project. The people of Kitimat are also the people of the Douglas Channel. Their former mayor, Joanne Monaghan, went as far as holding a plebiscite on the issue of oil tanker traffic. When the votes were counted, the people of Kitimat voiced their clear opposition. Northwest B.C. is a place of both rugged independence and tight-knit communities. It is a place that understands resource development, but also understands the importance of taking care of the lands and water. Amidst all the debates over the past 40 or 50 years on pulp mills, moose harvests, salmon allocations, annual cuts, protected areas and open-pit mines, there has emerged a strong regional view that bringing crude oil tanker traffic to our coast presents a risk that is simply not worth taking. Why is that? Because the people of the west coast know that when oil spills, it kills. We know that even a successful oil spill response recovers only a fraction of the oil that gets spilled. We know that current clean-up tools are all but useless in even the slightest inclement weather, much less in the harsh winter storms that batter the north coast of B.C.

Of course, on paper the oil industry continues to promise all manner of technology to respond to every situation and contingency, but as the Heiltsuk know all too well, there is very little that can be done when the guy steering the boat falls asleep and runs it into the rocks.

As a society, we have ingenuity in spades but what we lack sometimes is the wisdom to know when the consequences simply are not worth running the risk.

For so many people the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act represents a victory of wisdom over ingenuity, of place over profits and of culture over catastrophe. Bill C-48 was the culmination of over 50 years of grassroots effort. The people who fought so hard for it all those years are certainly not going to lie down and let this private member’s bill take that all away.

I listened very carefully to my colleague's speech. I understand that there are many workers in Alberta who are facing tough times right now, as are Canadians across the country, as we ride out this pandemic together. Nonetheless, I am surprised the Conservative member decided that this issue was the one that should be made a priority at this challenging time, not ensuring indigenous communities have access to clean drinking water, not fixing the deplorable conditions in our long-term care homes and not improving supports for seniors and people with disabilities.

Indeed, it is striking that this bill comprises only a single clause, which repeals the oil tanker moratorium wholly and replaces it with, wait for it, absolutely nothing. It offers no alternative measures to protect the north coast. It does nothing to consider the views of the indigenous people and the communities in the area that is most affected. It is no more than a blunt, ideological Conservative rebuke that would tear up almost five decades of consensus building in the region I represent.

However, there may just be a silver lining in all of this. We get a hint of it in the weathered billboards when we drive along Highway 16 or in the signs that are still in the windows of houses from Old Massett to Bella Bella. I think it was Haida leader Guujaaw who once observed the paradox that our communities are never happier and more united than when we are standing shoulder to shoulder, facing a common threat. Stephen Harper and Joe Oliver discovered this phenomenon, too, that threatening the people of the northwest only serves to bring us closer together.

As an example, 1,000 people gathered in a gymnasium in Kitamaat Village at the invitation of the Gitga’at and Haisla to witness the indigenous nations of B.C.’s north and central coast putting in place their own tanker ban under their indigenous laws, with the cutting and distribution of a copper shield. I wish the hon. member had been there to witness it. It was a truly spectacular sight.

Suffice to say, while there are many other pressing issues facing us right now, I have no doubt that if need be, the people of northwest B.C. will rise up once again and protect our coast. Let us hope we do not have to. I am looking across the aisle and very much hope that the Liberal members still hold the same resolve they did just a couple of years ago and will join us in voting down this wrong-headed bill.

This issue of oil tankers on B.C.’s coast has a long history, and not just in our region but in this place too.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the member for Skeena was a man named Frank Howard. Like my father and brother, Frank was a logger. He was a union man and a champion of the working people of the northwest. On May 15, 1972, Mr. Howard rose in this House and he moved:

That this House herewith declares that the movement of oil by tanker along the coast of British Columbia from Valdez in Alaska to Cherry Point in Washington is inimical to Canadian interests especially those of an environmental nature....

Frank’s motion was carried unanimously, and led eventually to a voluntary exclusion zone that kept oil tanker traffic off our coast for decades. Fast-forward to just a few years ago, when my predecessor, Nathan Cullen stood in this House and fought tooth and nail to make that voluntary moratorium into a proper law. As members know, that came be with Bill C-48, which this Minister of Transport brought forward. It was passed into law in June of last year.

Today, I am so honoured to stand on the shoulders of these former members for Skeena, generations of northwest British Columbians and indigenous leaders from across our region, and voice strong opposition to the bill before us, which would do away with so much that we have worked for.

For the people of the northwest, this issue has been settled for decades. I’m looking to my colleagues in the House to recognize that fact once again and vote against the bill. It will not come to pass.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech and his argument for scrapping Bill C-48: the moratorium on crude oil tankers in the region that I call home.

He mentioned indigenous Canadians at one point. I would hope that the member is aware that the indigenous nations of B.C.'s north and central coasts, under the banner of Coastal First Nations, have asserted their own ban on oil tanker traffic on their coast under their traditional laws.

I am wondering if the member, in crafting his private member's bill, reached out to any of the indigenous leaders from those nations that are signatory to that ban, such as the Haida, Heiltsuk, or the Xaixais. Were there any?

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

moved that Bill C-229, An Act to repeal certain restrictions on shipping, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to speak to my private member's bill, Bill C-229, which I think frames a very, very important issue for our country.

On June 21, 2019, the Liberals celebrated victory in the passing of Bill C-48 in this chamber. The Oil Tanker Moratorium Act was celebrated in Ottawa while thousands of Canadians in western Canada, in those two million square kilometres to the left of Ontario on the map, were grieving over yet another blow to their way of life. It was another blow to the economy of my home province of Alberta and ultimately to the entire Canadian economy.

This was an election commitment by the Prime Minister in 2015, and it was in ministers' letters less than a month after the election. There was no time for due diligence, which would set the precedent for a lack of due diligence for years to come.

Bill C-48 prohibits oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of crude or persistent oils as cargo from stopping, loading or unloading at ports and marine installations in northern B.C. The bill was never about marine traffic, nor about transportation safety or the ecological life of northern B.C. It was the first step in the Prime Minister's singularly focused goal of phasing out the country's strong oil and gas sector.

Since 2015, Canada's energy industry has been repeatedly attacked by the Liberal government. There has been a mass exodus of billions of dollars of energy projects because of the government's anti-energy policies, such as Bill C-48, the shipping ban, and Bill C-69, the pipeline ban. By 2019, 100,000 jobs in this sector had already been lost because of Liberal policies. Capital investment in Canada's oil and natural gas sector has dropped by over half since 2014. I cannot imagine what these statistics would mean in other industries and what the reaction of the government would be.

It was looking like every attempt to get oil out of Alberta was being choked, whether it was by pipeline, by ship or by rail. It was looking like the only way we could get oil out of Alberta was to buy a barrel of oil a ticket on an airplane. That is why in February of this year I introduced my private member's bill, Bill C-229, an act to repeal certain restrictions on shipping. Once COVID-19 hit, it was all hands on deck and the bill was put on the shelf, but I am just as excited as ever to reintroduce the bill and am more excited than ever help our oil and gas sector and our economy.

In retrospect, the dismal outlook of the economy in 2019 was the calm before the storm that nobody could have predicted. Here are some facts, and quite frankly, they are not pretty.

Today, our federal debt-to-GDP ratio is at 50% and climbing. We are on track to reach a federal debt in excess of $1.2 trillion by the end of the fiscal year. We have the highest unemployment rate in the G7, with pretty much the highest level of spending, and we lag in productivity and innovation when we compare ourselves with our peers. On top of this, we do not have a robust plan for the economic recovery, unlike in the fantasy world the Minister of Finance spoke about when she said that we took on debt so Canadians would not have to. Frankly, someone is going to have to pay it back.

What do we do? I painted a very grim picture of our economic future, but the good news is that to find a solution, we only need to look within. In 2019, mineral fuels, including oil, accounted for 22% of our country's total exports. They are the number one exported product. Granted, most of this goes to the U.S. In addition, we have the third-largest proven oil reserve in the world and are the third-largest exporter of oil.

In poet William Blake's Songs of Innocence, he writes:

How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?

With that, I ask this: How can a country with the ability to raise the economic well-being for all allow our resources to go to waste?

Our country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, an abundance that can make all of us prosperous beyond our wildest dreams. This pandemic has decimated our economy, and we owe it to our children and grandchildren, particularly my new grandchild, to take care of this financial mess. One of the ways we can do this is by exporting our natural resources to new markets.

All credible climate-science experts, clean-tech innovators and scholars in the field acknowledge that as we undergo a global shift to sustainable energy, the world will still require oil for decades to come. Renewables are nowhere near ready for sole use and right now are only a marginal energy source. In Canada, petroleum and natural gas account for 73.9% of energy use; followed by hydro and nuclear at 22.3%; coal at 0.5%; and other, wind and solar at 3.3%. The switch to clean energy, ironically, is not going to be a clean break. As we invest in and grow our still undeveloped renewable sector, we can think of oil and gas as the training wheels we need for propping up our sustainable goals.

The Canadian energy sector has already started to innovate and make some green moves. The intensity of greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil produced in the oil sands in 2018 was 36% less than in 2000. Natural gas emits 50% to 60% less carbon dioxide than coal, which countries like Russia, China and the United States still depend on. On average, coal-to-gas switching reduces emissions by 50% when producing electricity, and about 33% when providing heat. We can think about how much lower the CO2 levels would be if everyone switched from coal to natural gas.

Private sector innovation is what is going to lead us into the future and provide us with the technology we need to shift to global sustainability. Our strong Canadian energy companies see the global demand and are responding with hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable investments. Different energy projects are funded by oil and gas companies, and to kill this industry will kill investment. Believe me, government is not the solution to innovation.

Here are a few projects to talk about.

Enbridge is one of Canada's leading suppliers in renewables. It committed more than $7.8 billion in capital for renewable energy. It has 22 wind farms, six solar energy operations and a hydro facility.

Suncorp completed Canada's electric highway project in 2019, a coast-to-coast EV charging network positioned no more than 250 kilometres apart. It also created four wind power stations.

TC Energy supported the Ontario elimination goal of coal-fired power generation through its 48.5% ownership of the Bruce Power nuclear facility, which provides emission-free electricity to roughly one-third of Ontario.

Global oil demand has grown by about 11 million barrels between 2010 and 2019 to above 100 million barrels pre-COVID. The fact is the world needs oil, and Canada is the only country on earth that can deliver this product in the most energy-efficient and ethical method.

Let us talk a bit about that. On the world democracy index, Canada came seventh, tied with Denmark. Our competitors in this industry are Nigeria, at 109th; Russia, at 134th; Venezuela, at 140th; and Saudi Arabia, at 159th. Between 2009 and 2017, greenhouse gas emissions intensity in mined oil sands fell by more than 25%. That is innovation.

These are GHG emissions by country in 2016. China is at 25.8%, and its natural gas industry produces 0.911% of overall global GHG emissions. U.S.A. is at 12.8%. Iran is at 1.7%. Russia is at 5.3%. Canada is at just under 1.6%, and of that, Canada's oil and natural gas industry produces about 0.29% of overall GHG emissions.

In switching from coal to LNG, there is 50% to 60% less CO2 from combustion in a new efficient natural gas plant compared with emissions from a typical new coal plant. From 1990 to 2018, China increased its coal consumption from 0.99 billion tons to 4.64 billion tons. In 2008, coal made up 59% of China's energy use. Since 2011, China has consumed more coal than the rest of the world combined. These are staggering numbers.

Some are referring to this time, and the economic recovery to follow, as the great reset. The inconsistencies, inadequacies and contradictions of multiple systems, from health to finance to education, are more exposed than ever, and there is great concern for the future of lives and livelihoods. This pandemic has shaken our country. There is no doubt about that. As we head into recovery, I would urge the government and my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to think very carefully about what a fair and equitable recovery is going to look like.

Never has the integrity of our country's Confederation been more threatened. From west to east and north to south, our country is bruised. It is bleeding. Some may even say it is on the brink of broken. Political stability cannot be sustained in the absence of economic growth, nor can economic growth be sustained in a state of political instability. To this end, including indigenous Canadians in the economic recovery space will be crucial and, if done correctly, will forge stronger, more understanding relationships among all Canadians.

The energy sector is the largest employer of indigenous people in the country, with about 6% of the sector's workforce identified as indigenous. In 2015 and 2016, $48.6 million was invested by oil producers into indigenous communities. Coastal GasLink has awarded $620 million in contract work to indigenous businesses for logistical operations, there was significant support for the Northern Gateway pipeline, and the Eagle Spirit proposal is indigenous-led.

Global context aside, I urge all Canadians, with the government at the helm, to hail this great reset as a call to action. Going forward, I urge the government to administer neither special treatment nor punitive action on any province or territory in its approach to economic recovery.

The punitive and retaliatory measures taken by the government are eerily reminiscent of what many Albertans believe: that the national energy program was an unjustified intrusion of the federal government into an area of provincial jurisdiction, designed to strip the province of its natural wealth. Investors need to know that they have access to markets, and Alberta should have access just like every other province. We cannot move oil by pipe. We cannot ship it. We have been left with no options, and what used to be a few marginal murmurs has become full-blown western alienation.

We need to get our product to market. There is no way around that. Bill C-48 is an overt attack on Alberta's resource sector. Some have suggested that my bill, Bill C-229, is a waste of a private member's bill, but frankly, given the absolute sorry state of this country, it is anything but a waste. This bill would right a wrong and fix an incredibly discriminatory piece of legislation. This bill is essential for an industry that has helped fuel the economy for decades. This is essential for the thousands of workers who are proud of their work in this sector and the product their efforts produce. It is essential for manufacturing across the country. It is essential to the environment, as Canada has the opportunity to displace other world players that do not produce products to the same stringent environmental standards.

Canadian oil is in everything. It is not just what we put in our cars: the hydrocarbons we use to make the green upholstery in these chairs, the glasses members wear, the shoes on my feet, the capsules that vitamins are put into and the ink in my pen contain oil, and it can all be Canadian.

I am a proud Canadian and a proud Albertan who recognizes the important part the resource sector has played in our country's economic successes. I have lived through many of the ups and downs, and firmly believe we can gain market share, grow the economy and continue to reduce global emissions. Canada has led before and continues to do so. All the sector needs is to be given the opportunity to have access to markets so that we can compete and grow.

Natural Resources

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to put a question to the Minister of Natural Resources earlier this week in the wake of massive new layoffs in the energy sector both in Calgary and in Newfoundland and Labrador. My question was particularly about Calgary. The answer was wholly unsatisfactory. Perhaps the minister came a little closer to answering the question and acknowledging the role his government played in the exodus of employment from the oil and gas sector.

He spoke about oil and gas companies having to redeploy resources and capital, while adapting to all the challenges within the energy industry worldwide. That is exactly the point. That is exactly what energy companies are doing. They are making business decisions to locate outside of Canada precisely because of the five-year war on the energy industry that has been waged by the government. In my riding, thousands of people have lost their jobs over the years since the government was formed precisely because their employers are making decisions to move to other jurisdictions. They are doing so because of the regulatory uncertainty that has been created by the government through bills like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48.

We hear the rhetoric from the Prime Minister and on down through many members of his cabinet and his party's caucus. There are real repercussions of that in lost jobs and lost livelihoods. I talked to families throughout the 2019 election. They are giving up hope, families are split because members of the family have had to go to other countries to find work. Calgary is their home and they want to be there, yet they are having to go overseas to find work. The government has to acknowledge that its legislation, its rhetoric and the signals that it sends to the investment community have a direct impact on these lost jobs.

I called upon the minister to admit that the Liberals' policies had played a role in these job losses. There are 2,000 more employees gone from Suncor. This economy and my province cannot handle 2,000 more unemployed workers. The answer that was provided during question period was completely unsatisfactory. It will do nothing to give any sense of hope to the workers in my riding and across Canada.

Judges Act

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

Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to respond to what the parliamentary secretary said. I was here in the last Parliament, and what we saw from the government was an effort on its part to push through large government bills that were widely opposed across the country, such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. I know the member who just spoke knows this well, as the shadow minister working on natural resource issues.

The point is that the government was trying to rush those bad government bills through the Senate, and there was a backlog of private member's business. That affected many good private member's bills. It affected an organ harvesting bill I had done a great deal of work on.

The fact is that Senate rules involve prioritizing government legislation, and if the government had done a better job of listening to people and their concerns raised about Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, maybe the process would have been smoother on those bills and there would have been more time in the Senate to get to other things. The government is kicking Liberal senators out of their caucus so they have no capacity to engage the agenda in the Senate. That was a decision they made, and they are blaming other people for their inability to manage their own legislative agenda.

Natural Resources

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Suncor announced 2,000 more layoffs in the energy industry. This industry supplies the world with ethical energy and creates the wealth underpinning our social programs. The workers have had enough: enough of the rhetoric that has sent jobs and investors fleeing to other countries, enough of job-killing laws like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and enough of the project cancellations.

When will the government admit that it is responsible for destroying thousands of jobs, dividing the country and enriching foreign energy suppliers?

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Liberal government have framed the Speech from the Throne as a necessary and updated vision for the country. Before I address the speech directly, it is important for Canadians to remember that we are debating a new Speech from the Throne because the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament for six weeks to avoid accountability. All of the committees that are investing his WE scandal were shut down, and that was the point.

With a new session of Parliament, the Prime Minister is hoping that all 7,000 of his fluffy but empty words in the throne speech will distract Canadians from his corruption and the WE scandal. I believe that Canadians are a lot smarter than the Liberals give them credit for. This necessary reset, as the government prefers to frame it, was supposedly required to respond to new realities exposed by the pandemic. In actuality, Parliament was perfectly capable of responding to the pandemic prior to prorogation and the Liberals only wasted valuable time.

The Conservatives will continue to hold the Prime Minister and the government accountable, and we will keep fighting for the answers that Canadians deserve.

To respond to the details of the throne speech, I note the government has tried to sell the throne speech as a bold and ambitious vision for Canada. However, the speech has completely missed the mark and is only more proof of the government's reckless economic policy and poor grasp of Canada's economic strengths.

The government has signalled that it will be taking on more debt but has yet to provide a fiscal framework. We have no idea of how the Liberals plan to pay it all back. The government does not seem to understand that debt incurred by the government is debt incurred by everyday taxpaying Canadians. These are people like our grocery store clerks, our nurses, our teachers and so on. Without a fiscal framework, how can we be assured that our children and the future generations of Canadians are not going to be overwhelmed by the government's debt?

The throne speech claims that the government is “guided by values of sustainability and [fiscal] prudence”, but the absence of a fiscal framework thus far proves otherwise. We have a government spending recklessly without a fiscal plan as Canadians navigate the challenges of a global pandemic. The Liberals are racking up a credit card without telling Canadians how or when it will all be paid back.

At the same time, the throne speech reveals a flawed plan for economic recovery. Canada is at a major crossroads in its development. There are some very clear choices that confront us right now. These choices are even more important in light of the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 shutdown. The government has chosen to effectively shut down our economy by restricting resource development and exports, with economic policies like carbon taxes, Bill C-69, which restricts new pipelines from being built, and Bill C-48, which is preventing exports of crude off the west coast, and generally discouraging investment in Canada's resources.

Exports are the lifeblood of the Canadian economy. In 2018, 56% of Canada's exported goods were directly from our resource industries. The government seems to think that it can replace these core industries with pixie dust. Despite expressing a commitment to economic recovery, the government has continued to neglect and even hinder resource development in this country during a time when we need these resources the most.

It has been akin to a hockey team benching its all-star players while trying to come back from being down six goals. These industries drive our economy, provide the jobs that Canadians depend on and provide the government revenues that keep our health care and education systems alive. These industries have made Canada the great nation that it is today, yet there was zero mention of supporting struggling resource workers. There was just a continued promise to sacrifice their lives by killing their industries with more taxes and regulations, an added double carbon tax hiding as the Canadian fuel standard and more. Do members knows what the worst part is? It is that the government is taking the tax dollars paid by hard-working Alberta oil and gas workers and giving those dollars away to subsidized competitive industries that aim to end their existence. That sounds fair, does it not?

There was also a very large issue that the Prime Minister completely skipped in the Liberals' reset: western alienation. These Liberals stand up in the House day after day and completely deny that anyone in western Canada, in particular anyone in Alberta, feels alienated from Ottawa and the central government. I am here to say, as many of my colleagues have previously, that it is real and it is growing. The Liberals stand to say they are giving more money to Alberta than former prime minister Harper did. They accuse us of making up this crisis. We could not create this even if we tried. The alienation of Alberta is caused by the current government's antienergy, antiwest, anti-Alberta far-left policies that are causing this divide.

Albertans have never wanted a handout or to be bought. They just want the government to get out of the way. We want to be allowed to get back to work doing what we do best: extracting minerals and other resources from the ground, adding incredible value to them and selling them to the world. We have amazing resources and opportunities in this country, but the government wants to ignore them until they go away, because resource development does not fit into its ideological framework.

So many people have said this before me, but let me add my voice. Canada's oil and gas producers, miners, farmers and, in fact, everyone who participates in this economy care about the environment. Canada is leading the world when it comes to environmental sustainability. The investment in innovation and clean technology is incredible. I am fortunate enough to live among those who are leading this incredible innovation, which is taking place not just in the oil sands but in all of our extractive industries.

The Prime Minister likes to talk about balance, but he has achieved none of it. When hundreds of thousands are out of work and suicides are skyrocketing, that is an indication that the Liberals do not care about the economy side of this equation. We do not need to pit one region of this beautiful country against the others when we share common goals. A strong economy and environmental protection can go hand in hand, and we have already seen this happening in Canada. I wish that the government would stop listening to the far-left voices that are opposed to all resource development and seek that balance, even though these voices are also at the government's own cabinet table.

We are so blessed to live in a region flush with resources that Canada and the world require to maintain our high standard of living. Hundreds of thousands of people are employed in resource development. These same industries employ a significant number of first nations Canadians, as high as 6% of the oil and gas workforce. More and more first nations are taking ownership positions in large projects. All Canadians have a mutual desire to see these succeed.

Unfortunately, all we have heard from the government is its desire to ban single-use plastics. Where would we be during this pandemic without plastics? In literally every room in a hospital they are crucial. Masks are single-use, as are the gloves that so many people are wearing when they go out.

If the Liberals are truly interested in a team Canada approach in responding to the global pandemic, the government must provide a fiscal plan that ensures fiscal stability for future generations and an economic recovery that does not ignore our country's core strength of resource development. However, it seems the Prime Minister is only interested in racking up the credit card—

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I invite the member to come to my riding and tell that to the parents who are trying to put food in the tummies of their children. They are just trying to get ahead. That is all they are trying to do.

He could tell that to the farmers who have to supplement their egg income because of the crappy policies the government has put forward, such as Bill C-69, the carbon tax and Bill C-48, whatever it is. The government is making it more difficult to get their products to market and is taking more money out of their pockets. Farmers have to subsidize their egg income by working in oil and gas because they cannot put food on their tables with what they are receiving in egg income as it is.

Before there are suggestions about allowing investment to free this country, when all our energy investment is leaving and leaving people without work, I invite the member to come and make his comments to my constituents in Battlefords—Lloydminster.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a real honour to rise on behalf of the people of Barrie—Innisfil to speak in reply to the throne speech.

Before I begin, I would very much like to thank all first responders, not just in Barrie—Innisfil but right across those country, those who have been on the front line, health care workers. As a former firefighter in 2003, I recall the SARS crisis and the anxiety that was felt by myself and others who I worked with in the paramedic and police services in dealing with that crisis. That anxiety was heightened by the fact that we did not know if we would get the virus and take it home.

I really appreciate the first responders and front-line health care workers. They deserve our greatest respect.

I also want to thank the administration staff in the House. I know Gaétan is keeping all our desks clean so we do not take the virus back to our ridings.

Six weeks ago, the government prorogued Parliament. At the time, we were at the height of a scandal that was becoming more emboldened as new information became available. The Prime Minister said that the reason why he would prorogue Parliament was to come up with a bold and ambitious new course for the country. I would suggest that the ambition was on the part of the Prime Minister to save his political skin at that time.

Members will recall that the government was becoming more embroiled in the scandal. More information was becoming available. There were more indictments of individuals who were involved. Therefore, the Prime Minister and the government simply decided to prorogue Parliament so they could make it go away. It is not going away.

Let us look at the Prime Minister's bold and ambitious plan. If any of us looked back to the 2015 election platform of the Liberal Party, “Real Change”, we would see that much of what was promised back then was recycled or rehashed in this throne speech. Many of us will recall that at the beginning of the current government, in 2015, Liberals were big on “deliverology”, but we have seen very little in that regard, except for this rehashing and recycling of promises.

At the beginning of this crisis, all of us were working together in a team Canada approach. I said this the other night when I spoke to Bill C-4. Many MPs were on the front lines. We became the front line voice of the government, because in many cases Service Canada offices were closing. People were calling our offices because they were anxious. The level of anxiety was heightened as a result of the fear, the unknown and the uncertainty of what was going to happen next.

All of us worked together. Many programs that were announced initially became woefully inadequate, and were found to be that. The Canada emergency wage subsidy, for example, started off at 10%. If it was not for the opposition, all opposition parties, and I am sure the government heard about it as well from business, then that wage subsidy would not have been brought up to the level it was.

There were problems with the CERB. People were falling through the gaps. Maternity benefits is an example of where people were falling through the gaps on CERB. It was the same with the CEBA, the Canada emergency business account. A lot of businesses did not qualify for that benefit.

We all parliamentarians worked together to ensure that these programs were in place. Of course, they were meant to be temporary.

Now as we enter into a new wave of COVID-19, clearly we as parliamentarians and the government need to be there to help Canadians. However, we need to be there in recovery as well, not so much as an issue of dependence on the government but to create a recovery plan. What I fail to see in the throne speech is that recovery plan.

What does recovery look like?

We have to ensure the government gets out of the way of recovery and allow the power of the free market, allow the power of Canadian businesses, the people they employ and the products they produce to do that. It comes in every sector of our economy.

The other thing we did not see in the throne speech was any sense of investor confidence in those sectors of our economy that have been decimated as a result of government policy, legislation and regulation.

Clearly the natural resources sector has been impacted has been impacted as a result of the government. We hear many stories of Alberta being on its knees as a result of the legislation, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, regulation and taxation policies that have been imposed on the sector. We want to ensure we move from dependance to recovery, and there was very little in the throne speech that spoke to this.

With respect to recovery, the other area we really need to focus on is the issue of rapid testing. I find it curious that just yesterday the government approved a rapid test for which an application had been filed with Health Canada just 24 hours before. It is amazing how rapidly the government and Health Canada will move when there is a tremendous amount of anxiety on the part of Canadians who are standing in line for COVID-19 testing. The fact is that rapid testing has been around in other countries. Twelve countries around the world have approved rapid testing, many of them our allies. We have trade pacts and trade agreements with them. Many rapid tests have been put in front of Health Canada, so why the delay? Why the delay that further causes problems for Canadian families that have to wait in line for testing and then for the results?

Rapid testing is going to become critical for us in out recovery. I was glad to see the rapid test approved, but the government needs to do more to ensure that it is there.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that the longer the spending plan goes on it will become unsustainable: $343 billion in deficits, approaching $1.2 trillion in debt. That is on the expenditure side of the ledger. We will need to ensure that we create revenue to pay for these types of programs. We have to allow the power, as I said earlier, of the Canadian economy to do that through less legislation, less regulation, fewer policies, less taxation and create investor confidence that will provide us with the revenue we need to pay for those programs.

October 1 is a troubling day for many businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises. Rents are due today, yet the commercial emergency rent assistance program that business owners have relied on, though not many of them because it is a deeply flawed program, will cause those business owners problems.

The last thing I want to talk about are veterans. In its boldness and ambitiousness, the one thing that was neglected in the throne speech were veterans. Not one word of veteran was in the throne speech. Earlier this week, we heard from the Parliamentary Budget Officer about case loads approaching 50,000 that had to be adjudicated and they had yet to be processed. That means 50,000 veterans and their families are living with additional anxiety. I would hope the government would announce a plan to help fix that.

Two years ago the NDP suggested a plan to help alleviate some of those backlogs, and we supported it. The government needs to ensure that is fixed. As shadow minister for Veterans Affairs, I will do everything I can to hold the government to account to have those backlogs fixed.

Natural Resources

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, the government's throne speech rehashed old Liberal promises without even mentioning oil and gas workers or pipelines.

The natural resource sector lost 43,000 jobs in the last quarter alone. Western Canadians have been hard hit by the economic calamity that began under the government long before the pandemic, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. The Prime Minister is divisive, just like his father.

Why will the government not show it cares about national unity and a real economic recovery by supporting our oil and gas workers?

Government Business No. 10

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it has become clear that the Liberals are using the pandemic to shut down accountability and transparency, potentially to usher in big government dependency, while targeted support is not actually getting to Canadians who desperately need it.

In over five years, no province has borne the brunt of the Liberals' divisive, anti-business, anti-energy, anti-resource policies more than Alberta. The Liberals outright campaigned against Albertans and the oil and gas in 2019. Now the government is using COVID-19 to finish what it started, the destruction of Canadian oil and gas. What is crazy is that the finance minister and the natural resources minister keep acknowledging how bad it is for Canadian oil and gas now that the OPEC cartel has dropped prices, disproportionately harming Canadian energy. While demand has declined due to the pandemic, with no plan to go forward for Canadian energy, and the programs they have promised to help are complete failures, Albertans can be forgiven for concluding that the lack of support is by design or intentional.

Eighty-five days after the finance minister promised help in “hours or days”, the specific help for small and medium-sized oil and gas companies has never actually happened, but just got merged into a generic mid-sized loan program. However, a medium-sized company needs $100 million in annual revenue to qualify for the program. I guess the Liberals have a different definition of a medium-sized business than the rest of us do, or are completely oblivious to the damage in the sector so far. Even if a company does qualify, the interest rate is higher than that of the banks.

The large employer program has interest rates that rise to 15% by year five, which are payday loan rates, not emergency assistance. Furthermore, the small business loan amounts are too small for oil and gas suppliers, and when drillers face one or two years of zero revenue, short-term and fixed loans are really of no use.

The $1.7 billion for orphaned wells is a drop in the bucket meant to create 5,000 jobs for a sector that has lost more than 200,000 jobs since 2015 and 20,000 since the pandemic started, with no end in sight. Orphaned wells have increased by 300% since 2015, precisely because of Liberal policies that have bankrupted operators.

The Liberals put the big banks in charge of applying for most of the BDC and EDC COVID programs, but banks are refusing because of the risk-sharing provisions, or to avoid doing work with a program from which they will not profit.

The reality is that Liberal ministers have been told all of this directly, repeatedly, privately and publicly, so their lack of action seems intentional and malicious. These Liberals are either oblivious or do not care about the damage they are doing to the fabric of our country, giving billions of Canadian tax dollars to their elite cronies and entitled, connected buddies, or benefiting Liberal friends or families, while everyday Canadians are struggling.

On a personal note, let me say that it is incredibly sad that as their federal representative, often the first thing I hear my constituents say to me these days is that it is time for Alberta to leave Canada. It is not just that of a vocal minority, but a growing view in Lakeland, and I believe it is my duty to express the scale and scope of that frustration and anger. People are not just talking about the concept, but about the mechanics, which should be particularly troubling given the unprecedented health, fiscal and economic crisis Alberta faces now. I guess it does not make the news because we are from a rural area or the Prairies, which is easy to ignore in Ottawa, but these Liberals have destroyed the faith of many Albertans in the federal government to the extent they have given up on the idea of Canada. That should shake every person in this chamber and everyone listening. It did not happen overnight, but it accumulated after five years of targeted attacks on Lakeland and Alberta, on federal jobs in my riding, on the oil and gas sector, on rural communities, on farmers and farm families. Cutting so many Albertans out of COVID-19 emergency supports is only the latest example.

From day one, the Liberals have gone out of their way to destroy livelihoods in Lakeland and Alberta, ignoring hundreds of thousands of job losses, spikes in bankruptcies, suicides and family breakdowns. They are sacrificing families and the future of their children for ideology and partisan gain.

There is a serious agricultural emergency in Lakeland after an early snow trapped crops in the field last fall. This year's spring harvest was followed by excessive rains that flooded fields, prevented seeding or drowned crops, wiping out farm incomes for a third straight year. Liberal-caused uncertainty in export markets and the pandemic made things even more complicated for all producers. To make matters worse, the Liberals hiked their carbon tax by 50% on April 1, right in the middle of the pandemic, increasing costs for farmers who did manage to get their crops off the field and making literally everything more expensive in every sector of agriculture.

Of course, no industry has endured the single-minded sabotage and vilification of the Liberal government like oil and gas. The Prime Minister tells the world he wants to phase out Canada's most valuable export and largest private sector investor in the economy. The Liberals blocked, delayed and cancelled infrastructure for Canadian oil and gas, not for the benefit of the planet, because Canadian oil and gas is the most socially and environmentally responsible in the world, but in order to burnish the Prime Minister's celebrity status in the global jet-setting United Nations crowd. It makes no sense.

Developing all of Canada's resources and exporting Canadian natural gas will do far more to address global environmental challenges than anything the Liberals have imposed on Canada, and in particular on the prairies.

After the 2019 election, Liberal campaigners admitted they vilified the oil and gas sector. They put their electoral gain ahead of the country. Clearly, the Prime Minister has learned from his father's campaign tactics. As Pierre Trudeau's strategist said when justifying the pillaging of Alberta's earnings, “Screw the West, we'll take the rest.”

Liberal cabinet ministers and Liberal MPs actively campaign against opportunities for Albertans that would benefit all of Canada, such as the Teck Frontier project, and have supported funding pipeline protesters and petitioned against oil and gas projects that would benefit Alberta and all of Canada. It has created an inherent animosity that goes even beyond changing this Prime Minister and this government.

The Liberals and the establishment's ambivalence to the thousands of mom-and-pop oil and gas suppliers shutting down in western Canada in real time, the lack of long-term assistance measures, the domino effect for financial support for producers to get drilling started again have been heard loud and clear in Lakeland, make no mistake.

For the first time since 1965, Alberta will receive more money from the federal government in 2020 than it sends. For 55 continuous years, wealth generated by Alberta strengthened the rest of Canada. The NEP in the 1980s under Pierre Trudeau took the most, at over $30 billion a year, which has since declined, but since 2005, Alberta contributed more than $20 billion a year than it received, which is more than any other province. Structural changes are needed to make Canada work for Alberta and to level the playing field. It would be good for all of Canada to value all of the regions in our country.

The Liberals are using COVID-19 as a so-called opportunity to re-engineer Canada's economy in ways that will further alienate and impoverish the west, and they are supported by their allies on the left.

Alberta punches above its weight in Canada. It is not an accident of geography or natural resources or demographics. It is not a coincidence. It is because generations of Albertans and Albertans by choice created an advantage by combining hard work, innovation, personal responsibility and free-market principles and policies to create private sector opportunities and a growing economy that attracted the best, the brightest and the youngest from all across Canada and the world to work and raise their families. It is free markets and free enterprise policies that propelled Alberta's economy to create nine out of every 10 new full-time jobs in Canada as recently as 2014 and to be a net contributor to Canada continuously for more than half a century.

The worst damage has always been done by federal intrusions into Alberta's natural resources policy, such as the NEP and now the dismantling of oil and gas through bills like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, the blocking of pipelines, other regulations and roadblocks, barriers to exploration and to drilling, the carbon tax and now the failure of COVID support programs. Other provinces and regions have similar natural resource assets and opportunities, but they have not taken the same approach. It was the private sector and Alberta's entrepreneurial risk-taking innovation, combined with positive federal and provincial fiscal policies, that unlocked remarkable opportunities in Alberta for all of Canada.

After the 2015 election, in my first words in the House of Commons, I said, “A strong Alberta means a strong Canada.” It is really a tragedy for my riding and for our country that the Liberals have done everything they can to undermine that reality. On election night, the Prime Minister said he heard Alberta and that he would do better. He has not. My constituents are watching everything they built for generations collapse in front of them, and the federal government keeps asking them to sacrifice more by accepting one more review, one more regulation and one more tax. It is suffocating Lakeland, and because of Alberta's outside contribution to Canada, it will suffocate Canada's economic recovery.

The perspective that Canada does not work for Alberta is unfortunately pervasive in Lakeland. As elected representatives, we owe a duty of more than platitudes about our positions on industries, laws and taxes, more than politics for personal and partisan gain. This is obvious to freedom-loving Albertans and Albertans by choice. In Lakeland, it is a self-evident truth that the status quo is neither acceptable nor sustainable.

If anything I have said in the chamber today makes colleagues angry or uncomfortable, I hope it weighs on them. I hope it keeps them up at night, like it does me. I hope they stop enabling and helping the most corrupt, entitled and out-of-touch Prime Minister, who is doing all this damage to our country.

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

Mr. Chair, the economic turmoil in Alberta did not start because of COVID-19 or the decline in oil prices. Since this government took office in 2015, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost. Billions of dollars of investment have left the energy industry because of disastrous policies brought in by this Liberal government—policies like Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill; Bill C-48, the tanker ban; and the job-killing carbon tax.

Alberta's energy industry creates thousands of jobs right across Canada and pays for much-needed infrastructure right across the country. Months ago, the Liberals promised support for the energy industry, but Albertans are still waiting.

Alberta's innovation and prosperity are necessary for Canada's economy to recover from this pandemic. It's time for this government to support the energy sector and let it prosper, not strangle it with over-regulation and half-hearted efforts of support.

Why don't the Liberals see that when Alberta prospers, all of Canada prospers?

[Peter Kiss, President and Chief Executive Officer, Morgan Construction and Environmental Ltd.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon. I wish to thank the finance committee for inviting me to comment on the federal government's response to COVID-19, particularly around the response to the energy sector.

My name is Peter Kiss. I'm the owner of Morgan Construction, a heavy civil contractor operating throughout western Canada with a focus on the oil sands. I was previously in front of you on February 6 during the pre-budget consultations when I discussed competitive tax rates; differing rules for resources, our resources, which must compete throughout the world; bills C-69 and C-48; indigenous opportunities; and the tech frontier. I spoke of the economic Armageddon that is happening in Alberta. Since then things have gotten worse.

Obviously, our world has changed. My company has laid off 80% of our staff and reduced wages, and our revenues are down 87%, and I consider us fortunate. I have peers and competitors whose revenues are down 100% and the staff is reduced to a skeleton management group. The difference now in the resources sector, and specifically in Alberta, is that COVID started the problem, and a Saudi-Russian coordinated predatory oil price war caused the price to crash, production cuts, and capital spending to cease.

I would like to compliment the federal and provincial governments on their efforts thus far in providing support to families and workers via the CERB and the multitude of other measures put in place. They are certainly helpful in the near term, but when it comes to supporting business and indirectly the workers, we need to re-evaluate.

Businesses need two things only: credit or liquidity and revenue. This should be the focus. This is how people are going to get back to work.

From what we have seen thus far, the Canada emergency benefit, this $2,000 per month grant, while helpful in the beginning, needs to end. Beyond the moral hazard of paying people not to work and creating a society that lives on handouts and subsidies, it is preventing people from going back to work. It is that simple. While the story is anecdotal, workers are choosing to make less and stay at home this summer.

The Canada emergency wage subsidy is a great program. It's putting liquidity into the hands of businesses and is certainly helpful. I don't feel that it's keeping additional people employed, as no business is going to pay employees to sit around and do nothing, even with the subsidy. The greater hazard with this program is that the government artificially reduces input costs, and over the long term in a free market economy, the selling price is reduced. We are seeing this already. Once competitive businesses know how long supports such as the CERB, tax deferral, WCB premium and lease reductions are going to last, the subsidy gets worked into the selling price and creates an artificially low selling price for goods and services. Selling prices are dropping because of subsidies.

While this wage subsidy should continue, it should be extended on a one-month or even less increment, and businesses should not be allowed to plan on receiving it. Therefore, it would get worked out of the price.

EDC and BDC support loans are liquidity measures that have the right intent; however, they are not accessible to those companies that need it. The program needs to be adjusted to increase access and the velocity of capital as the economy opens up. This is when businesses require working capital the most. Companies don't go bankrupt; they run out of cash.

On the large employer emergency financing facility, LEEFF, the entire Canadian energy sector across the prairies and in Newfoundland waited hours, days and then months for sector assistance to be announced. I believe that the LEEFF program is that support and all that is coming.

From what I can tell, industry can't access this capital because of the restrictions surrounding the funds, and it's like it was written by predatory lenders of last resort with the intent of taking over the business. The credit standards are too high. The interest is accelerated over time, which is punitive, and by creating convertible debt, the federal government is looking for a clear path to board seats on E and Ps. This is not what the energy sector or Canada needs.

If we want to recover in this country and pay for all the COVID-related expenses, we need a viable energy sector paying royalties. We need real support now with easily accessible liquidity.

Before the questions, I'll leave you with a couple of thoughts. Stop the handouts. We're over the hump now, and everyone needs to get back to work. Accelerate project approvals. There are enough projects in energy, mining and commercial waiting for federal approval to turn this economy around. Don't start paying sick leave. There are only two groups that are going to pay for this: taxpayers, since there's no such thing as government funding; and businesses. With 10 days of paid sick leave, 10 statutory holidays and two to six weeks of holidays, we are not-so-slowly turning into Europe, but without the historical charm. Layering on more costs for our nation's businesses and taxpayers is not helpful.

Finally, protect Canada's largest industry. Saudi Arabia and Russia started a price crash with predatory pricing and production. If this was steel, aluminum, automobiles, agriculture or aerospace, we would have immediate countervailing duties, but with regard to energy, we are left to twist in the wind. Liquidity problems in the resource sector are a direct result of foreign interference, and now they are buying our assets at a discount. If the federal government wants to help, it can start with protection. Again, we don't want handouts; we need a hand up.

In conclusion, I wish to thank the federal government for inviting me to present today. Please remember this: The social cost of not getting the energy sector and its 850,000 people back to work will be paid with—and I'm not trying to be an alarmist—the destruction of families, alcoholism and drug abuse, social welfare and suicide.

Thank you.

Proceedings of the House and Committees

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your giving me that extra six and a half minutes, because I was mentally prepared for 16 and a half minutes, and I appreciate your clarifying that time.

I was listening to an online conference of Alltech, a large agriculture company, this week. One of the presenters said, “A crisis does not build character; a crisis reveals the character of you and your team.” I think that is very apropos right now, because Canadians are looking to us not only as parliamentarians, as elected officials, but certainly as their beacon of democracy, of what Canada stands for. They are looking to us for inspiration and to be leaders. In a time of crisis, we are the ones who should be at the forefront, taking the leadership role. I think that leadership role includes going to work.

I want to give those in the House who were not here yesterday a bit of a review.

Yesterday, my colleague from Ottawa West—Nepean said in her speech that the House does not matter and that being in Parliament should not matter. I think that is wrong. I know for us there is no greater honour than being elected by our constituents and representing them here in Parliament, in the House of Commons. I believe that this is the foundation of our democracy.

Somebody told me once that there have been fewer members of Parliament than there have been hockey players in the National Hockey League. I am sure most of us had our parents tell us we would never make it in professional hockey, but I do not know if they would have ever said we would never be members of Parliament. Here I am, and that is thanks to my constituents.

When I was elected by the constituents of Foothills, I believed it was my job to be here to represent them, to be their voice in the House of Commons, and to be in Parliament. I would hope that my colleagues from all parties would understand that being here is an integral part of the job of being a member of Parliament. If they do not want to be here, I think they have to look internally to what they want to accomplish in their career as elected politicians and elected officials. If being here in the House of Commons, in Parliament, is not something they see as an essential service or a priority, they should really be taking a hard look at whether this is something they want to do, because being here is a large part of that job. It should be an honour. It is something we should all take a great deal of pride in, no matter what party we represent, and certainly our constituents are expecting us to be here.

Last night, I went through some of my emails from my constituents. We have certainly had a number of them. I know we all have. My constituents in Foothills are asking me to come back to work, not just to be in a virtual committee meeting, but to have Parliament up and running. I would like to read some of the comments that I have from some of my constituents.

Missy in Twin Butte, Alberta wrote:

Keep the pressure up for our government to get back to work! Is it not an essential service? There needs to be some opposition feedback and some questions allowed to [the Prime Minister]. At the moment there are no checks and balances....scary!

Pat in High River wrote:

I would like to know what, if anything you are doing to get the liberals back into the house so you can all do what we are paying you to do.... Letting this virus hold you back is total crap, the people that work in grocery stores and other stores are working. [Why aren't you?] I don't see any reason why you and [parliamentarians] shouldn't be working as well. If the liberals won't go back [to] parliament [it should be] dissolved and an election called.

Karen wrote:

I’m extremely disappointed that the Federal government feels that Parliament is not an essential part of the running of Canada. The justification [for this] is a slap in the face to those [of us] who work every day.... [It is] time for Canadians to be allowed to get back to work.

Rick wrote:

Parliament needs to reconvene, even in a condensed version. I watched the sitting last week and there was some great issues/ideas put forward by the opposition. this inadequate [version of] government cannot continue on its own.

Ellen in High River wrote:

We MUST get parliament back in session !!!!! [That is an] understatement. There must be some way to make [the Prime Minister] recall parliament, short of a million people descending on Ottawa [and demanding so].

Those are just a few of my constituents' comments about where they feel the critical role of Parliament is.

Yesterday, we had the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development saying that we are in a virtual Parliament. We are not in a virtual Parliament; we are in a virtual committee meeting, a committee of the whole. That is very different from Parliament.

It is disingenuous and misleading by the government to say that we are in a virtual Parliament, because we are not having opposition day motions, we are not dealing with legislation outside of COVID-19, and we are not dealing with having the majority of committees up and running. There is no question that dealing with COVID-19 is a priority for all of us. I do not think any of us would disagree with that. However, to say that there are no other issues that are almost as important is simply not true.

The leader of the official opposition yesterday talked about energy projects that are languishing at the cabinet table, 85 billion dollars' worth of energy projects. One of those projects is the Riversdale coal mine in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, in my riding. This is metallurgical coal, which shows the lack of knowledge of the Liberals, who are now chirping at me about shutting down the coal industry. This is a metallurgical coal mine that mines coal for steel, just in case members want to do some homework.

It is interesting that she is already yelling to shut down that industry, not understanding that thousands of people in that community rely on that industry. Having the Riversdale mine would be a game-changer for that community, a community that is not doing well. This is an opportunity for more than 1,000 jobs during construction and hundreds more during operation.

It is not just about the mine and the fact that it is waiting in limbo to be approved or not. It has gone through every process. It has one permit left to go and the approval of cabinet, but imagine what that does for that community. Imagine what that does for Blair's hardware store, Dawn's bed and breakfast and restaurant, Lisa's newspaper, or events operations, or other businesses in that community.

That community is waiting with bated breath on the decision for that mine but sees it languishing at the cabinet table or within government because of COVID-19. I hope the government can walk and chew gum at the same time, so that we can deal with COVID-19 but also have Parliament back to deal with other issues that are just as important.

When we come out of COVID-19, we are going to be in a deep financial hole. We have seen from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that the deficit right now is about $252 billion. I would suspect that, with the extension of the CERB and the wage subsidy, it could double and we will see a trillion-dollar debt for Canada. To come out of that, we are going to be relying on a few industries to help carry or dig Canada out of that financial hole.

There are only a couple of industries with the landscape out there right now that Canadians can look to and government should be looking to, to ensure that they are on a strong footing. Examples are energy and agriculture. No matter what happens coming out of COVID, people are still going to heat their homes. They are still going to put fuel in their cars, buy groceries and feed their families. As part of that, there is very real discussion of having a global food shortage. Countries around the world are going to be looking to Canada to try to address that problem because of our farmers here. Would it not make sense to have those two industries as strong as possible coming out of COVID-19?

Those are two of the industries that the Liberal government is neglecting, when it should be looking at those two as pillars of our economy, pillars of our recovery. It does not make a lot of sense that they are not. If we have Parliament back, we can have those discussions here.

For example, in the energy sector, the Standing Committee on Natural Resources is not sitting. Why? It is one of the most important industries we have in this country, with more than $60 billion in royalty revenue alone going to the federal government. That does not count the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes that go to provincial, municipal and federal governments through income tax. That is an essential revenue source for this country coming out of COVID-19, but we cannot have those discussions, because we are just having what is essentially a committee meeting and we cannot talk about issues outside of that committee meeting.

There are projects like the Riversdale mine, which are essential to communities like Crowsnest Pass in my riding. That is just one project of dozens in constituencies and regions across this country. If I am hearing from my constituents about a project of that magnitude and the impact that it could be having on their economy, I am sure others among my colleagues are having the same conversations with their constituents.

As we go through this pandemic and we start looking forward to reopening our economy, in whatever manner that happens, as provinces will have a lot of say in how that happens and we want to ensure we do that as safely as possible, we can imagine where we would be as a country and an economy if we had a strong energy sector and a strong agriculture sector. We would be in a very different position, because we were coming into COVID-19 on very weak financial footing as a result of out-of-control spending by the Liberal government.

I recall the election in 2015, when the current Prime Minister said that we were going to have deficits of $10 billion for four years and in 2019 we would have a balanced budget. That obviously did not happen. We have now seen deficits as high as $28 billion. That was even before the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw detrimental legislation like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, which have devastated the energy sector. We have seen illegal blockades, carbon taxes and rail backlogs that have devastated the agriculture sector, not to mention more than $5 billion in lost foreign markets as a result of political blunders by the Prime Minister.

Members can imagine where we would be if those two industries were doing well coming into COVID. It would put us in a decent position to come out of this pandemic, but unfortunately that is not where we are. That is unfortunate, because those people would be working. Certainly for us in Alberta, with close to 200,000 energy workers out of work well before COVID-19, that is certainly not getting any better as a result of what we are going through right now.

When I am speaking to my constituents, they understand the position this country is in with the pandemic. We all want to ensure that our families and our friends are safe, but they also want to be back to work. I find it difficult. My wife and I leave home now and again to get groceries, and on the weekend we went to a garden centre and bought some trees and flowers for the yard, and there are 15-year-old teenagers working there. They are helping serve their community in their way, and I find it tough that we cannot do the same thing and serve our community right here in the House of Commons.

What are my Liberal colleagues and those in the Bloc and the NDP trying to hide? Why do they not want to be here? What is holding them back? We are here all this week as 60 members of Parliament, but just in a committee meeting. Why can we not go that extra couple of steps and get ourselves back to normal? I think that is what Canadians are asking us to do. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we are supposed to be the leaders, so why are we languishing behind everybody else? Why are we asking Canadians of every walk of life to start going back to work, except we are the ones who are saying “but not us”? We are saying, “It is good enough for you, but it is not what we should be doing.” I think that is wrong. It sends a horrible message to Canadians. They are looking to us every single day, as their elected representatives. They chose us. They elected us to come here and be their voice, and for the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc and the Greens to be muffling that voice is wrong.

I do not know how they can go back to their constituents, look them in the face and tell them they need to go to work in that grocery story, in that hospital, in that pharmacy and in that hardware store, but the members of Parliament are not going to go back to work. If that is truly their attitude, they need to look at their constituents and ask themselves why they ran in the first place to be a member of Parliament if they are not willing to be out in front, be that leader, be that inspiration to the rest of Canada, be the one who shows that everything is going to be okay. We are going to be here to make the tough decisions on behalf of our constituents.

What it really comes down to is holding the government to account. We cannot have an ongoing process of doing government by press conference. Our democracy is not about that.

I know my constituents are sick and tired of the Prime Minister coming out of the cottage every morning, making his announcements, going back in and then that is it. They want some accountability. In many cases, they agree with the programs that have been put forward, and they certainly appreciate the improvements that the official opposition has forced the government to do. However, they are looking to us to be leaders, not followers. They are looking to us to get back to work, and the government should follow that lead.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Deputy Prime Minister says that, but this federal Liberal government has shown again and again that they don't care for the Canadian energy sector or jobs in western Canada. They introduced anti-energy legislation through Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, as all Canadians know, which have devastated the industry. In fact, these two bills alone forced over $200 billion of investment to leave Canada.

To add to Alberta's economic problems, we've also had an international oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a huge drop in the demand for oil. Economies across the country are starting to open up again, but the reality for many Albertans in my riding is that they don't have a job to go back to.

When will the government start supporting Canadian energy workers and remove the regulatory roadblocks that they keep putting up?

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I start my questions, I would like to thank the various ministers, parliamentary secretaries and the Speaker of the House for reaching out to me during the severe flooding in Fort McMurray. Your support during these trying times is much appreciated.

The oil and gas industry is under severe strain. Over the past number of years, we have seen tremendous pressure on the federal government from anti-oil and gas lobby groups demanding that the oil sands be shut down.

The federal Liberal government's response to the anti-oil lobby was the introduction of the “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, which will prevent any major oil and gas projects from being developed in Canada; and the oil shipping ban, Bill C-48, for the northern coast of British Columbia, which also had a negative effect on the oil industry. These two bills alone pushed over $200 billion of investment out of Canada, causing the Alberta economy to retract to recession levels. To compound Alberta's economic problems, we have an international oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a huge drop in demand for oil.

Mr. Chair, 48 days after the finance minister promised liquidity loans to oil producers and service companies, there are still no applications open for these loans. Can the honourable Minister of Natural Resources tell us when the Liberals will act on their promise?

[Jocelyn Bamford]

My name is Jocelyn Bamford. I'm the president and founder of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada.

For the past three years, since our inception, the coalition has been warning all levels of government that there would be catastrophic effects from policies that had the effect of driving both the manufacturing and the natural resource sectors out of this country. The green energy policy in Ontario has made the price of electricity four times the average in North America. Unaffordable electricity, coupled with even more burdensome carbon taxes, has driven manufacturers out of Canada and into the open arms of other countries that see the importance of affordable energy to attract businesses.

One can't help but ask the question: If Canada had policies that attracted and maintained a robust manufacturing sector, would we be in the same situation with the complete lack of personal protective equipment and medical supplies for our front-line medical workers and our patients during this COVID-19 pandemic?

What has Canada done? It seems that the federal government's policies are designed to push manufacturing out, stifle our resource sector and kill the same plastics industry that is so essential to keeping our front-line medical staff, patients and citizens safe. As the federal government chases its obsession with the new green economy—a strange obsession, given our country's small contribution to global greenhouse gases—it has been blinded to the very real threats to our country; threats that have become very real with COVID-19.

The federal government's push to stifle the resource sector with bills like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 and the clean fuel standard has served to undermine our resource sector. At a time when we're incurring huge deficits, Canada does not have the income from the resource sector that we could have had if major projects had not been delayed or cancelled. The raising of the carbon tax when many businesses are on the precipice of collapse and the extra cost to transport food and medical supplies to our country seems outright irresponsible.

After the pandemic has passed, we recommend the following to help get Canada on track.

One, we recommend the immediate end of all carbon taxes.

Two, we recommend the end of taxing of passive investments, which many companies use to save in order to upgrade their plants. These are very expensive capital-intensive endeavours.

Three, we recommend a mandate to bring manufacturing back to Canada through competitive offerings and favourable tax programs.

Four, we recommend a recognition of the interconnection between the resource sector and the manufacturing sector. Many in manufacturing supply parts and pieces to the resource sector, and we also rely on affordable energy so that we can compete globally.

Five, we recommend the approval of pipelines so that we can get our resources to market and bring valuable tax revenue back to Canada.

We look forward to working with the government, because we have many ideas on how to get this country back on track and fix the situation.

I'm now going to pass it to my colleague, Veso Sobot, for his remarks.

Opposition Motion—Pharmacare

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an absolute pleasure to split my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, my seatmate and a well-informed member on this topic.

I think members from all parties can agree that we want Canadians to receive the best possible health care. However, universal or national pharmacare would have serious implications for all Canadians, without changing the status quo for most. According to a 2017 report by The Conference Board of Canada, 98% of Canadians either have or are eligible for private or public drug coverage, so we know that the vast majority of Canadians can access the medications they need without financial burden.

If we implemented a universal pharmacare program, this would not be the case. To pay for a universal system, taxes would have to be raised for all Canadians. We do not know how much that could cost, but estimates are around $15 billion annually. Under a universal system, the most vulnerable Canadians would see their cost of living go up due to higher taxes.

Canadians who currently have the coverage they need would give up some of their disposable income to fund the new system, while seeing no change to their quality of life or access to prescription medication. One thing I consistently hear from my constituents is that they cannot afford more taxes. They cannot afford higher living costs. Things are stretched tight as it is.

The government needs to be mindful of the economic times we are in. Oil prices are in free fall, COVID-19 is predicted to have significant impacts on our economy, rail blockades caused millions of dollars in lost economic development and companies are rethinking investing in Canada because of our “political climate”. Just yesterday, the TSX fell by almost 700 points, and we are now in what is called a bear market.

We are in uncertain times. Some have even called it uncharted territory. Right now, many Canadians are worried about their jobs and livelihoods. Now is not the time to implement a pharmacare program that would come at a massive cost on the backs of taxpayers. I am especially worried because of the huge deficit we already have, which is close to $30 billion. In December of last year, finance department documents showed it was at $26.6 billion and expected to keep rising. We will find out more when the finance minister releases his budget on March 30, the date we finally learned just yesterday.

We have this huge deficit, and I am still scratching my head and wondering why. We have been in relatively good economic times for the past few years. Canada was in good shape until 2015 thanks to the previous Conservative government that had the restraint to save and make tough decisions. The government has squandered that good fortune. Instead, it has gone on a spending spree and racked up unsustainable levels of debt and will leave the bill to our children and grandchildren.

Most economists know that one saves money in the good times and puts money away for a rainy day, as the saying goes. That did not happen, and now we are heading into a series of stormy days. The government cannot give any sort of clear answer on how it is going to respond to a recession. My guess is that it has no idea.

This is a crucial time for Canada. Companies no longer see Canada as a place to make a safe investment. The government has actively worked to shut down the energy industry with legislation like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. Thousands of hard-working men and women are finding themselves out of work in my home province of Alberta, and this has had a ripple effect on the entire economy. What does all this have to do with pharmacare? As I said earlier, Canadians cannot afford higher taxes, especially in these uncertain economic times.

In last year's budget, the government pledged to work with provinces, territories and stakeholders to create the Canadian drug agency and to spend $35 million to establish a Canadian drug agency transition office. The government's advisory group was headed by a former provincial Liberal, Dr. Eric Hoskins, a man who is no stranger to endless deficits and debt. It is no surprise that the report he authored recommended the creation of a universal system. It is always buy now, pay later.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has warned the government of the impact on workers should pharmacare be implemented. Its chief economist, Trevin Stratton, said millions of Canadians would lose access to medications they have under the current plans. He said the government needs to “carefully reflect” on how millions of Canadians who already have access to prescription drug coverage would be impacted.

Some families experienced this recently when the Ontario government implemented free prescription medication for people under the age of 25. This program, OHIP+, cost roughly $500 million a year when it was implemented in 2017. Private insurance for those under the age of 25 became obsolete. Many parents complained that medications for rare diseases were not on the list of approved medications under OHIP+. These medications had been covered under private insurance.

I worry that the same thing will happen with this government when it implements a universal pharmacare system across the country. The prescription medication that many people are currently using and covering the cost of through their private insurance may become unavailable if not approved.

Not only will a universal system put more strain on Canadians through higher taxes and deficit, but access to much-needed prescription drugs may be threatened. The Liberals have been promising a pharmacare plan for decades and have done absolutely nothing about it. It was in their 1997 election platform and was promised again in 2004. Any promises to implement pharmacare are purely for political posturing. In fact, their 2019 budget contained almost no health care money until 2022, well after the election.

We on this side of the House know that one of the best things we can do to help Canadians is keep taxes and the cost of living low. Fiscal restraint is required to ensure the prosperity of our future generations. We need to make good decisions now, and I do not believe adopting a universal pharmacare program is a smart decision. As I stated, it would have serious financial impacts through higher taxes and bigger deficits. It would threaten access to medications currently covered through private drug plans. Research shows that about 98% of Canadians already have or are eligible for private or public drug coverage.

While we know that some Canadians legitimately struggle to pay for access to prescription medications, this is not the case for the majority of our population. We already have one of the best health care systems in the world, and we should be proud of the system in place.

Instead of focusing on big-ticket items like national pharmacare, the government needs to focus on the unfolding economic crisis. We need urgent action to unleash our economy. Budget 2020 must include cuts for workers and entrepreneurs to reward investment and work, a reasonable plan to phase out the deficit and reassure investors, a rule to eliminate red tape and liberate businesses, an end to corporate welfare for favoured companies and an end to the wasteful Liberal spending that we have seen over the past four years.

We are all in the House to help our constituents and all Canadians. We want to see them be successful and get ahead. Implementing an expensive pharmacare system will not achieve this. It will put more tax burdens on hard-working Canadians and it is not needed by the vast majority of our population. These uncertain economic times are not suitable for introducing a $15-billion pharmacare plan.

Opposition Motion—Documents on Economic Downturns

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak today on our opposition motion. We have a government across the way that for the last four and a half years has governed as if the good times would never come to an end. It appears that the government's luck has run out in the face of a slowing economy, soaring deficits and debt, and economic uncertainties arising from the coronavirus, the illegal blockades and today the collapse in the price of oil.

Therefore, we have put forward a very straightforward motion, a motion in the name of transparency, calling on the government to do something it should be quite enthusiastic to do, which is to release all documents whereby it may have been provided advice or input about the possibility of an economic downturn. Canadians deserve to see those documents to know whether the government heeded those warnings, whether the government took precautionary measures or whether the government did what it appears to have done, which is to ignore those warnings altogether.

I say that the government should be quite enthusiastic because it is what is in the mandate letter from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Finance wherein the Prime Minister states, “I also expect us to continue to raise the bar on openness, effectiveness and transparency in government. This means a government that is open by default.” Surely consistent with the finance minister's mandate letter would be a government that would be welcoming our timely motion here today.

When the Liberals came to office in 2015, they inherited a strong economy from the previous Conservative government. They also benefited, in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, a period of strong global economic growth, from low interest rates and a return in terms of commodity prices from a low at the earlier part of the decade.

When I got here in 2015, I know that my Conservative colleagues and I provided advice to the Liberals in terms of encouraging them in the face of a relatively strong economy to take a responsible approach, to pay down debt and prepare for a rainy day. That is precisely the approach that Prime Minister Stephen Harper took when the times were good in 2006 and 2007. Between 2006 and 2008, the Harper government paid down $38 billion of debt, which constituted the largest debt repayment of any government in Canadian history.

Why did the Harper government do that? It was because it recognized that the good times would not last forever. As it turned out, they did not, because in 2008-09, we saw the largest global economic recession since the Great Depression. However, because of Stephen Harper's foresight, Canada had the fiscal capacity to respond to that global economic downturn, later resulting in a recovery that was faster and stronger than that of any other G7 country.

That was the Conservatives' approach. That was the approach that we encouraged the government to take, but it had different ideas. The Liberals' approach, contrary to ours, was to spend, spend, spend and spend some more. One could say that the Liberals spent like drunken sailors. However, as Ronald Reagan used to say, that would be an insult to drunken sailors.

The Liberal government has added $75 billion of new debt in just four years. By the end of this fiscal year, Canada will be on track to adding $100 billion of new debt.

The finance minister said that we should not worry, that the good times would continue. It is not so, as dark clouds are on the horizon for Canada's economy.

We have seen a significant slowdown in the Canadian economy. Indeed, in the fourth quarter of 2019, Canada experienced just 0.3% GDP growth. That constitutes negative per capita GDP growth. In fact, in November we actually saw a decline in the Canadian economy, and 71,000 jobs were lost.

While Canada grew at only 0.3% in the last quarter of 2019, our biggest trading partner, our biggest economic competitor, the United States, saw a GDP growth of 2.1%. There is quite a contrast between the growth in the United and the dismal performance of the Canadian economy.

That pattern of lagging behind the United States is projected to continue into this year. Indeed, the Canadian economy is expected to grow at only half the rate of the United States'. Meanwhile, unemployment is 30% higher in Canada than in the United States. Indeed, under the Liberal government's watch, Canada has the unenviable position of having the highest unemployment rate of any G7 country, save for Italy and France. These are hardly jurisdictions we should be seeking to emulate in terms of economic performance, yet that is precisely the approach the government seems to want to take.

The over four and a half years of spending and more spending, without any plan for a rainy day, has left the Canadian economy weak and vulnerable.

In the face of that, Canadians deserve to know the government's plan. What is the government's plan to get beyond per capita negative GDP growth of a pathetic 0.3%? What is the government's plan to stimulate the economy and restore some level of fiscal responsibility? We know that today's $30-billion deficit could very easily translate into $50-billion or $60-billion deficits if there is a further slowdown.

I know that unlike the Liberals, we on this side of the House do have a plan. It involves unleashing the Canadian economy by cutting taxes for workers and small businesses, repealing the anti-development bills, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and reducing red tape with a two-for-one rule that builds on the legislated one-for-one rule and is consistent with what has been undertaken by the Province of Manitoba and our largest competitor, the United States.

The Conservatives have a plan to, in a reasonable way, get spending under control by eliminating waste, reducing red tape and reducing the burden of government to eventually get to what the Liberal government inherited from our previous Conservative government: a balanced budget.

In closing, where is the government's plan? It has no plan beyond spending and spending some more. In the face of that plan versus our plan to unleash the Canadian economy, I will take our plan any day.

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

Madam Speaker, as was said by someone earlier, the Liberals are living in some kind of alternate universe in terms of the way that things work fiscally.

The member for Kitchener South—Hespeler talked about how the government is spending this money, calling it investing. Does he not realize that those forestry workers that are unemployed are not paying into their tax bucket? Does he not realize that oil workers in Alberta are not paying? Does he not realize that as the stock market crashes around us, people are not paying tax on the dividends? Does he not realize that the government is driving investment out of this country with its poorly planned policies, whether it is Bill C-69 or Bill C-48. Does the member not see what is happening today?

Liberal members are standing up and saying that everything is fine, that we should not worry and that they are going to spend more money. They do not have more money to spend.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague mentions the price of oil being part of the factor here. Yes, it is true the world price of oil makes a difference, but at the end of the day I have seen companies shut down in Alberta and move south to Texas where there is less regulation and more support overall for the industry and they are able to flourish. I am talking about burdensome regulations like Bill C-69 and other bills the Liberal government has brought in that are hurting our industry, such as Bill C-48, which is hurting the possibility of taking oil from Alberta to international markets. The problem here is mismanagement by the current government.

I would hope my hon. colleagues from the Bloc would support this motion so we could see the documents and what types of warnings were given to the government. Let us see what those documents say and how the government has reacted. I think that transparency is important to allow the House and members of Parliament to do our work and to know what types of warnings were given to the government well before this economic situation that has come up now.

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

Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me, speaking on behalf of my constituents, to rise and speak to this very important motion. It is a motion that my colleague from Carleton has brought forward, and one that I had the opportunity to second.

Throughout my ongoing consultations and interactions with constituents, I hear about the concerns of the people right across Edmonton Mill Woods. One of the most repeated concerns I hear, especially from those in the energy sector, is that they cannot find work.

Just this weekend I heard the story of James, a constituent in my riding who is just starting a young family. He had a great job, a well-paying job with benefits. He worked for a company that had been in operation in Alberta for over 25 years. Unfortunately he was laid off, as the company was forced to shut down and move its operations to the United States.

James has not been able to find work in over a year because of the economic situation in Alberta. He has seen first-hand the impacts the stalling economy has had on his living situation. It is situations like James' that are leading to the frustration, desperation and hopelessness at the root of the unity crisis we are seeing in western Canada.

To make matters worse, there is an unprecedented number of small businesses claiming bankruptcy. Canadians have seen the government raise taxes, spend wastefully and rack up massive deficits. Canadians are worried and for good reason.

We are here today for this important debate. We are calling on the government to provide documents discussing warnings or concerns of economic downturns, the potential impact on the fiscal framework, or advice or recommendations on how to deal with them, and that those documents be provided to the House within 45 days following the adoption of this motion.

We are requesting documents going back to November 2015 because today's economic situation is not something that just happened overnight. Many experts have been warning about this situation for many years.

Constituents in my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods and right across Alberta have felt the effects the Liberal government has had on the economy the hardest. Alberta saw four straight months of job losses at the end of last year, resulting in nearly 10,000 jobs lost in a four-month span. That is 10,000 families receiving the devastating news from their family members when they came home from work that they had just lost their job.

Investment is fleeing Alberta as regulations are strangling the energy sector and making it almost impossible to build pipelines in Canada. Instead of reducing regulation and bringing in smart rules to make Canada an attractive place to invest, the government brought in the most burdensome regulations on work. These have resulted in nearly $200 billion in oil and gas projects being cancelled, and 200,000 Canadian oil and gas workers losing their jobs over the last five years.

Bills like Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill, and Bill C-48, the tanker ban, have unfairly targeted Alberta and have crippled its economy. We have seen the effects these bills and the lack of confidence in the government have had. This was highlighted most recently by Teck's decision to pull its application for the Frontier mine, a project that would have brought 7,000 construction jobs, 2,500 long-term jobs and billions of dollars in investment.

Investment continues to flee Canada while the demand for oil continues to climb right across the world. Foreign investment in Canada is down over 50% since the Prime Minister took power. This was most recently highlighted by Warren Buffet's decision to pull out of a $9-billion liquefied natural gas project in Quebec over concerns about how the government is handling the illegal railway blockades and infrastructure disaster.

This impact is worsened by the increased taxes as a result of the Liberal government. Since the Liberal government came to power in 2015, 81% of middle-income Canadians are seeing higher taxes, with the average income tax increase for middle-income families coming in at $840.

From the cancelled family tax cut to the cancelled art and fitness tax credit, to the cancelled education and textbook credit, the government has found a way to target every Canadian with higher taxes. As a result of these policies, 48% of Canadians are within $200 of not being able to pay their bills and their debt obligations. One-third of Canadians have no money left at the end of the month and are unable to cover their payments, falling further into debt. Adding to their growing concerns is the worry that the government has mismanaged the economy completely.

Businesses are experiencing the same harsh reality. Businesses are facing new carbon taxes and increased CPP and EI premiums. Thousands of local businesses across our great nation are no longer qualifying for the small business tax rate, or will see it reduced. While other G7 countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom and France, have all embarked on major tax reforms over the past few years to simplify the tax code and lower overall taxes, Canada continues to move in the opposite direction by increasing taxes and regulations, stifling our economy and having taxpayer dollars go up in smoke.

That is what the government is doing, while also spending these increased tax dollars at unprecedented levels. During the first four years of the Liberal government, the Prime Minister added over $72 billion to the national debt. This was after the Prime Minister, during the 2015 debates, promised, “I am looking straight at Canadians and being honest the way I always have been. We've said we are committed to balanced budgets and we are. We will balance that budget in 2019.”

However, here we are at the end of the 2019-20 fiscal year and we are staring at the reality of another deficit and nearly $100 billion added to our debt. There is no evidence that there was any increase in economic growth as a result of the spending.

There is also little to show for the frivolous spending. We can look at the $187-billion infrastructure program that the Parliamentary Budget Officer said resulted in zero increase in infrastructure built in Canada because the infrastructure plan did not exist; the $40 million to BlackBerry, where the CEO of the company candidly admitted he did not need the money; the $12 million to buy new refrigerators for Loblaws, a company that turned hundreds of millions of dollars in profits last year; or the $50-million handout to Mastercard. These examples are priceless.

Canadians are getting the short end of the stick again while seeing their hard-earned tax dollars going to waste and turned into subsidies for these Liberal-favoured companies. Let us contrast this with the Conservative plan that my honourable colleague from Carleton laid out.

Being the party of the taxpayer, we outlined our five-step plan focused on tax cuts for workers and entrepreneurs, a plan to phase out the deficit, eliminate red tape and free businesses, end corporate welfare for Liberal-favoured companies, and end wasteful Liberal spending that we have seen over the past four years. These are the types of actions needed to ensure our economy continues to function and that is why we bring forward this motion.

I am proud to support this motion in the House today. Canadians have seen the government raise taxes, spend wastefully and rack up massive deficits. Canadians are worried about the state of the economy, and for good reason, especially given the bleak reality our stock markets reflect today. The Liberals have squandered the good times, leaving us weak and vulnerable for economic turmoil.

As opposed to paying down the debt, the government racked it up while the world was stable and prosperous and spent at unprecedented levels. Canada's economic growth has slowed to 0.3% in the fourth quarter, the worst performance in almost four years, and this was all before the impact of the illegal blockades and coronavirus. The blockades have stifled our economy for weeks and affected small businesses across the country. The Prime Minister's sky-high taxes, wasteful spending and massive deficits have put Canada in an incredibly weak and vulnerable position, with the possibility of a made-in-Canada recession rapidly approaching.

As we continue to see the effects these illegal blockades have had on our economy and the increased concern of the effects of COVID-19, now is the time for the government to finally be transparent with Canadians, to provide us with its plans discussing warnings or concerns of the economic downturns and their potential impacts on the fiscal framework, and advice and recommendations on how to deal with them. Canadians are worried about what is next. The people in my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods, right across Alberta and across this country as a whole cannot handle more weakness and vulnerability from the government.

Canada's Conservatives have a plan to unleash our economy, reward hard work, eliminate waste and allow Canadians to fulfill their potential. We will continue to be the voice of hard-working entrepreneurs and Canadians today and demand that the Liberals get our economy back on track, so that Canadians can get back to work.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today is an occasion for us to reflect upon the economic events that are unfolding before our eyes. To do so, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Edmonton Mill Woods.

Let us begin with the story of the grasshopper and the ants:

One fine day in winter, some ants were busy drying their store of corn, which had gotten rather damp during the long spell of snow. Presently came up a grasshopper and begged them to spare a few grains. “For,” he said, “I am simply starving.”

The ants stopped work for a moment, though this was against their principles. “May we ask,” said they, “what were you doing with yourself last summer? Why did you not collect a store of food for the winter?”

“The fact is,” replied the grasshopper, “I was so busy singing that I hadn't the time.” “If you spent the summer singing,” the ants replied, “you can't do better than spend the winter dancing,” and they chuckled and went on about the work.

The ants had been responsible. They knew that the sunshine of the summer would not last, that it was merely one season of the year, so they worked hard to accumulate and set aside grain for the difficult times they knew would be ahead. What did the grasshopper do? He assumed that the sun would always shine and that times would always be good, and that therefore he did not need to do anything but dance and sing and play.

It is no so long ago that the sun was shining on the global economy. In the years 2016, 2017 and 2018, things were quite good. The U.S. economy was roaring, having some of the best growth it had experienced in two decades. Commodity prices had recovered from their lows in 2014, and interest rates were as low as one could expect them to be. In fact, it was almost a perfect coincidence of events where growth was high and interest rates were low, all of which maximized the sunshine that blanketed the economic countryside.

Conservatives said, “Like the ants, now is the time to store away the grains because the sun will not shine forever.” Liberals told us that we should dance and sing and spend. They said that we should spend the cupboard bare, and not worry about the bad times for the good times were here. They said that it was the time to squander those good times and to celebrate in a period of self-praise all the riches that fell from the sky.

Conservatives warned that one day winter would come, that trouble would arise and that we would want then to open our cupboards and find them overflowing with a surplus of supply to get us through those cold, dark months and into the economic springtime down the calendar. Of course, across the way the government said no and that it was going to continue to spend.

What did the Liberals do? In every single year since they formed government, their deficits have been bigger than they promised. They told us that deficits would never exceed $10 billion a year, yet they reached $29 billion. They told us that the budget would be balanced in 2019. That year came and went, and now they predict that the budget will never be balanced. They put us on track to add $100 billion to our national debt.

They did this all while the sun was shining, convinced that the economic laws of the four seasons had been abolished, that bad times would never return and that all we needed to do was sing, dance and spend. It appears winter may have arrived.

I looked at Bloomberg News today at 9:30. I quote:

Canadian markets were battered on all fronts as the collapse in oil sent shockwaves through a country with one of the biggest exposures to the commodity among the Group of Seven.

Stocks cratered 10% with the biggest drop since October 1987, the loonie weakened and government bond yields plunged to fresh records as investor pessimism deepened for an economy that barely eked out any growth in the fourth quarter and is already grappling with the coronavirus.

I emphasize again the last point in the Bloomberg article, that in the last three months of 2019 we had growth of 0.3%, and that was before the illegal blockades and before the coronavirus broke out and started to impact on global economic matters.

I go back to Bloomberg:

The slump in oil will exact another heavy toll on the natural resource-dependent country, which generates about 9% of its gross domestic product from energy and has the biggest exposure to the sector on its stock market at 15%.

Remember, that is the sector the Prime Minister wanted to phase out altogether, and it looks like he is achieving some success.

Not only would the ants be unhappy with the approach the government took to the good times; so too would be Keynes, the great economist leftists these days try to appropriate for themselves. In his great work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Keynes explained that during good economic times governments should run large surpluses and pay down debt in order to prepare a buffer and allow for economic stimulus when troubled times later come. That is exactly the formula followed by the previous Conservative government.

In the first two years it was in office, it paid off almost $40 billion of debt under Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty. To their credit, Chrétien and Martin in the years prior did likewise. That decision to pay down debt prepared us for the winter ahead. When the winter came, and it was a serious winter, we in Canada were more prepared than any other G7 country. We weathered that grand winter storm better than anyone else because our cupboards overflowed with the surplus of responsible planning and hard work that had happened in the summer months.

The current government, having done the opposite, now leaves us weak and vulnerable as we enter this winter period. Having rendered us so weak and so vulnerable, what can we do now to get us through the winter? We as Conservatives have a plan.

That plan would reduce taxes on workers and entrepreneurs to stimulate hard work, enterprise, investment and consumer activity. It would remove the anti-development barriers imposed by bills C-69 and C-48 which prevent us from shipping our resources from the Pacific coast, and from building pipelines to deliver them there in the first place.

We would require a two-for-one red tape reduction rule. That is to say if the government brings in one new economic regulation, it would need to get rid of two of them in order to remove the red tape that is holding back our economy.

We would replace wasteful corporate welfare, like the millions for Bombardier, Loblaws, Mastercard and BlackBerry, with lower taxes for all entrepreneurs to unleash their power to generate wealth and get us through these hard times. In other words, we want to unleash the fierce and ferocious power of free enterprise, which is the only source of prosperity that will get us through these difficult times.

We believe in responsible planning for trouble ahead. That planning did not occur, so now we as Conservatives step forward again with a responsible plan to get us through the hard times, to get us over the difficulties and to allow Canadians to fulfill their potential so that anyone who works hard can achieve his or her dreams.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Chair, thank you.

Has any analysis been done within Western Economic Diversification on the impacts of Bill C-69 and C-48 on the receptor capacity in the energy sector in terms of adopting clean technologies that have originally been funded under the WINN program?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Were the effects of Bill C-69 and C-48 included on the western Canadian economy? Was that included in the scope of this report?

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-229, an act to repeal certain restrictions on shipping.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in the House to introduce my private member's bill today, an act to repeal certain restrictions on shipping. I want to acknowledge my luck drawing six in the lottery for the consideration of private member's business. I want to put that luck to good use through this bill.

I also want to thank the member for Edmonton West for seconding the motion to introduce the bill today, and to thank my constituents for their suggestions and input on possible topics for this bill. I want to recognize that today is my son's 34th birthday. He has overcome many challenges in his life, but never did I think he would be faced with a government that would limit his opportunities.

The topic of this bill is to right a wrong that happened before I was elected, namely the passing of former Bill C-48 in the previous Parliament by the Liberal majority in this chamber. This discriminatory bill has stalled economic development for a part of our country that desperately needs it, and it has contributed to the rise in unemployment in my home province of Alberta.

Investors need to understand they have access to markets. Alberta should have the right to access, just like every other industry. If the Liberals are serious about listening to Alberta, I hope they will support this important bill.

To wrap up, I look forward to the debate on this bill in the coming weeks and to see the updated thoughts from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on this very important issue for all of Canada.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Teck Frontier Mine Project

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to participate in this timely emergency debate initiated by my colleague, the hon. member for Lakeland, on the cancellation of the Teck Frontier mine project, a project in northern Alberta, that if completed would have had the capacity to produce up to 260,000 barrels of bitumen a day, resulted in 2,500 construction jobs, 7,000 permanent jobs and $70 billion of new tax revenue. Not only that, it was a project that was supported by and would have been beneficial to the 14 affected indigenous and Métis communities. Here we are tonight, and all of that is gone. The project is cancelled. It is history and it is not coming back.

In the face of the cancellation of the project, what has been the Prime Minister's response? It was effectively to shrug off the cancellation and say it was merely a decision of Teck, nothing more and nothing less. The vast majority of my constituents and Albertans do not buy the Prime Minister's explanation. They know there is one person who bears considerable responsibility for the cancellation of Teck, and that is the Prime Minister.

Let us look at the facts. Teck went through all of the regulatory hurdles. The joint review panel gave it the green light all the way back in July of 2019. All that needed to be done was for the Prime Minister and his cabinet to give it the final approval. What did the Prime Minister and his cabinet do? They dithered and delayed month after month, undermining investor confidence. Then, more recently, they sent the signal that they were seriously contemplating killing the project altogether, a project that not only would have resulted in thousands of jobs but in billions of dollars of new tax revenue that would have gone some way to restoring investor confidence, which has been sorely lacking and undermined thanks to the policies of the Liberal government. They were contemplating killing a project that really sets the gold standard when it comes to clean emissions with respect to GHG intensity, which is roughly half that of the oil sands industry average, which was projected to be carbon neutral by 2050. It is indeed a project that the joint review panel noted might actually help reduce overall GHGs, not increase GHGs, having regard for alternate sources. For the Prime Minister, in the face of this devastating news for my province of Alberta, to simply shrug his shoulders and say that it was a decision of Teck truly requires a suspension of disbelief.

Make no mistake about it, the decision of Teck was not made in a vacuum; it was made within the context of regulatory uncertainty that arises from misguided policies on the part of the government that is literally killing Canada's energy sector. From the tanker ban off the northwest coast of British Columbia to changing the rules with respect to upstream and downstream emissions midway through the approval of energy east, ramming through Bill C-48 and Bill C-49 at the end of the last Parliament, and I could go on, the message collectively that the current government has sent is that Canada is not open for business, that Canada is not open to investment in the energy sector. The consequences have been devastating.

We have seen $200 billion in projects cancelled since the government came to office. We have seen the rig count cut in half, down 50%. Capital investment is fleeing. Indeed, capital investment is down more than 50%. There are 120,000 people out of work in the energy sector since the current government came to office.

We have seen, in terms of equity raised in 2018, a mere $650 million. Let us compare and contrast that to the United States. In 2018, equity and debt raised amounted to $19.4 billion. That is $19.4 billion in the United States and $650 million in Canada. In the United States, which is open to business and to investment in the energy industry, investment has skyrocketed, production has reached record levels, and for the first time in U.S. history, the United States is energy independent. So much for the sorry excuses across the way.

I heard one member say, “Industries could just move ahead with projects, but they are choosing not to.” It is not that they are choosing not to move ahead with projects; it is just that they are choosing to go elsewhere, to the United States and to other jurisdictions around the world that are saying they are open for business while the current government shuts down Canada's most vital sector of the economy. The number of companies that have divested from Canada in the energy sector, and are divesting from Canada as we speak, is too long to list.

In the face of that, what does the Prime Minister not get? How much is it going to take? How many more projects are going to be cancelled? How much more investment is going to flee this country? How many more people have to be laid off? How many more people have to give up hope because they have been unemployed for the last several years?

Let us talk about the social impact it has on families. They are devastated. The food bank in my constituency, each and every year that this Prime Minister has been in office, has reached a new record level, year after year, thanks to this Prime Minister. It is time that this Prime Minister woke up. It is time that he put Canada first, and as a starting point to do that, he ought to immediately reverse his failed and destructive policies.

Cancellation of Teck Frontier Mine Project

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

She said: Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

I rise tonight to address a national economic emergency, the cancellation of the $20-billion Teck Frontier oil sands opportunity, even though the expert joint panel recommended it in the national public interest seven months ago. The cancellation of Teck Frontier will cost Alberta alone 10,000 badly needed jobs and will cost all 14 local and supportive indigenous communities their long sought-after agreements with financial, education and skills training opportunities. It will eliminate the potential for $70 billion in revenue to all three levels of government for services and programs for all Canadians.

People may think oil and gas is isolated to Alberta and Saskatchewan, but the energy sector as a whole is the largest single private sector investor in the entire Canadian economy. B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada and all of the territories have onshore and offshore oil and gas resources, some stranded and some not, with related industries at various degrees.

Canada should be proud to be home to the third largest oil reserves in the world. Canadians should also know the reality that 97.3% of it is in the oil sands, so Canada's oil future is dependent on the future of the oil sands. Every one oil sands job creates five jobs in other sectors in other provinces.

Ontario, Quebec and B.C. companies are the biggest suppliers to the oil sands. In 2017, oil sands companies, even after all the losses, spent $1.9 billion on goods and services from over 1,100 Ontario companies. Here is the alarming part. That was a 45% drop from what was spent in Ontario in 2014, before the Liberals were elected and launched their plan to “phase out the oil sands”, in the Prime Minister's words. In 2014, nine of every 10 full-time jobs created in Canada were made in Alberta, offering opportunities to everyone across the country and the world, driven by a thriving energy sector. I think most Ontarians would be surprised to learn that the contribution from oil and gas businesses to Ontario's economy is more than half of the contribution of the automotive industry. Over the next 10 years, oil and gas could generate $12 billion in tax revenues for programs and services Ontarians value.

The livelihoods of many Quebeckers also depend on the oil sands, where approximately 400 companies are direct suppliers to the industry in Alberta. The federal tax revenue generated from the incomes of those multi-generational Albertans and Albertans by choice working in the province's energy sector is shared right across the whole country. As my Atlantic Canadian family members and friends remind me, a rising tide lifts all boats.

In 2018, Canada's oil and gas sector still contributed seven times that of the auto manufacturing sector and 15 times that of the aerospace sector to Canada's GDP, even after the colossal drop in investment and activity. No Albertan and no Conservative wants to stand in the way of any other Canadian province, territory or industry. We want all to thrive. However, the attacks by the Liberals on oil and gas, their anti-resource, anti-business bill, Bill C-69, their oil shipping ban bill, Bill C-48, the drilling ban, the development prohibitions, the Liberal fuel standard, layers of new taxes, red tape, and ongoing and escalating uncertainty, are actually all attacks on all of Canada's economy.

Nearly $200 billion in oil and gas projects have been cancelled or stalled, and 200,000 Canadian oil and gas workers have lost their jobs since 2015, a flight of capital that is the biggest loss of energy investment and jobs in any comparable time frame in more than seven decades. Teck's cancellation is the 11th major multi-billion dollar mega oil and gas project to be withdrawn, and the latest in the list of 18 companies that have cancelled or frozen their Canadian energy assets in the same time frame. To put it in context, these numbers are equivalent to Canada having lost both the entire automotive and aerospace sectors combined in Canada. That would rightfully be considered a national economic catastrophe and a severe crisis by every member of every party in this House of Commons, and it has been going on in Alberta for years.

Canadian-founded juggernauts like Encana and TransCanada are removing “Canada” from their name and moving out of Canada. Drilling companies like Akita, Trinidad, Ensign, Savanna, Citadel and Precision Drilling have all moved their drilling rigs, their expertise and their world-class skills to the United States.

Let me make clear the disproportionate impact of the attacks on the oil sands by the Liberal government on Alberta.

As of 2018, capital investment in the sector fell by half, more than in the last seven decades, and the oil sands development in particular has experienced an even sharper drop in investment of almost 70%.

Whereas most provinces showed a decrease in people on EI as of January 2019, Alberta saw a major increase.

Business bankruptcies in Alberta were up 28% between August 2017 and August 2018. Business insolvencies in Alberta have skyrocketed by more than 70% from their 2015 lows, compared to a 13.5% decrease on average for the country as a whole over the same time period. Real estate vacancies and food bank use are both at record highs.

Albertans wonder why oil and gas job losses and all the related social consequences, such as suicides, family breakdowns and crime, do not seem to be occupying the permanent attention of national media and commentators. The cancellation of Teck just adds to an already existing pattern of crisis and it has been escalating since 2015.

As recently as February 2019, Devon Energy announced it hired advisers to help sell off its oil sands assets and later sold its Canadian operations to CNRL. The CEO said the sale was part of the company's “transformation to a U.S. oil growth business”. Month after month it was the same in 2019.

Imperial Oil says it is slowing down the development of the $2.6-billion Aspen oil sands project due to market uncertainty and competitiveness barriers.

Trident Exploration said it would cease operations. It left 94 people without work and a large number of oil and gas assets with no owner, including over 3,000 wells, 240 facilities and 500 pipelines.

Later, Husky Energy cut 370 jobs after announcing it would cut capital spending by 10%.

Perpetual Energy then announced it had cut 25% of its workforce.

Here is the deal: Albertans cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel. The cancellation of Teck Frontier represents a growing crisis of investor confidence overall in the fairness, predictability, independence and certainty of Canada's regulatory system, policy framework and the economy overall.

Teck invested $1 billion over nine years while meeting every requirement during a multi-jurisdictional rigorous review and was approved. In the months since Liberals moved the goalposts, the environment minister said the political approval depended on Teck's capacity to be net zero by 2050. Teck took that unprecedented step of self-imposing that exact goal far beyond the already world-leading standards of Canada and the industry average, not a regulatory requirement and found nowhere in federal law. Teck also committed to recycling 90% of the water used in processing and generating half the emissions of the oil sands industry average.

The Alberta government even agreed to adopt a 100-megatonne oil sands emissions cap to remove all the Liberals' excuses 48 hours before Teck's decision to cancel Frontier over public safety concerns, political risk and policy uncertainty in Canada became public. Teck's other assets are in unstable South American countries.

We all know the truth here. In the last couple of weeks, Liberal cabinet ministers hinted publicly that they might delay past the February 27 deadline and that they were considering any and all information, presumably new or different from the evidence, science, technical, environmental and economic merits that actual experts already evaluated. Liberal MPs spoke out and promoted petitions and admitted most of the caucus was against it.

Is it really any wonder why the whole world is looking at Canada and wondering whether any major resource project can be proposed or actually built here ever again?

Make no mistake, Canada's oil and gas is produced with the highest environmental and social standards in the world, literally second to none with an environmental performance index of 25, compared to places like Nigeria with an EPI of 100 or Saudi Arabia with an EPI of 86. This is what is so crazy about what the Liberals are doing.

Canadian oil sands producers lead the way. They have reduced emissions per barrel by 32% since 1990 compared to resources of similar kind around the world. They are the biggest private sector Canadian investors in clean tech in Canada and world leaders in R&D and innovation. Canadian energy and the oil sands can be the future, not the sunset, and it should be for Canada and for the world.

A painful truth is that this loss also represents an escalating national unity crisis. Western Canadians see political double standards for oil and gas, exemptions and blind eyes turned to projects, industries, exports in other provinces and foreign oil imports.

A strong Alberta means a strong Canada. It should be unthinkable for a sitting Prime Minister to attack the lifeblood and the primary industries of any Canadian province. Can we imagine a Prime Minister saying he was going to stand up to big auto in Ontario or big manufacturing in Quebec? Canadians would be rightfully outraged and so would Conservatives. It seems like in this House of Commons, it is only Conservatives who would be outraged at divisive political attacks on the lifeblood and industries of particular provinces and regions in our country.

The Liberal Prime Minister decided his political gains were more important than the unity of our nation. Their electoral result was as expected and all the Prime Minister did was give his empty words and here we are in a national and economic crisis today.

Natural Resources

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting two petitions.

The first is from petitioners in my riding who are asking for the immediate repeal of Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. One is the anti-pipeline bill and the other is the tanker ban on the west coast. The petitioners from my riding remind the Government of Canada that over 100,000 jobs have been lost in the Alberta energy sector alone.

Relations with Indigenous Peoples

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly grateful for this emergency debate tonight, because Canada is facing a crisis of leadership that is threatening the whole economy.

This crisis is not really about whether indigenous communities support Coastal GasLink, because every local first nation does support it. A majority of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs support it too. One of them, Theresa Tait-Day, said their whole community voted on it and “85% of our people said yes” to this project.

Chief Larry Nooski of the Nadleh Whuten said “Coastal GasLink represents a once in a generation economic development opportunity” for his nation, and that they “negotiated hard...to guarantee that Nadleh people, including youth, have the opportunity to benefit directly and indirectly...while at the same time, ensuring that the land and the water is protected....”

Chris Sankey, a former elected band councillor for the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation, said, “We need jobs. We need to build homes and roads and schools for our kids and care centres for our elders. These projects will help us do that.”

This crisis really hangs on the question of whether Canada is a country where the rule of law is respected and upheld, or whether Canada has succumbed to the rule of the mob. It is about whether Canadians will let our entire economy be held hostage by a small group trampling the legal system that has governed our country for more than 150 years.

This morning, the Prime Minister's statement was a complete and sad abdication of responsibility and leadership. The Prime Minister himself has emboldened and encouraged this kind of behaviour by cancelling other big projects based on political and activist considerations, like vetoing northern gateway, imposing Bill C-48 and funding TMX pipeline opponents, instead of on science and facts, and on the best interests of the whole country.

As an MP for an oil and gas riding and for nine indigenous communities, and as a person who happens to be part Ojibwa, I suggest his actions look a lot like those of a centralist, colonialist government imposing its views against the wishes and the priorities of local indigenous governments and the majority of directly impacted indigenous people, such as those in my riding, which are all involved in the oil and gas sector.

Every single person in this country has the right to freedom of speech and the freedom to protest, but they do not have the right to break the law or to hold the Canadian economy hostage. Because the Prime Minister has yet to clearly denounce the actions of these radical activists as illegal, or to provide an action plan that will end the illegal blockades, rail lines continue to be shut down. Bridges, roads and highways are blocked. The commutes, jobs and livelihoods of farmers, small business owners, workers and families across the country, thousands of kilometres away from beautiful British Columbia, are at risk.

Bonnie George, a Wet'suwet'en member who formerly worked for Coastal GasLink, said, “It’s disheartening now to see what’s happening. Protesters across Canada should ask our people who are out of work what they think. As a Wet’suwet’en matriarch I’m embarrassed....”

Who is really behind it?

Ellis Ross, the B.C. Liberal MLA for Skeena and elected official for the Haisla First Nation for 14 years said:

Professional protesters and well-funded NGOs have merely seized the opportunity to divide our communities for their own gains, and ultimately will leave us penniless when they suddenly leave.... It is therefore truly ignorant for non-Aboriginals to declare that elected Aboriginal leaders are only responsible for “on reserve issues” or are a “construct of the Indian Act meant to annihilate the Indian”.

He continued:

I was an elected Aboriginal leader for 14 years and I never intended to annihilate anyone.

My goal was to do everything I could to make sure my kids and grandkids didn't grow up knowing the myriad social issues that accompany poverty. I'm pretty sure all chiefs — elected and non-elected — feel the same way.

However, if the Liberals and the protestors claiming solidarity and shutting down rail lines in eastern Canada do want to talk about the Coastal GasLink pipeline and the LNG Canada plant it will supply, let them take note that all 20 of the local first nations want this pipeline built. When indigenous communities have access to revenues independent of the government they can invest in their own priorities without having to get approval from a civil servant in Ottawa or a big lobby group, or fit their plan into a federally prescribed program application.

Empowering first nations economically provides the tools for indigenous communities to manage their core needs, to invest in their cultures, and to preserve and nurture their heritage and their languages for future generations.

Chief councillor Crystal Smith from Haisla Nation, who supports Coastal GasLink and opposed Bill C-48, said, “Our nation's goal is to be an independent, powerful and prosperous nation. We can't get there without powerful, prosperous, independent people.”

There is no stronger example of the patriarchal, patronizing and quite frankly colonial approach of these lawless activists, and of the current Liberals, than their treatment of these first nations who want to develop, provide services, and supply and transport oil and gas.

Another person said that all too often, indigenous people are “only valued as responsible stewards of their land if they choose not to touch it. This is eco-colonialism.”

Crystal Smith further said:

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m tired of managing poverty. I’m tired of First Nations’ communities dealing with issues such as suicide, low unemployment or educational opportunities. If this opportunity is lost, it doesn’t come back.

The Liberals' and the activists' anti-resource, anti-business, anti-energy agenda from outside these indigenous communities are sabotaging the best hopes and all the work of all the first nations along the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Hereditary chief Helen Michelle of the Skin Tyee First Nation said, “Our own people said go ahead.” She also said, “A lot of the protesters are not even Wet’suwet’en....”

Troy Young, a member of one Wet'suwet'en community, and general manager of Kyah Resources Inc. , a company working to clear trees and build roads along Coastal GasLink's proposed pipeline route, said the history of the Wet'suwet'en is one of outsiders telling them how to do things, and if they are successful in stopping Coastal GasLink, “it will be one of the biggest cultural appropriations in British Columbia's history.”

MLA Ellis Ross said:

We’ve always had to cope with outsiders and so-called experts telling us who best represents First Nations, or what we should do within our own territory. Yet none of these people have ever lived on reserve or spent any significant time with the people who actually live there....

Allowing outsiders to undermine and dismiss years of careful consideration and consultation with elected chiefs who want nothing more than to secure a brighter future for their membership, is quite unacceptable.

He said he will continue to speak out against it.

Of course, Coastal GasLink does not just offer opportunity for indigenous communities. It is good for all of Canada, and it will benefit the world. Clean Canadian natural gas will reduce global emissions and deliver the affordable energy the world requires to reduce poverty and to increase the quality of life of the 2.6 billion people without access to electricity or clean cooking fuels.

The International Energy Agency projects the average global energy demand will increase approximately 30% by 2040 as world populations and economies expand, adding the equivalent of another China or India to the current level of global energy consumption. Natural gas is projected to meet one-third of that new demand.

As the fourth-largest natural gas producer with the fifth-largest reserves in the world, Canada can and should help meet that need.

Canadian natural gas is abundant, and it is the most viable fuel for reducing domestic and global emissions. Life-cycle emissions associated with LNG can be 20% lower than diesel, 60% lower than coal, 20% less than gasoline, and, crucially, emit less particulate matter, meaning less smog.

Canada LNG and the associated Coastal GasLink pipeline is the largest private sector commitment to the energy sector in Canadian history. It will give Canada the long-sought opportunity to export clean Canadian gas to foreign markets.

However, over $100 billion in LNG projects alone have been cancelled since the Liberals came to power, and that is not including other major oil infrastructure they killed. When LNG projects like Pacific Northwest, Grassy Point and Aurora are cancelled, it is devastating to the indigenous communities, local municipalities, service and supply businesses, and all the workers who were counting on them.

The lack of new pipeline access and LNG facilities in Canada is forcing natural gas producers to sell their product at a massive discount, and natural gas prices have even gone negative, meaning that producers have had to pay someone to take their product.

Liberal policies already left Canada out of the loop the first time, and could cause Canada to miss out on the second wave of the huge opportunity of LNG. In fact, the B.C. government had to agree to exempt LNG Canada from the Liberals' job-killing carbon tax hike in order to ensure that it went ahead. This is just another example of how Liberal policies are impeding resource development and driving private sector investments and businesses out of Canada. This is costing Canadian workers and indigenous people their jobs, and undermining their aspirations, work and hopes for self-sufficiency. It is driving increasing poverty rates in rural and remote regions and diminishing Canada's role in the world.

Canadians are looking for action from their government. It has taken almost two weeks for the Prime Minister to get back to Canada and to really say anything about it at all. Today it was just more words and an impotent call for dialogue. It is exactly this “do nothing” approach that has created the crisis we face today.

It is time for the Liberals to tell Canadians how they will lead for all of Canada, restore the rule of law and end these illegal blockades.

[Peter Kiss]

Good afternoon. I wish to thank the finance committee for inviting me to these pre-budget consultations. My name is Peter Kiss and I'm the owner of Morgan Construction, a heavy civil earth-moving and environmental company operating throughout western Canada with a focus on the Alberta oil sands.

We currently employ 850 men and women from across Canada and have eight indigenous partnerships to provide real value and capacity-building to the groups we partner with. We are the definition of middle class. In 2014 and 2015 when the price of oil crashed, we laid off over 600 people. We have changed our business and innovated, but we have not really recovered. This is not a novel, one-off story; it repeats itself across the Prairies. The perception is that no one cares about Alberta and the west, and as it goes, perception becomes reality.

It was of special interest, especially to me, when I had my finance team pull these numbers together, to find out that over the last 10 years what I thought was a small business is a medium-sized business. The business and our staff have paid, including payroll remittances, taxes and fees to federal and provincial entities, $147 million. This is all while we've had our business evaporate. Again, this is paid by the middle class.

It should be noted that while we have paid our way, the company has not made significant money itself. It could be argued that we are hanging on by a thread. I am not alone. Western Canada is desperate. When I drive around rural Alberta to our work sites, the hotels and restaurants are vacant and there are “for lease” signs everywhere. Parking lots of oil service businesses are empty. The sentiment in western Canada is one of desperation and hopelessness. There is a feeling that we have been economically blockaded. We have no friends in the Dominion. It is economic Armageddon in the west.

Before questions, I'd like to provide the following suggestions for the upcoming budget and legislative session. We need investment in western Canada and we need offtake capacity and infrastructure for our resources.

First, we need to create a corporate and personal tax regime that is better than that in the United States, so investment will flow back into Canada. We have missed an economic boom and we need to catch up. As I sit down here in the United States, with unemployment at all-time record lows, there are help wanted signs everywhere and we have missed out.

Second, we cannot have different rules for our resources that have to compete on the world stage. One example of this is that oil produced in Canada has a charge for CO2 emissions, but oil produced in the Middle East does not. This makes us uncompetitive.

Third, we need to amend Bill C-69 to give investors confidence and we need to get money flowing back into western Canada. The economic engine of Canada is our resources and we cannot get them to market. This legislation, left unchecked, will only hinder activity and growth across Canada.

Fourth, I would like to pose the following question, which baffles much of the west with regard to Bill C-48 and energy east. Why is it okay to run tankers on the east coast but not on the west? Why can we not export our resources and get a global price? Do you feel that other countries have better environmental laws and human rights than we do? Believe me, as I was standing in Fort McMurray yesterday, on our job site, no one cares more about the environment than my front-line workers, my clients and me. Why are we importing oil from outside North America and not using our own resources? Does it make the middle class better off if we transfer their hard-earned money to various regimes with less stringent environmental standards and weaker human rights?

Finally, my last point is about Teck Frontier. It must be approved without conditions. If it is not, or the conditions imposed are so onerous that the proponent declines to proceed, there will be a rebellion in the west, plain and simple. For my business alone, I estimate that this project would mean 200 jobs.

In conclusion, I wish to thank the finance committee for inviting me to present during these pre-budget consultations. Please remember that we are desperate, but we don't want or need handouts. The west is resilient and hard-working and we need the economic blockade to end. We need to go to work. Thank you.

Natural Resources

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the second petition comes from more of my constituents.

The petitioners are asking for the repeal of Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. They draw the attention of the House of Commons to the fact that Canada has lost 7,000 kilometres of proposed pipeline. Well over 125,000 jobs and $100 billion in investments have been lost.

The petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to immediately repeal Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, the anti-tanker ban bill and the anti-pipeline bill.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I read that, from a competitive standpoint, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 have not helped.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I wish to present is signed by 26 of my constituents.

The petitioners call upon the federal government to repeal Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. They draw the attention of the House of Commons and the Government of Canada to the amount of pipeline built in the previous government being substantially lower than previous ones. They state that we have lost over 7,000 kilometres of proposed pipeline and well over 125,000 jobs. The petitioners also point out that $100 billion in energy investment has fled the country.

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak on a subject that I have been involved in, especially in my previous role as the shadow minister for international trade, and also as a passionate supporter of free trade.

I am well acquainted with the benefits of trade with the United States. I represent a southern Ontario riding that is very close to the border. We have many successful companies in Niagara West that do a significant amount of business not only with the United States but also throughout the world. I met personally with those business owners and operators, and their companies are world-class and full of potential. They provide communities with excellent jobs and economic development.

These business owners are asking for the certainty that free trade agreements provide. Free trade is essential to our country. One in five Canadian jobs is created as a result of free trade agreements. I also believe that members of the Conservative Party are the strongest supporters of free trade. We really are the party of free trade.

The Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement were largely negotiated by Conservative governments.

Conservatives negotiated these deals to remove tariffs and quotas, and to eliminate non-tariff barriers to trade. Free trade agreements improve transparency, predictability, certainty and fairness to exporters. I believe all members in this chamber would agree that free trade agreements open markets for Canadian businesses, including small to medium-sized enterprises.

This is why it was so concerning when the United States announced that NAFTA would be renegotiated. The uncertainty had a ripple effect through virtually all Canadian industries that do business with American clients and purchasers. Why did the uncertainty cause so much anxiety in our business community? The short answer is that we are very dependent on one another.

Total merchandise trade between Canada and the United States has more than doubled since 1993, and it has grown over ninefold between Canada and Mexico. In fact, 75% of total Canadian exports go to the United States and roughly 3% go to Mexico. All told, the total trilateral merchandise trade, the total of each country's imports from one another, has reached nearly $1.1 trillion U.S.

This is a tremendous amount of business that more than 1.9 million Canadian jobs depend on. The lack of certainty over the status of the renegotiation of NAFTA caused a reduction of business investment, which I think has been well documented, particularly in Canada. Some companies moved to the United States to offset potential losses while also directing their investments to the United States.

I saw the impact of this uncertainty when I did the “defend local jobs” tour from July to September 2018. During that time, I met with over 150 businesses, trade organizations and chambers. In Ontario, I attended round tables and meetings in London, Brantford, Kitchener, Welland, Niagara Falls, Beamsville, Orillia, Windsor and Toronto.

I went to Vancouver, where the BC Chamber of Commerce organized a round table with their members, as well as Kitimat, where I met with LNG Canada. In Alberta I met with business owners in Edmonton, Calgary and Leduc, where I saw first-hand the effects of the government's misguided policies and the anger that these policies were producing.

I did that tour to see first-hand the effects of U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and to bring those concerns back to Parliament. I also brought back the personal accounts of business owners of how the uncertainty created by the renegotiation of NAFTA was impacting business operations. What I heard at the time was very worrisome. Stakeholders were asking for immediate support in order to prevent job losses or bankruptcy in the medium or even short term. They wanted to see improvements to Canada's business environment to reduce red tape and enhance our competitiveness. I will get back to Canada's competitiveness shortly, because I believe the government has failed terribly on competitiveness.

On the “defend local jobs” tour I learned that businesses at the time had begun to cut orders, reduce shifts and, in some cases, had even laid off workers. The key word was “uncertainty”. Businesses that had been investing in Canada saw the U.S. as a safer bet because they did not know what was going to happen here.

At the time, businesses impacted by the steel and aluminum tariffs had not yet seen any of the $2 billion in support promised by the government, which was extremely slow to roll out. The Liberals were quick to announce relief, but very slow to roll out any support for our businesses and workers.

Since then, this Liberal government has fumbled the NAFTA file several times. It agreed to many concessions in the renegotiations. Most importantly, I have to mention the concessions the Liberals made with respect to our dairy sector that are particularly damaging.

By the way, there is nothing on softwood lumber, as has been mentioned by other speakers, while the forestry workers are really hurting.

I want to be clear. The Conservatives support and want free trade with the United States. It is no secret that NAFTA is the legacy of the Conservative government, but we must carefully look at the legislation first. Rushing it through would not be wise. After all, when it comes to a trade deal with Canada's largest and most important trade partner, we need to do our due diligence.

I say this because the Liberal government failed to work with us during the negotiation and ratification processes and is now rushing to get this legislation through Parliament, which is not giving us much time to do our homework on it. The government has also failed to provide documents outlining the impacts of the new trade deal despite numerous requests from opposition members. The government does not seem to recognize the realities of the new minority government and is mistaken if it believes we will simply rubber-stamp this deal.

I want to reiterate that doing our due diligence is crucial. We want to ensure there are no surprises that could hurt our businesses and our workers. Hurting businesses and workers has been something the current government knows something about, especially when it comes to competitiveness. According to the World Economic Forum, Canada is now number 14 when it comes to competitiveness. We are behind Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Sweden, the U.K., Denmark, Finland, China and South Korea. This is worrisome news.

The government has put legislation forward for the updated NAFTA, but is keeping Canadian businesses handcuffed with red tape, excessive regulations and high taxes. Just look at what it has done in the west. It has been an absolute travesty. Workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan cannot find jobs for months and some for years because the Liberals have drowned the resource sector in over-regulation, overtaxation and ridiculous amounts of red tape.

Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 are the most famous examples of anti-energy legislation passed by the Liberal government. These two bills have done tremendous damage to the economies of our western neighbours. We need the government to finally do something about this. Yes, we need a free trade agreement with the U.S. We absolutely need it. However, if the government continues to stifle the growth of our business sector, including our world-class energy sector, how effective will this trade agreement be when Canadian businesses stall, fail or move south of the border, either to the U.S. or Mexico, because of the government's flawed domestic economic policies? The ill-conceived policies it is putting forward are just recipes for more wasteful spending, more sky-high taxes and more reckless borrowing, all while we are seeing worrying economic signs on the horizon.

The possibility of a made-in-Canada recession is becoming more real. If the government does not believe me, then perhaps it would like to listen to the Wall Street Journal, which stated:

Canadian exports and imports fell steeply in November of 2019, offering fresh evidence the country's economy has hit a rough patch.... The broad-based decline in trade from October [2019] is the latest in a string of disappointing economic indicators, among them a sizable loss of jobs in November and a decline in gross domestic product in October.... Some analysts...indicated the data were symptomatic of a stumbling economy.

What does the government do instead of lowering taxes to stimulate growth and job creation? It is thinking about hiking taxes again. It is looking at the carbon tax hike. It is almost as if it has spent the last four years making life harder and more unaffordable for Canadians.

Canadians should not be punished every time they drive their kids to school or turn up their thermostat on a cold winter day. In my riding of Niagara West, public transportation is almost non-existent. My constituents need to drive to work, drop off and pick up their kids from school, and drive them to hockey practice and all kinds of other activities.

We were very honest with Canadians in the last election. We warned them that the Liberals would raise the carbon tax. The Liberals denied it, but here we are today. They are thinking of raising it and probably will very shortly. This is not good for Canadian families, businesses or our global competitiveness. If they intend to raise the carbon tax, they will finally come clean with Canadians and tell them exactly by how much.

In order to hit our Paris targets they would need to raise it by an additional $50 per tonne. This would increase the price of gasoline by 23¢ a litre. Let us think of what the extra costs would do to job creators, never mind the families with children who have no other option but to drive around. Virtually everything is delivered to our favourite store by truck. The cost on gas will either be absorbed by businesses in order to keep their clients, which may bankrupt some businesses, or it will be passed on to the consumer and increase the price of everything.

In closing, I would like to say that we will carefully look at this legislation. We all owe it to our constituents to do our due diligence and ensure that Canadian workers and job creators will stand to benefit from this new NAFTA.

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, this is my maiden speech, which is going to be cut incredibly short.

The Speech from the Throne is informative not because it outlines what exactly the government is going to do, but because it shows us where its priorities lie.

Equally notable are the topics the government avoids mentioning. The Speech from the Throne was notably silent on some of the most pressing concerns our country is facing today. As the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan are facing an economic crisis, all the government offered them was one throw-away line in the throne speech about getting resources to market. While the Liberal government has long said that the economy and the environment go hand in hand, the policies it implemented in the last session and those it pledged to implement going forward tell a different story. It sacrificed the economic prosperity of Alberta and the other provinces for merely the appearance of environmental protection.

As Canadians have pointed out time and again, Canada produces some of the cleanest and most ethical oil in the world. The Liberal government imposed Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, which prevented our oil and natural gas from getting to market. That demand not met by Canada is satisfied by other countries with lower environmental standards, many of which have a proven record of ignoring human rights. In the case of the no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, it resulted in oil transportation by alternative methods, namely rail, which can cause significantly more pollution. The push behind these job-killing and environment-killing bills come from a surface-level understanding of an issue at hand and the misguided intolerance of domestic oil production. When it comes to policy, the choice comes down to doing good or feeling good. As Conservatives, we will always support legislation that does the former, even when there are no sound bites and selfie opportunities that go along with it.

Concerning the tanker ban bill, Bill C-48, the government has claimed the ban is necessary to protect the environment. If the government legitimately wanted to protect the environment against the remote possibility of oil spills, do members not think it would have implemented a tanker ban on the St. Lawrence River or the east coast? After all, the beluga whales that inhabit the area are on the endangered species list. The government did not implement any other tanker bans. Why not?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to inform you that I am splitting my time with the member for Calgary Centre.

It is my honour to rise in the House today for my maiden speech. I first want to thank the voters of Saskatoon West for putting their faith and trust in me as their representative in this House of Commons for this, the 43rd Parliament. I am humbled and honoured and grateful that they would trust me with this privilege. My pledge to them is that I will do my very best to represent them here in Ottawa and bring their views to Ottawa.

I want to thank my election team of Sunny, Braden, Alex, Kaitlyn, Donna-Lyn, Josh and Jared. I offer a special shout-out to the University of Saskatchewan Campus Conservatives club, which helped with a lot of door knocking. I offer big thank you to my friend the hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek and her husband, Milton Block, for all of their encouragement, and to so many volunteers and donors who made this all possible.

As everybody in here knows, family support is critical to our success, and so I want to thank my parents, Alvin and Irene Redekopp; my sister, Gaylene Molnar, and her family; my two wonderful sons, Kyle and Eric Redekopp; and of course my beautiful wife, Cheryl Redekopp. I could not have done this without them.

It is for these people and for the 75,000 other people who live in Saskatoon West that I am replying to the Speech from the Throne today.

Unfortunately, I cannot and I will not support it.

This throne speech calls for “unity in the pursuit of common goals and aspirations.” The Prime Minister talks about listening and about parliamentarians working together, but the throne speech says almost nothing about the aspirations of people from Saskatoon. Not only that, the Prime Minister brings in policy after policy that targets the people of Saskatoon and our economy.

Let me explain the economy in Saskatchewan. If we think of a three-legged stool, the first leg is agriculture: wheat, canola, barley, oats and things like that. The second leg is mining: potash, uranium, gold and diamonds. The third leg is oil and gas. Last year, in 2018, these three sectors accounted for 36% of our GDP in Saskatchewan. The seat of the stool is manufacturing and construction. We manufacture machinery, industrial equipment and food products, while construction is the infrastructure that supports all of that work and all of the people. In 2018, those two sectors were 14% of our Saskatchewan GDP. Taken together, the legs and the seat of the stool account for 50% of Saskatchewan's GDP.

The other half of our GDP is the services that support our residents: things like stores, restaurants, education, health care and everything else. These things all sit on the stool, but the legs of our stool, the foundation of our GDP, are mining, oil and gas, and agriculture.

We all know that these three sectors are suffering in Saskatchewan.

In terms of the oil and gas leg, the no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, has restricted capacity to ship our oil to markets. The selling price of oil is down, investment is down, and therefore there are fewer jobs.

The mining leg is also affected by Bill C-69. It politicizes the impact assessment process and adds significant time and uncertainty to the approval process. Companies no longer see Saskatchewan as the safe, stable place it once was to invest. Therefore, investments are going elsewhere and jobs are disappearing.

On the agricultural leg, the Liberals' continuing relationship failures with China have hurt our canola producers.

What does all this mean to the people of Saskatoon? When the legs of the stool are crippled, everyone suffers. Unemployment is up and people are struggling to pay their bills. During the election, I talked to many households and many families who were struggling to make their monthly payments, and on the campaign I spoke to many of the people we talk about who are short $200 every month.

I want to provide some vignettes of some real people and how this affects them.

I think of a young man who used to work on an oil drilling rig. He drove seven hours from Saskatoon to work in Drayton Valley, Alberta. He worked a two-week shift of 12-hour days, made really good money and spent that money in Saskatoon on vehicles, restaurants, stereo equipment, etc. I know this because this young man is my son. In 2015, the Liberals came to power. They introduced the no-more-pipelines bill and the no-more-tankers bill, and this drove down the price of our Canadian oil and reduced our investment. As a result, my son lost his job and, there was no more spending in Saskatoon.

Another example is a manufacturer who supplied components to the mining and the oil and gas industries. The manufacturer employed 140 people in Saskatoon. Those were well-paying jobs supporting 140 families in Saskatoon. I know this because my brother-in-law works at that company. Because of Bill C-69, investment in resource projects decreased, and the result was that people were laid off as the company adjusted to decreased business.

Fortunately, Saskatonians are resilient and creative problem-solvers, so they looked elsewhere and found business to keep the company going, but the business is smaller than it would have been had the oil and gas market kept going strong.

Let us think of an entrepreneur who build new homes for families, directly employed four people, indirectly hired 40 different contractors to complete all the work required and created several million dollars of economic spinoffs in Saskatoon. I know this because this was my business. Because of the Liberals' mortgage stress test, new homebuyers are forced out of the market. Because of changes in building codes, the cost to build a home significantly increased, and as a result, construction activity in Saskatoon has significantly slowed down. In fact, housing starts are at the lowest level in 14 years. Many good people in the construction industry are suffering or have lost their jobs.

What did I expect from the Liberal government throne speech in the spirit of working together? I certainly expected support for western Canadian jobs. After all, two days after the Liberals were reduced to a minority in October, the Prime Minister said he clearly has more to do to earn the trust of people in Saskatchewan. I expected support for oil and gas, mining and farmers.

What did I actually hear?

I heard a vague reference to natural resources and farmers, no mention of the Trans Mountain pipeline, no mention of a national energy corridor, nothing about repealing or even making changes to Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and certainly no concern for our rapidly growing and dangerous debt. I think Rex Murphy said it best when he said the Speech from the Throne “is a semantic graveyard, where dullness and pretentiousness conspire, successfully, against the life and lift of our two wonderful official languages.”

Housing was mentioned in the throne speech, and I hope the government will follow through on that issue. There are many people in my riding for whom good, stable housing is out of reach. As a former home builder, I call upon the government to relax the mortgage stress test, as this has had a significant negative impact on construction in Saskatoon.

One thing barely mentioned in the throne speech was the word “job”. The Liberals are quick to offer money to Canadians for this or that and to offer handouts to make up for their lack of action on the economy, but let me tell members something about people from Saskatoon: We are proud, hard-working folks, and we do not want handouts; we want good-paying jobs.

Saskatoon is also filled with entrepreneurs, people willing to take great risks in order to employ others and build our economy. Entrepreneurs do not want handouts; they want a stable playing field with reasonable regulations and the freedom to work hard, succeed and then enjoy the benefits when success does happen.

There were two other words conspicuously absent from the throne speech: “balanced budget”. I am gravely concerned that the Liberal government has chosen to spend seemingly unlimited amounts of money on every kind of program, with no concern for the underlying economy that pays for all of this. We are burdening our future generations with debt that will have to be paid back at some point. I call upon the government to at least plan to return to balanced budgets.

Finally, Saskatchewan people care deeply about our environment. All three of the stool legs I spoke of earlier are rooted in our land. No one is a better steward of our land than people from Saskatchewan. We all understand that healthy land, water and air are critical to our long-term success, but we cannot adopt a zealot-like approach, assuming that the only way to have a healthy planet is to stop human development and to stifle innovation and economic growth. We cannot sacrifice the agriculture, mining, and oil and gas industries of Saskatchewan and Alberta in exchange for a photo op with Greta. We cannot stifle economic growth and continue to increase taxes on our people.

This throne speech made it clear that the government intends to continue to raise the carbon tax. Taxes will rise, with no meaningful impact on carbon. This will hurt ordinary Canadians and business owners.

In conclusion, Canada's Conservatives are focused on the aspirations of everyday Canadians, like the good people of Saskatoon West. We are the party of the middle class, and we will continue to present real and tangible ideas that will allow people to get ahead and get the government off their backs.

As I close, I want to congratulate and thank the leader of my party for his tireless dedication and work over the past 15 years. I also want to wish everyone in this chamber a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in the House.

This is my maiden speech, so I have some thanks to go through, then I will get to the crux of what was, or what was not, in the Speech from the Throne that was presented last week.

All of us in this House have a huge responsibility to represent their constituents in each and every riding. For myself, I could not do this job without the people and volunteers who helped me win this seat. We all have great volunteers on campaigns, and Regina—Lewvan had the best volunteers in the country in my opinion. We were 300 strong on election day, and there were a lot of people who helped ensure that the Conservatives won the seat in Regina—Lewvan.

I had an amazing team of core supporters and I would like to take this time to thank Shelly and Mike Janostin. Shelley was my campaign manager and worked tirelessly to keep me on task. I want to thank her for all the support that she has given me and my family over the last 18 months. We had a great time, and without her help we would not have been able to win this seat.

Laura Ross is a great friend and our EDA president. She was a colleague of mine when I was the member for the Saskatchewan legislature for Regina Walsh Acres and Laura was the member for Regina Rochdale and she was a tireless advocate. Both she and her husband Terry worked so hard. He was a great sign guy. We had a sign crew that put over 1,200 signs up in Regina—Lewvan. I appreciate the support of Terry, Mike and all the other guys who came out and put up signs. Everyone who took a sign as well, we appreciate their having the courage of their convictions and putting a sign on their front lawn. I appreciate that very much.

As a member of the Legislative Assembly I had the honour of having the best constituency assistant in the province, Heather Kuntz. She is now my assistant in Regina—Lewvan. She is a tireless advocate for the people of Regina. She works very hard on case files, and she is honestly one of my strongest supporters.

I always make the comment that she has been one of the women who has been in my life the longest. She has been with me for eight years and my wife has been with me for 10 years, so she is like an auntie to our three young kids. She is not only a great supporter and worker, but a confidante and a very good friend. I thank Heather for all the work she has done for us over the last eight years. I am very lucky to have her heading up our office in Regina and helping the people of Regina—Lewvan.

It comes down to having so many good people on our team. Mike Emiry, his wife Taryn and my good friends Dustin and Ali are auntie and uncle to my kids, and they helped support us throughout the campaign. When Larissa and I were out doing events or functions, they were there to look after the kids. My kids are very lucky to have two people in their life who love them so much. I thank Dustin and Ali for all they have done for our family.

It is an honour to rise and thank people who helped us get here. Obviously, the people who help us the most are our families. Without the support of a spouse, there is no one in this chamber who can do this job. I am very fortunate to have an amazing woman by my side.

Larissa is by far my strongest advocate. She also gives me advice from time to time and makes sure, for example, that I wear the right suit with the right tie. It is always good to have a wardrobe consultant. I appreciate everything she does for us.

Over the last eight years, we have had three children together. We have won three campaigns, two nominations and gone through a couple of leadership races. She has been by my side through it all. She has also finished her degree, finished an MBA and worked full time as well. She is an amazing woman and I am lucky enough that I convinced her to share a life together.

People always say, “Congratulations on marrying up,” and I say, yes, I definitely did. If one does not, that is silly. I appreciate her and she obviously means the world to me. We have three young children under six: Nickson is six years old, Claire is four and Jameson turns three on January 2.

I believe the reason most of us get into this job and commit to public service is to make things better for the next generation, and that is an example I set in our household. We do this job so that our children have better opportunities going forward and into the future. I think that everyone in the House is in it for those reasons, to make sure that we have a better environment for our children and great job opportunities, so that they can be more successful than we are.

I would say to Nickson, Claire and Jameson that dad is coming home in exactly four hours. I cannot wait to be home and spend some time with the family. I think Nickson has hockey practice tonight, so I hope he makes sure to skate hard and keeps his stick on the ice. I love him very much.

Obviously, there has been a lot going on over the last 24 hours for our party. I have known the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle for a long time. I want to thank him and his wife Jill for all they have done for the Conservative Party of Canada. He was a strong leader. When Premier Wall gave his farewell speech in the legislature, he said that one thing all politicians should aspire to do is leave things better than they found them. The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle did that for the Conservative Party, so I thank him very much for everything he has done over the last 14 years for us.

I took some time to go over the throne speech. I want to talk about what is and is not in it. One thing I saw was the lowering of taxes for Canadians. I hope that the members opposite fulfill that commitment. What I heard on the doorsteps during the last campaign was that it is getting harder to get by in Regina—Lewvan. The constituents there are feeling overtaxed and that, each month, there is less money left at the end of the month.

As a government, I hope the Liberals across the aisle will commit to lowering taxes. I know they said they were going to lower it by $300-some by 2023, but on the flip side, they are also going to increase CPP commitments to $600. Therefore, if they are going to lower taxes by around $300 and raise them by $600, that leaves less money in the pockets of Canadians, which is like giving with one hand and taking with the other. Across Regina—Lewvan, people want to see a commitment to making life more affordable for Canadians across the country. The throne speech does mention lowering taxes. I hope that is something the government will commit to and fulfill.

There were a few things that were not in the throne speech, such as Saskatchewan, Alberta, the oil and gas sector and agriculture. These are all important to our constituents in Regina—Lewvan. The fact those words were not in the throne speech speaks volumes.

On election night, I remember watching the Prime Minister say, I am listening. I hear your frustrations in western Canada. I looked through the throne speech to see if he was going to follow through on that commitment and I saw nothing. It totally bypasses western Canada. We sent 14 strong MPs from Saskatchewan and 33 from Alberta. There is not a Liberal who won a seat in those two provinces.

That speaks to the frustration that western Canadians are feeling. They are feeling left out and that their voices are not being heard. I want to make sure I put on the record that their voices will be heard, not by that side but by this side of the House. We will take the concerns of western Canadians seriously and hold the Liberal government to account on following through with some of the commitments it has made.

One of the most important things I hear is that Bill C-69 needs to be amended or repealed, and preferably repealed. The no-more-pipelines bill is devastating our energy sector in western Canada. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are not working in our provinces. That is not because of the weather or anything they can control. It is because of a direct hit from government policies.

That is probably what hurts us in western Canada the most. We are hard, entrepreneurial people. We know that there are some things out of our control. With respect to agriculture, we cannot control the weather. We know that sometimes we cannot control the markets outside of our country. However, when the government can control policy and implements policy that directly affects our livelihoods, it is frustrating for us. There is something to be said for listening to western Canadians. We will ensure that we work hard to hold the government to account.

We are going to ask the government to change policies such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, policies that directly affect families.

There is something that reflects what the government is doing in western Canada. On social media I saw three pictures: The first was of a young couple getting married in 2014 and buying a new house. The second was taking their baby girl to their new home in 2016, and the third is a farewell picture. They have their baby in a stroller standing outside their house and there is a foreclosure sign on the front lawn. That is what many families in western Canada are facing right now.

The fact is that westerners cannot get by. They cannot make the money to provide a stable home for their young families, and it is something that needs to change in Canada. Canada should be a country of aspirations and big dreams, where big projects can get done. That is why we are here. I want to make sure our children realize that Canada can be that country, and it will be. They just need a government that listens. Hopefully in the not too distant future, Conservatives will be on that side to make sure people have the opportunities to succeed.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, congratulations on your role in our Parliament.

In my new role as the shadow minister for northern affairs and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, the one thing I am really concerned about is the lack of focus on the north by the government in the throne speech.

In the throne speech, the best that we got was “in the Far North or along the Canada-U.S. border—all Canadians want to make Canada a better place for themselves, their children and their communities.” That is all we got for the entire northern part of our country. I guess defining the north is difficult, because we are generally north wherever we step foot in any Canadian territory.

Especially in those northern areas, we develop our resources. This is a government that said it is supposedly pro-north, but it is difficult to defend that. I will mention one thing that was very clear. Having a northern development strategy would have been good to hear. A national energy corridor to help get our resources to market would have been a great thing to hear in the throne speech.

A plan to restore ethics and accountability in the government is a general theme that we did not hear about. As the former chair of the ethics committee, I certainly know how lacking the Prime Minister is on that file.

There was also the lack of support for our energy workers, such as building the TMX, repealing Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. We did not hear about those either.

Why does that relate to the north? A lot of the natural resource projects are in the north. All that we have seen, even when we talk about Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, is the Liberals really limit any new development in the northern part of our country.

It is not just the Conservatives who are saying this. We have leaders in the north who have already criticized the Liberal government. I will mention some of those individuals.

Former Nunavut premier Peter Taptuna said, “We do want to be getting to a state where we can make our own determination of our priorities, and the way to do that is gain meaningful revenue from resource development. At the same time, when one potential source of revenue is taken off the table, it puts us back at practically square one where Ottawa will make the decisions for us.”

I am referring to the moratorium on development in the north by the Liberal government. At the time, the leaders in the north were not made aware of that and it was very much a surprise. We have indigenous peoples across the north who want to develop their resources and a good economy for their people and for their benefit. What we saw from the government was a complete stifling of that opportunity.

Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq said, “No one in Nunavut asked for a carbon tax and no one in Nunavut agreed to it.” That is another aspect of what this particular leadership has addressed, which is the effects of the carbon tax on the north.

I live in northern B.C. and the member for Yukon across the way lives where it is a little colder than where I live. One thing I would think the Liberal member across the way can agree on is that heating our homes in the north really is not an option. It is not a luxury and it is not something we can choose not to do. We need to heat our homes just to stay alive in the winter months. That is why the carbon tax especially targets the north unfairly. I would have at least expected some kind of way to mitigate that effect on northern communities. They really have no choice, whether it is transportation or heating their homes.

I am going to mention another leader, Merven Gruben, mayor of the hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk. It is a long quote, but I will read it for the benefit of members today. He said, “I agree the Liberals should be helping us. They shut down our offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across”, and I will use his language, “the whole freaking Arctic without even consulting us.” It might show his anger too with this decision. Obviously, they were expecting to develop those resources to help their people and it was stymied and shut down right there. He further stated, “They never said a word to us.”

Mayor Gruben's colleague said, “It's so easy to sit down here and make judgments on people and lives that are 3,500 klicks away, and make decisions on our behalf, especially with that moratorium on the Beaufort. That should be taken away, lifted, please and thank you. That is going to open up and give jobs to our people—training and all the stuff we're wishing for.”

Merven Gruben also made another key statement, saying, “We're proud people who like to work for a living.”

This is the opportunity they are looking for. They want to develop their resources, yet the government, which is supposed to be supporting the north, seems to be doing everything to get in the way of that development.

Mr. Merven Gruben also said:

I thank God we worked very closely with the Harper government and had the all-weather highway built into Tuk. It opened in November 2017, if some of you haven’t heard, and now we are learning to work with tourism. We all know that’s not the money and work that we were used to in the oil and gas days that we liked.

All that said, we are talking about the throne speech tonight. One thing I have not mentioned yet that alarms us in the north is the lack of a softwood lumber agreement. It is affecting many of the communities across the north.

We talked about gasification and oil and gas and referred a bit to mining, but there are great jobs in the forestry industry as well. There is lots of timber in the north. A lot of areas have not been logged for many years and the timber is sitting there, affecting hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country. It would greatly benefit the north if we signed a softwood lumber agreement. Even a signal from the Liberals that they wanted to get this done would have been appreciated by the folks in my riding and in the north, but we did not even get a signal.

As the House probably remembers, the last time this happened the government at least signalled. Maybe it is better for the Liberals not to say it; maybe that is where they are now. They did not even talk about a softwood lumber agreement.

The last time we heard about it was in 2015. In the first 100 days, the Prime Minister was supposed to sit down with the then President Obama and get a signed, sealed and delivered softwood lumber agreement. That did not happen.

Some have asked what the big deal is. The big deal is that the 20% tariff applied to our Canadian lumber has greatly affected the margins. A couple of years ago when we were making $600 per thousand, it was still profitable, but with the market going down and stumpage rates affecting us in northern British Columbia, the 20% tariff is now really affecting the sale of lumber and timber to our neighbours. Despite this, it was once again ignored by the government.

As a bottom line, the throne speech signals the direction the government is supposed to be going. We do not see a whole lot for the north or the softwood lumber industry. The Liberals are working on language to talk back Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. They seem to be ramping it up. We heard what the Minister of Environment was talking about. There is gas project in B.C., another northern project, and one of the project partners is pulling out. Is that because of the carbon tax in Canada? Is that because of other signals the environment minister has given that the Liberals will not co-operating with that particular project? I do not know.

The bottom line is that Canadians need to work. Canadians in the north, in the file that I now represent, need to work. They need to be able to heat their homes, feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. It is unfortunate that the government does not seem to take that group of Canadians seriously.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for New Brunswick Southwest.

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on putting your name forward, going through the process and on your recent appointment. I also want to thank the voters of Battlefords—Lloydminster. They have given me a strong mandate. They sent me back to Ottawa to represent them to be their voice, the voice of rural communities, the voice of the taxpayers and families.

I know every single one of us in this place would not be here without our supporters, without our volunteers. I want to thank them because they are a very important part of helping us get here.

I am not too sure how many of my colleagues know, but over the summer, my husband and I welcomed a brand new baby girl. It is very important for me to express my thanks to my husband Adam and my children Annabelle and William on the birth of Victoria. Their love and their patience go a long way, especially in the middle of a campaign. We all know how sometimes we are not even home for dinner or sometimes to sleep, especially in a rural riding like mine. It is so big and I have to travel from community to community in order to reach constituents. I also want to honour my family members for their support in my desire and ability to serve in this place and be a voice in the nation. I am so appreciative of that.

On the note of door knocking, I spent a lot of time in the riding over the summer, sometimes with the baby in tow. Two weeks after I had her, I was out at events with baby in tow. The things that I heard at the door were sometimes quite sad. In conversations with people, I would ask how they were doing and they would say, “Well, I haven't been laid off yet. I still have a job. I was laid off six months ago and I found another job but I haven't been laid off from it yet.” That is the anxiety and anguish that is being felt in my riding in Saskatchewan. It is the same thing in Alberta. People genuinely are scared about whether they are going to wake up and go to work and still have a job.

I live in a very unique city. I have mentioned before in this place that my city actually borders Alberta and Saskatchewan. Half of the residents live in Saskatchewan and half of them live in Alberta. It makes it quite a mess because we are one municipality. It gets very difficult when we have different provincial regulations covering one place.

There is a company that employs hundreds if not thousands of people within my riding. The day after the election, October 22, the company laid off 60-some people in my community. That is not including the hundreds of layoffs that happened in Calgary with the same company.

I want to put that into perspective. I do not know if I fully understand going into work one day, thinking it is going to be a normal day and then being told to go home. What kind of conversation would I have with my husband? “Look honey, I was laid off today. I am not sure what we are going to do. I think Christmas is going to look different. I am not sure if we can afford to have the kids in hockey or in dance anymore. Things need to be different.” That is the reality where I live. People, with the struggles that they are dealing with day to day, feel ignored and just wonder if they are going to be able to get by.

The Prime Minister made a point of meeting with the premiers of the provinces. He also met with some of the mayors. The mayor of my community was very proactive. He reached out to my office and asked if we had a number for the Prime Minister because he wanted to talk to him. I found the number for the PMO, gave it to the mayor and he made a call. To his surprise, the Prime Minister called him back.

I am glad that the Prime Minister took the time to call him back. The mayor stressed that it is important for smaller cities to have a voice as well, not just big city mayors, and important that he hear what is impacting them, especially being in a western province like Saskatchewan. The mayor expressed to the Prime Minister the struggles of the people in my community and my region in not being able to get their agriculture products to market, for example, their canola, and not being able to get their energy products to market. The Prime Minister said that he understood.

What was troubling for me is, was that hope? Was it false hope? Was it a facade? Was it real? Was that conversation real and genuine? People today want authenticity. They want to be listened to. They want to be heard, actually heard.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that the government needs to listen harder and that it has been sent a message from Alberta and Saskatchewan that it needs to listen harder. I had a little bit of hope. I thought that this was great and wonderful, and that the government knows something is not right and is going to take the time to listen better and maybe turn some of that listening and consulting into action.

Then came the throne speech, and unless I missed it, I did not hear mention of the Trans Mountain pipeline. I know one thing that would definitely help the constituents in Battlefords—Lloydminster is being able to get gas to market. We heard a lot about the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, and also Bill C-48. Are those bills maybe some of the reasons some people are being laid off, because the atmosphere and environment for energy investment just are not there and it is too restrictive? I did not hear anything in the throne speech on how we are going to help get our oil to market, and maybe lessening the restrictions that have been created in the environment that we have.

Also, what is the government's goal right now to help farmers get their products to market? In my riding, there is a lot of farming, whether it is grain or cattle. Farming is one of those things that is year-round as there is always work to be done, but in the off-season, a lot of those farmers are hauling oil and water. They are trucking. They are doing things to pay the bills while they are not able to actively farm. It was really disappointing to hear that the government understood about not being able to get the beef and the canola to market and then hearing that the agriculture minister missed the deadline to file.

It saddens me because I thought the government was listening harder. I thought, in good faith, that because of those conversations and phone calls the Prime Minister was having with premiers and mayors across the country that something would come out of it. I am so sorry to say that my disappointment with this throne speech is just overwhelming in that real actions were not taken to help reduce and alleviate the western alienation that is happening.

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, we have taken the most comprehensive action. We are protecting our coasts and land masses, we have put a moratorium on tanker traffic along the coast and we have taken the most stringent environmental measures in the resource sector, with Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. We have committed to net zero by 2050, we have committed to the Paris targets and have implemented a price on pollution, which has been scientifically and economically proven to be the best and most effective way to bring our carbon footprint down.

We are on the right track. Canadians accepted that and it is what Canadians are looking for in their government.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the residents of Durham, my constituents, for giving me the honour to rise again in this House in the 43rd Parliament. It is a profound honour for me to represent my hometown in Parliament.

As someone who attended the Churchill Society award dinner honouring David Crombie last week in Toronto, and as the former director of that committee, I am very happy to start my first speech of this session with a quote by Winston Churchill.

It is self-deprecating, because Churchill once said, “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” I have read many books of quotations, not just by Churchill but also by the government and the Prime Minister.

I am going to seize upon one of the quotes from the throne speech, which I actually took away in a positive sense. The throne speech ended with a remarkable passage by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's speech at the opening of the Centennial Flame, just beside us in West Block, which read:

Tonight we begin a new chapter in our country’s story. Let the record of that chapter be one of co-operation and not conflict; of dedication and not division; of service, not self...

The irony is that speech was kicking off our centennial year, lighting a centennial flame using natural gas from Canada. I am not sure that irony was found by the Prime Minister's Office when it chose that aspirational quote, but that was how people celebrated. The Centennial Flame has all of our provinces and territories, now including Nunavut, around it and is burning Canadian natural gas, allowing that fountain to burn throughout the coldest winters in Ottawa.

Earlier in that speech, Pearson complimented our industrial capacity and our resourcefulness as a country. Sometimes we have to ask what was said before the quote that the government used for its throne speech. In the same speech, kicking off the celebration of Canadian natural gas in many ways, Pearson said:

Economically, we have become a rich society and a great industrial power. We have built new dimensions of progress and welfare into the Canadian way of life. The boundaries of freedom and opportunity have been expanded for every Canadian.

That was Lester B. Pearson's remark, speaking about the balance that Canada had been able to have by being resourceful, tapping our natural resources and being industrial, celebrating our industrial sectors, in order to provide for the welfare of the country.

One thing people on this side of the House have been saying, both through the first term of the Prime Minister and this one, and what is missing in the throne speech, is recognizing the economic diversity of this country. There is no mention of the serious national unity issues we are facing as a result of the Prime Minister and the Liberal government's opposition to our resource sector in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and beyond. There is not one mention of it. This is unlike Pearson who actually understood that resourcefulness, industry and celebrating it, the hard work of Canadians allowing us to have new dimensions of progress for the welfare of our people.

The Premier of Alberta is in Ottawa today. Alberta has been very proud to share not just that wealth with the rest of the country as part of the resourcefulness of its industry, but at times, when the auto industry was struggling in my province, more manufacturing jobs in Ontario were attributable to our western resource industry than into auto assembly. When our national economy was struggling, the global recession, it was actually our resource economy that allowed us to lead the G7. That is allowing new dimensions of progress, embracing that.

The Prime Minister and his whole cabinet should read the entire Pearson speech, not just cherry-pick some aspirational sections. We need a Prime Minister who does not divide the country.

The disappointment and the frustration we see in many parts of the country are the direct result of the Prime Minister hindering the progress of provinces already struggling with global resource prices, a range of issues, pipeline challenges. They have seen a government that has had policy decision after policy decision holding them back. That is how the Prime Minister started.

I spoke about this in my speech four years ago, in January, 2016. I spoke about how disappointed I was that the Prime Minister talked about diversity except for recognizing the economic diversity that our country had. In the Prime Minister's first speech abroad as the Canadian prime minister, at Davos in January 2016, he said, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

What was disturbing was that only a few minutes after he went to an international forum, he essentially attacked his predecessor. What mades it worse was afterward the Prime Minister's Office changed the speech to take out the reference the Prime Minister made to his predecessor and to just put “Canada” in the quote in the official record. We know press releases often will say “check against delivery”. The Prime Minister delivered something that he should not have delivered. More important than the slight against the previous prime minister was the fact that he mocked the resource industry in Canada in his first remark at Davos. That is division.

I said at the outset that I was going to look to quotations for guidance much like the throne speech used in the Pearson speech. Here is a quote I used four years ago, which rings even more true today, from Robert Stanfield in March, 1969. He said, “Let us be quite clear that national unity does not mean uniting most of Canada against part of it.” What wise words when the division in the country at that time was caused by a Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau, and I can say that safely in the House.

We see that in practice from the present Prime Minister from his first speech at Davos, playing off resourcefulness and the resource sector as if steam-assisted gravity drainage and the ability of our oil sands to minimize the mining operations, minimize water usage and minimize greenhouse gas, those innovations somehow did not count to the Prime Minister.

The resourcefulness of our resource sector and the capital markets that developed in Canada as a result of our resources have given us the new dimensions of welfare that Lester Pearson talked about on the eve of Canada's centennial.

What has the Prime Minister done in four years to cause this national unity crisis?

After the Davos speech, there was the cancellation, unilaterally, of northern gateway; no consultations with the one-third owners, indigenous communities; and zero consultations before taking that opportunity away from them. There was the cancellation of energy east as a result of Bill C-69, which is still being brought up in question period today. Why? Because the majority of the country opposed that legislation, including my premier. With respect to Trans Mountain, the company withdrew because of a lack of confidence in Canada. We had Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, and the 2016 Arctic ban where unilaterally the Prime Minister took away 17% of the landmass from Inuit and northerners to develop.

In fact, previous Liberal Senator Charlie Watt said this about the Prime Minister's unilateral action in Washington:

There have never been clear consultations. As a matter of fact, when the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada made that decision, we were not too happy. Without even coming to us, they just turned around and said, “This is what's going to happen.”

That is not exactly reconciliation.

We can see why Canadians are upset. What is missing from the Throne Speech is a recognition that Canada can and must balance our economic diversity. This means getting our resources to market. It means prioritizing pipelines. It means ending the divisive Bill C-69. That is what we want to see from the Prime Minister.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that for countries like Canada to transition to a low-emissions green economy, we need to have the revenue to do it. Countries with smaller GDPs have a harder time converting to green economies because they just do not have the ability to invest in sustainable technologies.

We had one of the most comprehensive environmental platforms ever tabled by a political party in the history of this country. It was not just a tax on soccer parents; it was a very comprehensive plan. It had some very good things in it. For example, it talked about the green home tax credit, which would affect millions of Canadians and incentivize them to make our homes more fuel efficient. It talked about taking the climate change globally, that a molecule of carbon does not know borders.

What I am saying is that balanced budgets, growing our economy and getting harsh bills like Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill, and Bill C-48 out of the way so we can get our products to market will provide our economy with the strength it needs to make that conversion.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. I look forward to those remarks as well.

I cannot begin without thanking the constituents of Calgary Midnapore for sending me here again. I am so very overjoyed to be back in the House representing them. I am truly grateful.

My parents are my constituents, so my mom is probably watching. I promise to be extra good in the House at this time.

I am very sad for my family today. My mother is from Quebec and my father is from Saskatchewan. It is not uncommon for Canadian families to have one parent from the west and the other from the east. We heard a similar story on the other side of the House last week. Families becoming divided has become a Canadian story, and that is very sad. We are divided because the other side of the House spent the past four years playing all kinds of political games. The government split us right in half. It pit regions against one another. That is truly sad.

My region, the west, and more specifically Alberta, where the energy sector has no support, obviously comes to mind. Also coming to mind are several bills, such as Bill C-69, which makes it practically impossible to start new projects. There is Bill C-48, which makes it practically impossible to build a pipeline and transport oil. That is very sad. The carbon tax is another example. Bills that impede the energy sector have serious consequences on families and individuals. Bills like these are completely destroying families and people's lives. The government claims to want to eliminate poverty, but it is actually creating poverty with these kinds of bills.

On more than one occasion, the Prime Minister has said one thing to one part of the country and the opposite to another. The President of the United States called that behaviour “two-faced”. The President of the United States and Canadians have seen those two faces.

With the Speech from the Throne, the Prime Minister had an opportunity to put the country on a new path. Sadly, he let that opportunity pass him by. However, he had previously taken certain steps in that direction. He specifically appointed a minister of provincial relations. He held numerous meetings with various provincial premiers. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister promised to listen carefully to what the premiers had to say. The Speech from the Throne would have been the perfect opportunity to prove that they had listened. Unfortunately, the speech shows nothing of the kind. The situation is different from what it was before the election.

There were words, but not much was said. There were platitudes, like talking about the good of our community and clichés such as “no challenges are too big.” There were also false attempts to show empathy and understanding for regions. There were parts of the speech that said that as much as Canadians had instructed us to work together, they had also spoken clearly about the the importance of their regions and their local needs.

What did Canadians say when they spoke? Did they say how their father had not been able to find a job in three years because the corporation he was working for left because of instability due to political regulations? Did they say how their neighbours could not get out of a deep depression because they had spent their entire retirement savings on just surviving? Did they say that they sent a suicide note to their member of Parliament because they had absolutely given up hope of ever finding a job?

We do not know, and we will never know, because it was not in the Speech from the Throne.

The speech said that regional needs and differences really mattered. Today's regional economic concerns are both justified and important. However, in what year on the planetary spacecraft will Canada's energy workers get an apology from the Prime Minister; when he sheds a tear for those who have committed suicide because they are completely destitute or for the women and children who have been beaten because, after years of not having a job, dad finally snapped? What year on this spaceship is that? Is that when we will know that regional differences really matter? For now, we do not, because the speech does not say so.

This was the opportunity to demonstrate action, and if not action, true understanding, and if not true understanding, at least respect. It would not have taken much: a timeline for the TMX pipeline or a promise to look into the national energy corridor. However, it was not there.

We can pretend that the world is simple and that the solutions to Canada's problems need not be complex or detailed, but that is not true. We can pretend that we do not need one another and that we are not dependent on one another, but that is not true either. Anyone who denies those facts will suffer for it eventually, even if they refuse to acknowledge it today.

This is not the way of Albertans.

What a great day to be in the House, the day when my predecessor and now premier, the incomparable, the Hon. Jason Kenney, is here to get a fair deal for Alberta. He brings with him my counterpart, minister of children's services and MLA for Calgary-Shaw, Rebecca Schulz. Together Minister Schulz and I will work tirelessly for the children of this nation.

We Albertans love Canada. We have always been proud to work hard and to share the fruits of our labour with the nation, to do our part for Confederation. We have never told others how to live their lives or that their way of life is not welcome in our country.

We will not let the Prime Minister divide us and we will not let the government push us out of Confederation. We will not allow that to happen. The government had an opportunity to do something profound, to say something profound and to unify, and it did not.

That is why I am sad today. I am a woman from Alberta. My mother is from Quebec and my father is from Saskatchewan. I am here for unity. I am here for Canada. Unfortunately, the throne speech is not.

[Michelle Rempel Garner, Calgary Nose Hill, CPC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my constituents in the riding Calgary Nose Hill for giving me a very clear mandate to do one thing: to stand up for them, fight for them and their voice here in this place.

I received the mandate of over 70%. I went door to door. People who I know had voted Liberal or NDP in the past looked me in the eye and we had a serious conversation at the door. They told me that they had never voted Conservative before, but they were going to vote for me because it was really bad. They needed me to fight for them. My way of thanking them is not just saying it here. It is to do that, to fight for them every day.

To the 98 new members of Parliament in this place, I want to talk about what it is like at home. I want to talk to them about what it is like to have 175,000 people who work in the primary industry of their province suddenly out of work, in a very short period of time. It is not because of commodity prices, as the Prime Minister so glibly said this morning. I will get to that. It is because of policies that were set here.

What we do here reflects on how people live in every part of the country. What happened in the last Parliament for the people in my riding meant trauma, suicide, homes lost, jobs lost and families lost. What we do here matters. I will fight for the people in my riding.

Right now in my province we are seeing some of the highest unemployment rates in the country sustained. It is happening and not because of commodity prices. If it were because of commodity prices, then why is the United States doing so well with its natural resource sector? It is because of instability and political decisions that have made it impossible for the energy sector to sustain employment. That is why. It is because of the decisions made here.

In 2017, Alberta's suicide rate was 14.9 per 100,000 people, just over three points higher than the rest of Canada. That is up really high. In 2016, there was a project by the Calgary Police Service called “Operation Northern Spotlight”. It was to help sex workers in the city. Let me read a story.

A woman who entered the sex trade in 2016, and it has gotten worse since then, said, “I never thought I would be here. I never thought I would have to hide from my family, telling them that my cleaning job runs late every night. I am here because this would have been an easy $350. I had a great job, then the jobs crisis hit and I got laid off. Two weeks later, my husband lost his job as well. The bills did not stop coming.” The problems have not stopped in my riding.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

We sit here, and yesterday's throne speech was a slap in the face. I got scrummed in the media yesterday. I heard, “It was more of a tone-setting document.” If it were a tone-setting document, it was tone-deaf for every person in my riding. It did not say anything about what the government was going to do to reverse the policies that create the instability that puts the people in my riding out of work. That needs to change.

If we are not willing to change that, then what is happening in my province is going to continue to grow. My province is saying it does not see itself in this country, our country does not have our back, and asking why it should be part of it. It will continue to fester. It is because of the decisions that are being made to put the people in my riding out of work.

People in this place say that it is a dirty industry and that the province should diversify its way out. Then they go fill up their car with Saudi oil, while they drink their kale smoothie with its component parts imported from California, while they promote their industry, like aerospace, with planes that create greenhouse gas emissions, or the auto sector, with cars that create greenhouse gas emissions, or while they go to Walmart and buy a cheap Chinese T-shirt that is created where there are the some of the highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

They are hypocrites. Anybody who says that the people in my riding have dirty jobs and do not have the right to work is a hypocrite, because nobody is willing to take climate action individually in this country. They are putting the entire responsibility on the people in my riding and saying that it is good, that this is what it is going to take to get this job done, and it will not.

The people in my province have a right to work. They have a right to prosper. I am sick and tired of this debate. Nothing on climate change is happening while my province and the people in it bear the entire cost and responsibility, and we do nothing. It has to stop.

I am going to tell you one thing, Mr. Speaker: It is going to stop one way or another. One way or another, it is coming to a head.

To everybody in here who thinks that what is happening in my province is just a separatist movement, just a few fringe people, I say that it is not just a fringe. People do not feel that they have a place in this country. They do not feel like they have a fair deal. Do colleagues know what they see? They see the hypocrisy that I just mentioned. They see a Prime Minister who fights for jobs with SNC-Lavalin and stands alleged of bribing Moammar Gadhafi's son with prostitutes. They see the former fisheries minister signing special deals over clam fishing that brought him ethics commission violations. They see scandal after scandal, special deal after special deal.

Then there are the people who say that people in their riding have been out of work. In Alberta, there are 175,000 people.

I do not know how many lobster fishers there are in this country, but when something happens to fisheries, we get angry. We all do here. We say that we have to fix this. They cannot stay out of work. When something happens in the auto sector, we do not say that cars create greenhouse gas emissions and we should just let that industry die. We do something about it.

When has it become acceptable to let an entire province's industry die while the rest of the country looks like a hypocrite? It has to stop. Otherwise, we will face a national unity crisis. We are in one.

I want to let the people in this House know what that looks like. The premier of my province is rightly talking about a fair deal for Alberta, and autonomy, and I support him in that.

Here is what Alberta opting out of the CPP looks like. We are the net contributor to the CPP in the country. Having higher premiums across the country means that people will not be able to retire until later ages, and that is because the Prime Minister has put them in this position.

We need to scrap Bill C-69. We need to scrap Bill C-48 and we need to understand the wealth that the energy sector creates. It creates receptor capacity for clean technology. It displaces energy from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and if we are talking about transition and climate change, Canadian energy and what my province does are at the heart of that equation. It should not be killed. Why would we kill the heart of what Canada can contribute to when it comes to this?

Enough is enough. I will stand here for however long this Parliament lasts. I will stand up for the rights of my province because that is why I am here. Colleagues stand up and give their thanks for having been sent here, but I was not sent here to just collect a salary or stand up and just seal-clap and vote. Constituents sent us here to fight.

I am going to fight for my province and the people of my riding. If that means saying we need more autonomy and we need the equalization payment formula looked at, then I will do that. If everybody here says that they will not do that, that they will not give my province a fair deal, then I am going to tell them right now that the people in my province are going to say enough is enough. The choice is for every single person in this House. It starts here and it ends here.

I implore the people in the House to realize that what was in that throne speech was not good enough. It is not going to cut it. It is not going to fix it. It is going to take smart, tough conversations; otherwise, it is over.

My colleague from Malpeque just made an appeal for unity, and I want to tell him this: I am not here and the people on this side of the House are not here to make life politically expedient for the Liberals in a minority situation. We are here to fight for the people of our provinces, and our provinces are Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, B.C., Ontario, and every part of this country that sees Alberta as a strong part of Confederation. We will not let this continue.

I ask people who are watching today to support me by signing petition e-2303 at e2303.ca, which would send a message to every person in the House to do just that. Let us talk about setting a tone. It is time for Alberta to have a fair deal.

Address in Reply

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise here today in the House of Commons to represent the interests of Regina—Wascana. Canada is more divided than ever before. Deep cracks are showing in our confederation. Under the Liberals, our economy has been bleeding jobs, particularly in the natural resources sector. The Prime Minister has overseen the cancellation of more than $100 billion in investment in energy projects, largely because of concerns over the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, and the tanker ban bill, Bill C-48.

A spokesperson for the Montreal Economic Institute said recently, “People are giving up on Canada as a safe place to invest in natural resources.... It's seen as a very hostile environment now”.

People in my riding and my province of Saskatchewan are concerned that no one in the Liberal government is listening. There is absolutely nothing concrete in today's throne speech to address these very real concerns. Can the member opposite please tell the House what the government will do to repair the damage that it has done to the resource sector and to national unity?

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, let me say, as I probably rise for the last time in this Parliament, how honoured I am to represent the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, how much I have learned from my colleagues here, but also how invigorated I am by the greatness of this country and my commitment to work hard for the people I represent.

As I join this debate today, I feel compelled to make a few observations. To be clear, Canada did not ask to be put in this position. However, as we know, the U.S. election resulted in a new administration, with a mandate, among other things, to renegotiate NAFTA. That is where all of this started.

I think we can all agree that this particular renegotiated agreement resulted in an outcome that is less than ideal, but of course, it could have been much worse. Many concessions were made, and we still have unresolved issues, such as the lack of a deal for Canadian softwood lumber, something that is critically important to my riding.

Ultimately, it is not a secret that the official opposition will be supporting this deal. Unlike the third party, we do believe it is better than no deal. However, that does not mean that there are not some lessons to be learned here.

To me, it is deeply troubling that the Prime Minister went into these negotiations with his usual theme of demanding things that are all about building his brand and appealing to his base of supporters. In other words, the Prime Minister thought he saw an opportunity to score some political points and feed the brand. This is not unlike what he tried to do when he approached China.

In both cases, he failed miserably. Why would he not fail miserably? Would we as Canadians accept another leader trying to push his or her own values onto us? We simply would not accept that. What nation would? However, that is precisely what the Prime Minister attempted to to. Some may call this arrogance. Whatever we call it, it was easily foreseeable that it was a path to failure.

However, the Prime Minister did not care and went about his virtue-signalling anyway, so we ended up on the sidelines: Canada, a world leader, on the sidelines. There we were, on the sidelines with our biggest trading partner, while Mexico was in the driver's seat, getting the deal done.

Here is the thing. Mexico did get it done. Let us look at its approach. Mexico did not use the trade negotiations as some sort of domestic political opportunity to score points. Mexico did not use this as an opportunity for virtue-signalling. Mexico did not have a lead minister giving a speech within the United States of America that took veiled potshots at the U.S. administration. Mexico discussed issues related to trade and did so professionally. It is easy to see why that approach worked so well for it.

Our approach, led by the Prime Minister, was a complete failure. It did not have to be that way. I can tell colleagues that, on this side of the House, we would have taken a much different approach. I am actually quite confident that there are members on the government side of the House, whom I have worked with at various committees, who I suspect would have also taken a much different approach. I believe it is important to reflect on these things so that we can learn from them.

Canada should never again be in a situation where we are sitting on the sidelines with our greatest trading partner, while Mexico is driving the bus. I hope that is one thing we can all agree on. Perhaps that is why we are now hearing the name of Mark Carney, because there are other Liberals who feel the same way.

Now we have a new deal. Whether it is called the new NAFTA, NAFTA 0.5, USMCA, CUSMA, or whatever, there is something we should all think about. Recently, Jack Mintz wrote a very good piece on investment fleeing Canada. Members who have read the article would know that it debunks some Liberal talking points that had been carefully cherry-picked.

As an example, yes, investment in Canada was up in 2018. However, that sounds good until we consider that it was up from 2017, and 2017 was an absolute disaster of a year. Even in 2018, it was still below where things were in 2015. Yes, I mean that 2015.

Yes, investment in the U.S.A. is down, but that is outside investment. There is a large increase in U.S. domestic capital now staying in the United States. This means it is not coming to Canada.

Why should we care about that? Let us look at our automotive sector. Yes, there is still some investment in Canada, but there is considerably more occurring in the United States and Mexico. Mexico, in particular, has been a hot spot for automotive investment. Let us think about that. Mexico has no carbon tax. It has no new and enhanced CPP causing premiums and payroll taxes to increase every month. Much of its industrial power is cheap, and I would even say it is dirty.

CUSMA does more to address some of those issues than the NAFTA deal it replaces, but we also have to recognize that foreign investment in Canada is not the rose garden the Liberals are trying to suggest it is. This is a deal among three countries. If we become the most expensive, most regulated and most inefficient country to do business in, we lose collectively as a country.

The Prime Minister can continue to be virtuous. He can continue to ask people to pay just a little bit more. He can continue to lecture others for not sharing his values. However, at the end of the day, none of those things are going to attract the investment we need to make the most of this deal.

While we are on the subject of trade, I note that last week, during question period in this place, the Prime Minister vilified former prime minister Harper close to a dozen times. As the Liberals' good friend Warren Kinsella recently pointed out, the Prime Minister is looking “for an enemy to demonize”.

I mention that because the former Conservative government of Mr. Harper concluded more free trade agreements than any prime minister in the modern era. It is not as if the Liberals, or the Prime Minister, would be unaware of this, because they sat in this place during the last Parliament and voted in support of all those new trade agreements, yet the Prime Minister turns around and vilifies the former prime minister, who has a demonstrably more successful record on trade agreements.

However, perhaps that is preferable to talking about the lack of progress on Canadian softwood. I looked up on the Open Parliament website how many times the Prime Minister has even mentioned the word “softwood”. The answer is 18 times since 2016. The vast majority of those times were only because he was answering questions on softwood lumber asked by the opposition.

How many times has he referenced Stephen Harper? It is 190 times, and it will probably be more than 200 after today's question period. With the Prime Minister's priorities so focused on vilifying Mr. Harper instead of focusing on softwood lumber, is it any wonder he has made zero progress on this file?

Why do I point this out? I point this out because lumber mills are closing all across British Columbia at an alarming rate. My riding has lost lumber mills. I know first-hand what that does to a small rural community. It is devastating. However, there is complete silence from the Prime Minister regarding softwood lumber unless he is asked about it by the opposition in this place. Why? Maybe it is because he is too busy vilifying Mr. Harper.

In my view, that is not acceptable. B.C. forest workers deserve better. They deserve to know that they have a prime minister in Ottawa working to reach a softwood lumber deal.

I sometimes wonder whether, if Mexico had a vibrant softwood lumber sector, we would now have a deal done by extension as well. It is clear that Mexico has a more effective track record in these negotiations than the brand-first approach of the Prime Minister.

To summarize, we did not ask to be in this situation, clearly. However, I believe the approach taken by the Prime Minister to try to use this as a political opportunity was deeply flawed and made a bad situation worse.

Again, as evidence of that, I say to look no further than the approach taken by Mexico and the success that it had while we sat on the sidelines.

I have raised this point with ministers of the Crown. They told us that the meetings between the United States and Mexico were simply on bilateral issues that had nothing to do with Canada. However, they came out with a trilateral agreement, and Canada had a take-it-or-leave-it moment.

Despite the many concessions that the Prime Minister has made on this file, we can still make the most of it, but only if we recognize that we need to be more competitive. We have a regulatory environment in which things can get done in Canada. Many people have raised alarm bells, particularly the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and not just about the lack of investment but also the ability to get things done.

The Leader of the Opposition today clearly asked the Prime Minister several times for the date for the Trans Mountain pipeline. The Prime Minister promised the Trans Mountain pipeline, one of the most important projects on the deck and one of the only ones on the deck, would go forward to help build the national interest, but the Prime Minister cannot give a date.

Originally, the Liberals said that it would be operating this calendar year. Again, I would submit that one need to look no further than the Trans Mountain pipeline as evidence as to where the challenges are. It has been four years, and still there is not a shovel in the ground. The fact that the Liberal government had to buy the project to save Kinder Morgan from the embarrassment of not being able to build it in a timely manner is all part of the problem. The fact that today even the government has serious challenges in trying to navigate the process to get it done is telling. Does anyone seriously believe that Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 will make it easier to invest in Canada?

The Prime Minister says that tankers can operate totally safely in one part of British Columbia and in other parts of Canada, but are so dangerous in another part of British Columbia that they must be banned. Does anyone seriously think that makes sense? In fact, a number of the senators in the other place have commented on the lack of scientific evidence on Bill C-48. The committee that studied it in depth recommended that the bill not proceed.

The approaches of the current government do not reconcile. These are the types of mixed messages that are just not helpful. However, I remain hopeful that we can become more competitive and that as we move forward, we can ultimately try to fully capitalize on this agreement despite the many concessions.

I would like to close on a more positive note, and I will add a few positive observations.

As we have established many times and in many areas, Canada and Canadians can compete and succeed against the very best in the world. As legislators, it is our job to ensure that they have a level playing field and unrestricted market access to do so. Therefore, I will vote in favour of this agreement as, ultimately, it will provide these opportunities.

However, I must say one more time that until we have full, unfettered free trade within Canada's borders, we are, as a country, not owning up to the promise of Confederation, and that falls on us. It falls upon the provinces that have not allowed Canada to become not just a political union but an economic one.

This will be my last speech in the 42nd Parliament, and I would like to share a few words on a personal note.

We all share the collective honour of being elected members of this place, and our families all share the sacrifice for the many times that we cannot be there for them. It is my hope that our families, particularly our young ones, understand that in this place our collective desire to build a better country starts and ends with them. I would like thank all families of parliamentarians for their understanding and support.

I would also like to share a word with other members of this place. It is so unfortunate that much of the work we do here is often summarized by many Canadians as what transpires in question period. Much of the most important work that we do collectively happens at committee.

On that note, I would like to sincerely thank the many members I have worked with on various committees. Everyone I have worked with shares the same commitment to help ensure that the federal government provides the best level of governance possible. We may disagree on programs, projects and approaches, but I have found that we share a commitment to making these programs work best for Canadians.

A final point I would like to make should not be lost by any of us. The former Conservative government introduced a program to provide supports for kids directly to their parents. At the time, the Liberal opposition mocked it, ridiculed it, and suggested that parents would simply blow the money they received on beer and popcorn, but when the Liberals formed their majority government in 2015, they did not kill that program. Liberals saw the merits of it and saw that it was working so they made improvements to it, and now it is working even more effectively. I wish to commend them yet again for that.

That is an example of two very different governments coming up with a program and finding ways to improve it to ensure that it helps support Canadian families.

Trade is similar. After all, we are a nation of traders. We need to have these things that make us collectively prosper, that allow us to build stronger ties and relationships and provide the security and the sense of certainty that it takes for someone to start a business or for a country to get behind a new program. These are great examples of the work that we do when we are here on behalf of Canadians.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the time you spend in the chair. I am sure there are many different ways you would rather spend your time than listening to me, but I do appreciate the work you do and I am sure my constituents do as well. I look forward to the challenges in the upcoming months and in the questions and comments I will hear from my fellow colleagues.

Motion in relation to Senate amendments

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It being 8:05 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-48 now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have travelled throughout this entire country and recognize that there are extraordinary, beautiful places across this country that we all want to see stewarded carefully. When it comes to the environment, when it comes to this bill and when we are talking about the impact this bill will have on the environment, Bill C-48 will do nothing more to preserve the area off the northwest coast of British Columbia than is already being done.

Ships, including U.S. tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington state, will still continue to be able to travel up and down the coast just outside of the 100-kilometre limit. There already is a voluntary moratorium in place. It is being observed. It has been there for three decades. The bill is nothing but symbolism. It is not going to preserve that northwest coast any more than what is already being done through the voluntary moratorium. All it is doing is putting a moratorium on Canada's Alberta oil sands.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise to continue my response to the government's motion on the Senate amendments to Bill C-48.

As I said yesterday, I, along with millions of other Canadians, would rather that Bill C-48 be consigned to the dustbin of bad ideas. I read aloud the letter from six premiers that highlights the damage Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 are doing to our national unity. I left off quoting testimony from indigenous leaders and elected representatives on this and other bills, which underscored the hypocrisy of the government's claim to consult.

I will pick up there, considering the backdrop of Liberal attacks on the Canadian oil and gas industry, and share some of the testimony, much from first nations leaders, that the transport committee heard when we studied this bill. These are not my words. These are not the words of the Leader of the Opposition or any of my colleagues. These are the words of Canadians who, day in and day out, are working hard to provide good jobs and economic growth while maintaining a healthy environment.

Ms. Nancy Bérard-Brown, manager of oil markets and transportation with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said:

CAPP did not support the proposed moratorium because it is not based on facts or science. There were no science-based gaps identified in safety or environmental protection that might justify a moratorium.

Mr. Chris Bloomer, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said:

The proposed oil tanker moratorium act, Bill C-48, is yet another change that will compound uncertainty and negatively impact investor confidence in Canada....

In conclusion, the consequences of potentially drastic policy changes for future energy projects have instilled uncertainty within the regulatory system, adding additional risks, costs, and delays for a sector that the Prime Minister publicly acknowledged has built Canada's prosperity and directly employs more than 270,000 Canadians.

The approach to policy-making represented by the development of Bill C-48 contributes to this uncertainty and erodes Canada's competitiveness.

Commenting on the practical, or rather impractical, ramifications of this bill, Mr. Peter Xotta, vice-president of planning and operations for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, said the following on what this bill could mean for the west coast transportation corridor:

With regard to Bill C-48, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority assumes that government understands the potential economic impact for such a moratorium, given that there are very few suitable locations, particularly on the west coast, for movement of petroleum products, as was articulated by my associate from Prince Rupert.

Notwithstanding the fact that any future proposals would be subject to government's rigorous environmental and regulatory review process, this moratorium could create pressure on the southwest coast of British Columbia to develop capacity for future energy projects.

As I said earlier, there were many first nations representatives who gave testimony at committee. Ms. Eva Clayton, president of Nisga'a Lisims Government, said:

In the weeks that preceded the introduction of Bill C-48, we urged that the moratorium not be enforced before further consultation took place and that the moratorium should not cover our treaty area.

Much to our surprise, Bill C-48 was introduced before we had been offered an opportunity to review the detailed approach that the government decided to take, nor were we able to comment on the implications of the proposed legislation on the terms and shared objectives of our treaty even though the area subject to the moratorium includes all of Nisga'a Lands, all of the Nass area, and all coastal areas of our treaty....

We aspire to become a prosperous and self-sustaining nation that can provide meaningful economic opportunities for our people. This aspiration is reflected in our treaty, which sets out the parties' shared commitment to reduce the Nisga'a Nation's reliance on federal transfers over time. The Nisga'a Nation takes this goal very seriously. However, it stands to be undermined by Bill C-48.

Mr. Calvin Helin, chairman and president of Eagle Spirit Energy Holding Ltd., stated:

In that context, first nations people, particularly the 30-plus communities that have supported our project, have told us that they do not like outsiders, particularly those they view as trust-fund babies coming into the traditional territories they've governed and looked after for over 10,000 years and dictating government policy in their territory.

Mr. Dale Swampy, coordinator of Aboriginal Equity Partners, stated:

We are here to oppose the tanker ban. We have worked hard and diligently. Our 31 first nation chiefs and Métis leaders invested a lot of time and resources to negotiate with northern gateway with the prospect of being able to benefit from the project, to be able to get our communities out of poverty.

Please listen to how Mr. John Helin, mayor of the Lax Kw'alaams Band, identified those who support the oil tanker ban. He said:

What we're asking is, what is consultation? It has to be meaningful. It can't be a blanket moratorium.

If you look at our traditional territory and the Great Bear Rainforest, that was established without consultation with members from my community. The picture that was taken when they announced that, it was NGOs from America standing there trumpeting that accomplishment. We can't let people from outside our communities, NGOs and well-funded organizations that are against oil and gas or whatever they're against come in and dictate in our territories what we should and should not do.

In contrast to Mr. Helin's comments, Ms. Caitlyn Vernon, campaigns director for the Sierra Club of British Columbia, a witness who supports this bill, actually let the cat out of the bag in response to a question, when she said:

on the south coast, tankers pose a huge risk to the economy, communities, wildlife, the southern residents, and endangered orca whales that live in the Salish Sea.... Absolutely, I would support a full-coast moratorium.

Mr. Ken Veldman, director of public affairs for the Prince Rupert Port Authority put the views of Ms. Vernon, and others like her, including, I would point out, members of this House in the NDP, the Bloc, the Green Party and likely even the Liberal Party, in perspective when he said:

As you may imagine, there are a wide variety of opinions as to what's acceptable risk and what isn't. However, the reality is that risk can be quantified, and if you're looking to achieve zero risk, then you're correct that zero transportation is really the only way to achieve that.

That said, if our appetite for risk is zero, that has very broad ramifications for shipping off the coast in general.

When speaking to our committee this spring, Captain Sean Griffiths, chief executive officer of the Atlantic Pilotage Authority, also reflected on the impact of an oil tanker moratorium on the Atlantic Canadian economy. He stated:

Twelve of our 17 ports in Atlantic Canada ship large volumes of oil and petroleum products in and out of port. I can imagine it's a way of life back in the east, and it has been for quite some time. We move a lot of oil in and out of our ports. Placentia Bay alone, for instance, has 1,000 to 1,100 tanker movements every year on average, so a moratorium would, I'm sure, devastate the region.

Bill C-48, along with Bill C-88, and the no-more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, paint a pattern of a government and a Prime Minister obsessed with politicizing and undermining our energy resources sector at every turn. Whether it be through legislation, the carbon tax, the cancellation of the northern gateway and energy east pipelines or the continued bungling of the Trans Mountain expansion, which we heard today the Liberals have approved yet again, the current Prime Minister has proven, at every turn, that he is an opponent of our natural resources sector. If the government was serious about the environment and the economy going hand in hand, it would implement real changes.

Hypothetically speaking, let us look at some the changes the government might make. It could use scientific independent studies to further strengthen our world-leading tanker safety system by making changes that would not only protect our domestic waters but the waters of any country with which we trade. It could require all large crude oil tankers operating in Canadian waters to have a double hull, since a double hull has two complete watertight layers of surface and is much safer. It could even go a step further and inspect every foreign tanker on its first visit to a Canadian port and annually thereafter, holding those tankers to the same standards as Canadian-flagged vessels.

This hypothetical government could also expand the national aerial surveillance program and extend long-term funding. It could increase surveillance efforts in coastal areas, including in northern British Columbia. It could ensure that the aerial surveillance program was given access to remote sensing equipment capable of identifying potential spills from satellite images.

This theoretical government could give more power to the Canadian Coast Guard to respond to incidents and establish an incident command system. It could amend legislation to provide alternate response measures, such as the use of chemical dispersants and burning spilled oil during emergencies, and could clarify the Canadian Coast Guard's authority to use and authorize these measures when there was likely to be a net environmental benefit.

It could create an independent tanker safety expert panel to receive input from provincial governments, aboriginal groups and marine stakeholders and then implement the changes recommended by this panel. It could focus on preventing spills in the first place and cleaning them up quickly if they did occur, while making sure that polluters pay.

Hypothetically, the government could modernize Canada's marine navigation system and have Canada take a leadership role in implementing e-navigation in our tankers while supporting its implementation worldwide. This is doubly important, since e-navigation reduces the risk of an oil spill by providing accurate real-time information on navigation hazards, weather and ocean conditions to vessel operators and marine authorities, thereby minimizing the potential for incidents.

It could establish new response planning partnerships for regions that have or are expected to have high levels of tanker traffic, such as the southern portion of British Columbia, Saint John and the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Port Hawkesbury in Nova Scotia, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Quebec. It could work to develop a close partnership with each of these regions, including with local aboriginal communities, to develop responses to the unique challenges facing their tanker traffic.

This theoretical government could strengthen the polluter pay regime by introducing legislative and regulatory amendments that would remove the ship-source oil pollution fund per incident liability limit and ensure that the full amount was available for any incident. It could ensure that compensation was provided to eligible claimants while recovering these costs from industry through a levy. As well, it could extend compensation so that those who lost earnings due to an oil spill would be compensated even if their property had not been directly affected.

All these changes could be done by a government that actually cared about protecting the environment and continuing to grow the economy. Wait a minute. We are not talking about a hypothetical government. Every single one of the changes I just mentioned was brought in by the previous Conservative government. Unlike the Liberal government, we listened to the experts, which empowered us to make real, practical changes that made a difference.

While Liberals vacillate between paralysis and empty, economically damaging, virtue-signalling legislation, Conservatives look for real solutions. Case in point, the Liberal government is so preoccupied with appearances that it just finished its third round of approving a pipeline supported by over 60% of British Columbia residents.

I read the quote earlier by some who support this legislation. Some would like to see a complete prohibition on oil movement.

This ideological oil tanker moratorium, as I have said, is not based on science. We know that. That is why, frankly, we did not propose any amendments when this bill was before the transport committee. We did not believe that this bill was redeemable, and I still do not. There was a brief moment of hope for me when the Senate committee recommended that the bill not proceed. Sadly, that hope was short-lived.

This brings us to today and the motion that is the basis of our debate. I will take a few minutes to outline my thoughts on the government's response to the Senate's amendments to the Liberals' terrible bill.

Last week, the Senate voted on three amendments to Bill C-48. One, by a Conservative senator, which would have given the Minister of Transport the authority to adjust the northern boundary of the tanker moratorium, would have been an improvement to the bill. Regrettably, it was narrowly defeated.

The amendment in the other place that did pass cannot be called an improvement to this bill. While somewhat noble in its intent, it is a thin attempt to mask the fact that this entire bill is an affront to indigenous people's rights. The inclusion of these clauses in the bill does not change that fact.

Regarding the second part of the amendment passed by the Senate, I acknowledge that it is at least an attempt to recognize that this bill is an assault on a particular region of the country, namely, the oil-producing prairie provinces. This second part of the amendment passed by the Senate calls for a statutory review of the act as well as a review of the regional impact this act would have. The government's motion, which we are debating today, amended certain elements of this Senate amendment.

No one will guess which section of this amendment the government kept and which section it rejected. Those who guessed that it rejected the section that, at the very least, acknowledged indirectly that this bill was an attack on western Canada, would be correct.

This further demonstrates that when the Prime Minister or one of his ministers claims that others are threatening national unity with their opposition to certain pieces of legislation by the government, it is the ultimate doublespeak. Hon. senators who support this bill had the decency to propose and pass an amendment that was at least a tip of the hat to the alienation felt by western Canadians brought on by the Liberal government's actions. The motion we are debating today has stripped these sections from the bill, proving once again that this is just another step in the Prime Minister's plan to phase out the oil sands, regardless of the impact on Canada's economic well-being.

It is for these reasons that my colleagues and I oppose the government's motion on the Senate amendments to Bill C-48. We on the Conservative side will always stand up for Canada. We support Canada's natural resource sector, which contributes billions to our economy and economic growth. We support Canada's environment with practical, science-based policies that have a real and positive impact on our country's, and indeed the whole world's, environment. We support Canadians in their hope and desire for sustainable, well-paying jobs so that they can support their families, support each other and contribute to a happy and healthy Canada.

Conservatives support legislation that is based on science, research and the facts, and this bill is none of the above.

The House resumed from June 17 consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to 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

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I would suggest that the minister's reference to the products on the schedule confirms what we know about the Liberals' willingness and desire to phase out the oil sands.

The second amendment put forward by the other place to Bill C-48 would have added a new section to the end of the bill. Even though it was not very substantive, at least it was a tip of the hat to the regions that would be most affected by the bill. However, the Liberals gutted this amendment.

Could the minister explain to the House why the rules and regulations that govern the loading and off-loading of oil on Canada's east coast are not good enough for the loading and off-loading of oil on Canada's west coast? Will you simply admit that the bill—

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, I disagree with that characterization of the situation, because there are still plenty of opportunities.

Let me talk about the example of the massive LNG project out of Kitimat. That will provide opportunities for first nations and others along the northern coast. I would also add, again, because people seem to be focused only on the persistent oils, that this is not a ban on non-persistent oils. I would recommend that my colleague check the schedule in Bill C-48 to find out which products are banned. He will also realize that certain products are not banned and can be exported by tanker from the north coast.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Madam Speaker, when the government cancelled the northern gateway pipeline project and brought in the tanker ban, the Liberals tore $2 billion in equity away from the Aboriginal Equity Partners, $2 billion for aboriginal communities in northern B.C. where there is not much economic development. When we asked Liberals about it, they said they did not even consult them before they brought this in.

There is another project, the Eagle Spirit pipeline, completely indigenous owned, that has been shut down by Bill C-48 and the northern tanker ban. The Nisga'a Nation has expressed interest in having a port for a future pipeline, and the government has shut it down.

Why has the government shut down and torn away so much economic opportunity from indigenous Canadians in northern British Columbia?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, the government's environmental plan is all show and no go. Yesterday, we saw a climate emergency declaration that is all show and no go. That is on top of the fact that today the Liberals brought in a pipeline approval that is all show and absolutely no go. Now, we are dealing with Bill C-48, which is all show and no go. That is on top of the foundation of the Liberals' climate plan, which is a tax plan and not a climate change plan; again, it is all show and no go. Does the minister realize how much of a joke Canadians realize his environmental program actually is?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-48 is a direct attack on Canada's economy. It will tie up or prevent tanker traffic from travelling in northern B.C.

The problem with this is the hypocrisy at the core, which is this. Venezuelan oil is accepted in Quebec and Saudi Arabian oil is accepted on the east coast. Both of these countries have very few, if any, environmental regulations. Both of these countries treat their citizens with absolute disrespect. Human rights barely, if at all, exist within these countries.

Meanwhile, within our own country, we have a government that wants to tie up the responsible development of the oil industry, thus harming our overall economy and our place on the world stage. Why the hypocrisy?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not accept the premise of the question. As we all know, my dear colleagues in the NDP have never understood the fact that we take an approach that is balanced between moving forward with the economy, but also taking a very responsible attitude with respect to the environment.

Having said that, I want to thank NDP members who, in May 2018, voted in favour of the moratorium of Bill C-48. I want to also point out one particular member, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who has been absolutely fantastic with respect to mobilizing all the support necessary for us to pass this bill. I thank him for that.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of the hon. minister that Bill C-48 is opposed by many indigenous groups in British Columbia that want to benefit from the economic activity from oil and gas. Eagle Spirit, Calvin Helin and that project would see huge benefits to local indigenous groups.

What does the minister say to those indigenous groups in B.C. that are going to be left out in the cold as a result of this bill?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, while I welcome the opportunity to ask these questions of the minister, it bears repeating that it is quite shameful that the government is imposing yet another closure on very important legislation.

Currently, there is a voluntary moratorium on tanker traffic in the area that would be affected by this bill. Regardless of whether one philosophically agrees with this voluntary moratorium or not, it has been working for over 30 years.

Since Bill C-48 would do nothing to change the current situation in regard to tanker traffic on B.C.'s coast, how is this bill anything more than empty symbolism?

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in relation to the consideration of the Senate amendments to 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, I move:

That the debate be not further adjourned.

Opposition Motion—The Environment

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on behalf of my constituents of Red Deer—Mountain View.

The motion before us today states:

That, given that the carbon tax will not reduce emissions at its current rate and it is already making life more expensive for Canadians, the House call on the government to repeal the carbon tax and replace it with a real environment plan.

How do we know that the carbon tax is not reducing emissions at its current rate? That information comes from the most recent report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The PBO chose a figure of $102 per tonne, which is five times the current rate. If one is to believe the numbers being thrown around by the government, the projections are that the figure would need to be even higher. Apparently, this does not matter to the Liberal government. Nor does it matter to the Liberals that Australia has realized that introducing a carbon tax is a failed plan and has repealed its tax.

If we are going to be competitive in the North American market, we should be working in harmony with the U.S. on environmental policies, not saddling ourselves with yet another barrier to our economic well-being. This is not what is happening today.

The U.S. has no such plan and has lowered its taxes for businesses, and their total emissions have fallen. In Canada, the Liberal government is forging ahead with its ill-conceived tax increases, while emissions are continuing to rise.

This leads me to the next point, which speaks to making life more expensive for Canadians.

The shell game the Liberal government is playing with carbon tax dollars and refunds is simply not logical. For starters, the plan itself is certainly not revenue neutral. Those numbers have been widely discredited as well. However, that is just part of the story.

Canadian farmers will be especially hard hit with this plan. Statistics Canada estimates that the average costs per farm will be in the tens of thousands of dollars as the tax goes from $10 to $50 per tonne. The worst part is that farmers do not have the chance to pass those costs on to their customers.

The second part of the motion before us asks all Canadians to look ahead. We need to look ahead to a brighter future, a future without the Liberal government's carbon tax grab. We need to look ahead to a future with a real plan for the environment, one based on Canadian know-how and Canadian expertise.

We are already moving in the right direction. Look at the dairy sector as one case in point. Today in Canada it takes 65% fewer dairy cows to produce the same volume of milk as it did 50 years ago. Improvements to cow comfort and feed efficiency have also helped to make our dairy industry more sustainable.

By embracing innovation and new ideas, furthering research and infusing old wisdom into modern practices, Canada's agricultural sector is continually reducing its environmental impact, while looking for ways to improve its practices on a national scale.

There is a lot of work to do to set the record straight about the cattle industry and about farming in general. We have all heard the story that cattle farming is a major source of greenhouse gases. However, at the Alberta Beef Conference in my home town of Red Deer, we heard from experts such as Dr. Frank Mitloehner who debunked this myth and noted that new processes, new efficiencies and proper management meant that beef cattle methane emissions were effectively zero.

On this and many other issues, it is our challenge to ensure that Canadians have science-based information and science-based facts about cattle farming and about farming in general.

We need to continue to use our Canadian expertise to ensure that all our products get to the global market in the safest and most environmentally responsible way possible. We need a government that will enable industry to do more to help the environment, not a government that will hobble businesses and burden Canadians with huge tax increases.

Canadians have so many things of which to be proud. We are proud of our amazing Olympic athletes, our talented artists and the NBA trophy coming home to basketball's birthplace. These are a few highlights, but there are so many others.

We can be proud of Canada's world-class oil and gas industry, which is the best regulated and the most environmentally friendly in the world. Canadians can be proud of our dynamic forestry industry, which has state-of-the-art rejuvenation projects. How about our farmers and our ranchers? Canadian agriculture produces the safest, most environmentally-friendly products in the world. However, even in this case, vested interests are doing their very best to knock us down.

However, a true environmental plan will do the opposite. It will build us up and it will enhance our efforts to protect and preserve the environment.

Let us look at this as far as the Liberal track record is concerned.

In 2016, Canada was 44 megatons of CO2 over its Paris target. In 2017, that number rose to 66. Last year, it was 103 megatons. The Liberal approach just is not getting the results as advertised.

The same is true for the Liberals' arguments about social license. Three pipeline projects, northern gateway, the west to east pipeline and Kinder Morgan, all to be built by the private sector, never got a fair hearing from the Liberal government. We all paid the bill, but got nothing in return.

However, enough about the failures of the Liberal government.

When we talk about an environmental plan, the Conservatives want to talk about things that matter, things like the amazing carbon sequestration projects that have been developed, whether it be in coal technology, oil and gas development or natural gas processing. These are major breakthroughs that Canada's business leaders and their research teams are gearing up to export around the world. Would members not say that championing our expertise on the world stage is better than wringing our hands and apologizing for the fact that Canada has abundant resources in order to score points with the environmental elites?

Of course we will develop our resources and we will do it in a manner that investors will see as the new global industry environmental standard. It will be our energy that will replace foreign tankers coming to our shores. If we proudly embrace our innovations, it will be our oil demanded by climate-conscious nations around the world.

We will also be championing our other major resource sector, agriculture. As I said before, Canadian beef and dairy producers are the most efficient managers of greenhouse gases in the world. By using technologies developed by amazing Canadian minds, we will not only be helping our soil and producing world-class products, but we will be managing greenhouse emissions in a way well above the global standard.

For the last four years, Canada has had a leader who grandstands around the world and uses every opportunity to apologize for what Canada is and for what we do. Under a Conservative government, we will have a leader who is proud not just to be a Canadian, but also proud to stand up for all of us and to champion our successes.

The incompetence of the Liberal government was plain for all of us to see last week. Just a few nights ago, Canadians witnessed the spectacle of their own government choosing to support the interest of competing oil-producing nations over the interests of Canadians. As many editorials noted, the Liberal government is the only one in the world trying to shut down its own resource sector.

The government ignored the pleas of nine provincial premiers, first nation leaders, territorial governments as well as millions of Canadians by shutting down debate on Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill. Now, by ignoring further pleas to not move forward with Bill C-48, the Liberal government is creating even more uncertainty in the energy sector. It is a shame when the government's only fallback plan, the TMX pipeline expansion project, is only going forward thanks to billions of taxpayer dollars transferred to pipeline builders in the United States.

With the Liberal government, we know that the whole process is a crass political one, not a responsible financial one. How many hospitals will be built in Canada through our purchase of Saudi oil? How many social programs will be financed from our friends in Nigeria? How many environmental causes and human rights efforts that Canadians hold dear will be jeopardized by the Liberals shutting in the resource expertise of the world's most responsible energy producers?

By following the misguided dogma of the Prime Minister, the Liberals will be following him into the political abyss. The only way to truly protect our environment, to give certainty to job creators and to ensure Canadians' strong social fabric is to make the divisive Liberal leader is a single-use prime minister.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our hon. colleague from Carleton. As a new father, I know that he considers this a very important debate. I know he takes this matter very seriously.

It is all about a better future for our children. The Minister of Environment has said that lots of times in this House, very loudly and very passionately. We all strive to leave our country better off for those who will come after us. This debate is about the future. It is about ensuring our children have a better future.

It has been interesting over the last three and a half years and indeed over the last couple weeks as we debate Bill C-48, Bill C-68, Bill C-69 and Bill C-88. Again, on the virtue-signalling motion that we had last night, Motion No. 29, everybody wants to know how everybody voted. I was travelling, I landed and all of a sudden the media wanted to know how we voted on it. Motion No. 29 does nothing. It declares that we all agree there is a climate emergency, but there is nothing behind it. There are no critical steps behind it to actually make things better. We have a carbon tax that the Liberal government implemented that does nothing but punish Canadians who live in rural communities.

I want to read something into the record.

“...to constrain the growth of...production by increasing the perception of financial risks by potential investors and by choking off the necessary infrastructure (inputs and outputs)...[the campaign’s original strategy states]. We will accomplish this by raising the visibility of the negatives associated with...[the production]; initiating legal challenges in order to force government and corporate decision-makers to take steps that raise the costs of production and block delivery infrastructure; and by generating support for federal and state legislation that pre-empts future demand for tar sands oil.

It also says this: How are we going to do that? Demarketing, raise the negatives, raise the costs, slow down and stop the infrastructure, enrol key decision-makers, goals, we want to influence debate, a moratorium, strategy, stop or limit pipelines, refineries, significantly reduce future demand for Canadian oil, leverage debate for policy victories in the U.S. and Canada, resources required, first nations and other legal challenges, public mobilization in Ontario and Quebec.

Members would be forgiven if they thought that was the mandate letter for the Minister of Environment. That is exactly what we are up against, the dogma that we hear, that is spread, the language that we hear time and again.

Bill C-68, Bill C-69, Bill C-48, Bill C-88, and Motion No. 29 are all aimed at our natural resources, and somehow Canada produces dirty products and our producers are going the way of just polluting our world.

It is interesting that the carbon tax targets soccer moms and small businesses, but does not go up against the very same polluters of the campaigns, Greenpeace, TIDES, the World Wildlife Fund and all these groups that now have executives or members who are former executives in the highest offices of the Liberal government. It does nothing. It gives those very same polluters a pass.

There is no denying that climate change is real. Humans contribute to the problem. We all must do our part to address the problem, but a carbon tax is not a climate plan. The Prime Minister does not have a climate plan, he has a tax plan.

Time and again it has been said that my province of British Columbia is seen as a success, yet we have had a carbon tax for over 10 years. When it was first introduced, it was supposed to be revenue-neutral, and now it is not. It goes in one hand and stays in the government coffers. It was supposed to lower emissions, and we know that that is not the case.

Over the last two summers, we have had some of the worst wildfires in our province's history. In my riding alone, we have had the worst fire season, the largest mass evacuation in our province's history.

I have stood in this House and asked how high the carbon tax has to be before we start to see those wildfires and natural disasters mitigated and lessened. I cannot seem to get an answer. As a matter of fact, I was laughed at when I asked that question.

The Liberals have pandered to the environmental lobbyists for the last four years. As a matter of fact, what we are seeing today with the legislation and all this virtue signalling they are doing with their hands on their hearts is payback for the 2015 election. Leading into this next election, they want to make sure that they are solidly behind them.

They have had four years to come out with a real plan, and the best they can do is a carbon tax. The Minister of Environment stands up here and shouts loudly so that we will all believe her, yet time and again, she has approved the dumping of millions of litres of raw sewage into our waterways.

A great Senate amendment came forward regarding third-party habitat banking, and I will go back to Bill C-68, where we talked about that. Where there is displacement of fish or fish habitat because of a project, it would allow the government to enlist people who are experts to create fish habitat. However, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and his department turned that down, and we heard testimony that they were the only people around the table who did not seem interested in creating fish habitat.

The Liberals like to stand up there, with all their environmental credits and their peeps behind them, saying that what they are doing is for the good of the country. We know that all they are doing is making things less affordable for those of us who live in rural communities.

I do not know if there is a fuel available that can power a logging truck or a freight truck. Our forestry sector has taken a massive hit since the current government has been in power, because we do not have a softwood lumber agreement. I will not put all the forestry downturn on the current government. However, it could have taken some major steps forward in assisting our forestry industry by securing a softwood lumber agreement.

We live in rural areas. Many of our first nations live off-grid. They have to power their communities with diesel. What has the government done to lift any of those first nations off their dependency on diesel and fossil fuels?

What about rural communities? At one point, we were a resource-driven economy. However, we know from the Prime Minister's very first speech that, under his government, our country has become known more for our resourcefulness than our natural resources. I guess that was a promise he has kept, because we have seen the government attack our natural resources sector time and again.

As we speak, there are forestry families who are receiving more layoff notices in my riding and in my home province of British Columbia. They do not have other projects or other opportunities to go to. What will they do? What is it that our Minister of Environment said? There is $500 million worth of opportunity. Where is it? It is not in our rural communities. In some of our northern climates, we cannot plug any of our school buses in. We cannot plug logging trucks or freight trucks in. We need them to get our goods to market.

Everything this carbon tax does makes the way of life in rural communities more expensive. This is not an environmental plan. It is a revenue plan, and it is on the backs of rural communities and rural Canadians. That is shameful.

Natural Resources

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister dismissed six premiers' calls for changes to Bill C-69 as partisan, but he also rejected requests from the Liberal premiers of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador for offshore oil and gas. The Liberals have already killed over $100 billion in major projects, and the Bank of Canada predicts no new energy investment after 2019.

The Liberals' shipping ban bill, Bill C-48, blocks the west coast. Their poison pill in Bill C-86 would allow the same thing on every other coast. Bill C-69 would harm the whole country.

Will the Liberals kill these anti-energy bills before it is too late?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, last summer, the Liberals defended funding anti-oil and gas groups because of “free speech” while they shut down church-run summer camps because of their “values” test. The Liberals showed their values this year, once again using taxpayer dollars to fund groups that want to block the Trans Mountain expansion and shut down Canadian oil and gas.

The list includes Tides Canada running a decade-long, foreign-funded smear campaign against the oil sands; the Pembina Institute working with American groups to “landlock” Canadian oil; the Dogwood Initiative campaigning against politicians who support Canadian oil and gas, specifically against the Trans Mountain expansion; the Sierra Club running a campaign right now against the Senate amendments to Bill C-69 that indigenous communities and nine provinces and all territories want; and the West Coast Environmental Law Association that took foreign money to push the oil shipping ban in 2015 that led to Bill C-48 and has already promised new legal challenges to the Trans Mountain expansion.

MPs review and approve the funding. It is all in Liberal and NDP ridings. When it comes to Liberals' claims to support oil and gas workers, the Prime Minister is not as advertised.

Alberta

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, two years ago, the Prime Minister forgot to mention Alberta in his Canada 150 speech. We were of course offended but did not think it was more than an innocent omission. However, the Prime Minister's actions have lived up to this omission, as it appears he wishes he could forget Alberta altogether.

His policies, like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, are deliberate attempts to destroy our energy sector. Bill C-69 would impose onerous new regulations around pipeline construction. Bill C-48 would ban tankers from parts of B.C.'s coast. As a result of these bills, thousands of hard-working Canadians will continue to lose jobs in our province. The government also wants to impose a new carbon tax on Alberta on January 1. Talk about kicking us while we are down.

Approving the Trans Mountain expansion project is not enough. The Liberals must put forward a concrete plan to get the project built and tell Canadians when construction will start in Burnaby.

A Conservative government will stand up for Alberta, as a strong Alberta is a strong Canada.

Opposition Motion—The Environment

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thought all along that the member for Winnipeg North just liked to debate so he could hear himself. However, I digress.

I am pleased to speak today to the Conservative Party of Canada's opposition motion on the topic of climate change and the environment. I will be sharing my time with the member for Perth—Wellington.

I want to say that only the Liberal government could talk about the environment for four years, break its promise to meet the Paris accord on climate change and end up taxing Canadians to cover up its incompetence, overspending and environmental management.

As I get into my presentation, for those who know me and my background, I have always strived to put forward ideas and solutions to the many issues facing my constituency and our nation. While I am not as good as giving one-liners or the pithy comments of social media that seem to attract the most attention, in my own way I have tried to reach out and build consensus to get things done.

Today, I want to apply that attitude to the larger issue of the environment, conservation and climate change. Like many members in the chamber, I represent a constituency that is geographically large. All across Westman, farms and communities dot the prairie landscape, as they have for many generations. Almost half of the people I represent live outside the city of Brandon in the 20-plus municipalities located in the riding.

These are some of the most hard-working, down to earth and determined people we will meet anywhere in this great country of ours. Living in rural Canada has its unique challenges. With those challenges also comes a way of life like none other. Our connection to the land, air and water is strong, because our livelihoods quite literally depend on it.

As someone who farmed for most of my life, I firmly believe that if we take care of the land, it will take care of us. My father raised my brother and me on those words, and I have lived by them. I want to immediately dispel any notion that farmers or rural folks who oppose the carbon tax do not care about the environment. They do care. They care about it immensely. They just have a serious issue about being forced to pay a new tax imposed on provinces that will disproportionately impact rural people.

Let us put ourselves in their boots for a moment. Many families must drive long distances to get to work. Many seniors have to drive into Brandon to go to either the doctor or the optician. Parents have to drive their kids to various towns for sports or choir practice.

Let us never forget students at Brandon University and Assiniboine Community College who still live on the farm or in their rural community and make the daily commute to the city to attend classes. These are not optional things that people can just decide not to do or do less. There are no subways or bus routes for their purposes. Trust me; if people did not have to drive in our blustery winters, they would not.

From the very beginning, I believe the government has mishandled the rollout of the carbon tax.

First and foremost, many Canadians, particularly many of the people I represent, have trepidations about the federal government's priorities at the best of times. Saying the federal government is about to impose a new tax but not to worry because people will not feel the pinch, while at the same time it will combat climate change, is not the best way to get buy-in from those who have skepticism.

Second, when we tried in vain to get the financial data out of the Minister of Finance, it was so heavily blacked out that it was meaningless.

Third, when the Province of Manitoba put forward a plan that would have reduced carbon emissions, the federal government rejected it. Officials were told that no matter how many tonnes of C02 their plan would reduce, it had to include a $50 a tonne carbon tax.

My province tried to work in good faith with the federal government and was told to go pound sand. No wonder it has decided to launch its own court case. If that is the way federalism now works in this country, it is not hard to understand why premiers are concerned about the Liberal government's other initiatives, such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69.

It also troubles me that, in Canadian politics, the litmus test on one's commitment to the environment is now centred on supporting a $50 a tonne carbon tax. While that may be the case in some circles, I can assure MPs that everyday Canadians do not use this lens when talking with their family and friends. It is not that my Conservative colleagues or people who oppose the carbon tax do not care about the changing climate; it is that we do not believe the carbon tax is the best way of addressing it.

Tomorrow, our leader will outline the vision and present an alternative to what is being imposed by the current federal government. Due to the already challenging political discourse on this issue, I can only imagine the over-the-top language being drafted now in response. I want to urge the Liberals to hold off on issuing their canned response before the speech has even been given. The Liberals have been waiting ever so patiently, so I fully expect that they will be paying close attention. I want the government to recognize that there are more ways to deal with climate change than applying a tax on the fuel that families put in their minivans.

I want the Liberals to recognize that applying a carbon tax on the energy used to drive farmers' grain only adds further cost to the industry that is already facing challenging commodity prices and markets that slam shut. I want them to start listening to farmers who have ideas that can reduce and sequester carbon without applying a new tax. The agricultural industry has made great strides in environmental management that benefit society, virtually by its own innovation at its own cost. There are proven models out there that have had tangible and meaningful results.

I have always been a proponent, as examples, of implementing an alternative land use services program and the expansion of wetland restoration programs. For those who have not listened to the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, I can assure them his message about eating more beef and how it is good for the environment is grounded in empirical science.

Over the years as a farm leader, an MLA and now an MP, I have dealt with many issues that impact our environment. Back home, people do not apply a litmus test to determine our commitment to an issue. We focus on bringing people together to work on solutions. Perhaps one day those values will rub off on all of us in this chamber when we must wade through our differences.

I want to give just one example from which we can learn. Manitoba has been prone to floods for as long as history has been recorded. Being at the bottom of the basin, we have had to deal with spring runoff and localized flooding that has impacted communities for generations. It was a Progressive Conservative premier, Duff Roblin, who implemented a series of public works projects that protected communities in the Assiniboine and Red River basins, and particularly impacted the flooding that would have occurred in the city of Winnipeg in 1997. Since then, there have been significant enhancements to flood protection up and down the Souris, Red and Assiniboine rivers. I want to say that this issue in Manitoba is non-partisan.

Our previous federal Conservative and provincial NDP governments both invested in projects that protected the city of Brandon and the towns of Melita, Reston, Souris, Deloraine, Elkhorn and Wawanesa. We also expanded the Red River Floodway, which was completed under budget.

It was after the most recent flood that many people in the Assiniboine River basin decided that we needed to work together. Under the leadership of Allan Preston and Wanda McFadyen, they spearheaded an initiative that brought the governments of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota under one organization, alongside municipalities, farmers and conservation districts. We all live within the same watershed, and we had to stop working in silos.

We know a one-size-fits-all approach to water management does not work, and that is why a one-size-fits-all approach will not work with a carbon tax. That is why it was so frustrating to see how the federal government tossed aside the climate change plan put forward by Manitoba. Without a change in attitude, more and more Canadians will look at the rigid position taken by some in the government and tune out. We also know that climate change is a global problem that requires global solutions. The current approach does not reflect that reality.

I firmly believe that Canada is well positioned to provide these solutions. Tomorrow we will start outlining our alternative to the carbon tax and begin the conversation on what will replace it. I encourage my Liberal colleagues, particularly those who represent rural areas, to join me in supporting this motion. I ask them to please stand up for their constituents, repeal the carbon tax and replace it with a real environmental plan.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, when I think of our environment, virtually from day one, this government has had a developing climate action plan that is healthy for the environment and the economy at the same time. We often talk about Canada's middle class, those aspiring to be a part of it and helping them through different measures. We recognize that we can do both at the same time. We can continue to develop the economy and ensure we have a healthier planet for future generations.

I want to highlight a few thoughts and then provide a little more detail on some of the politics.

When we look at the budgets and legislative measures, it is fairly impressive. We have committed hundreds of millions of dollars through budgetary measures over the last few years, such as over $2.3 billion in funding to support clean technology in one form or another; $21.9 billion in green infrastructure funding, which will support things like electricity infrastructure, renewable energy and so forth; and $2 billion for disaster mitigation and adaptation funding.

Along with these budgetary measures, we have legislative measures, such Bill C-48, the oil tanker ban; Bill C-69, the environmental assessment legislation; our fisheries in Bill C-68.

From day one, this government has been on track to bring forward positive legislation and budgetary measures. This demonstrates very clearly that we understand how important the environment is not only to Canadians but to the world. These types of actions put Canada in a good place with respect to strong international leadership on this very important file. I believe Canadians want us to do this as a government.

We can look at some of the initiatives that government can take, and we hear a great deal about the price on pollution. For years now, the Conservative Party has been a lone voice in the House of Commons. The New Democrats, the Greens and, to the best of my knowledge, the Bloc understand that a price on pollution is the best way to go. It is not only the parties in the chamber, but it is very well received in many provincial and territorial jurisdictions. In fact, the majority of them already had some form of a price on pollution in place.

When we are talking about the national price on pollution, we are talking about areas where there is no plan in place, where there is no price on pollution and the federal government is imposing one. The good new is that 80%-plus of constituents I represent as the member of Parliament for Winnipeg North will be better off financially as a direct result of the price on pollution. However, the Conservatives in their spin and misinformation that they funnel out of their Conservative war room virtually on a daily basis are telling Canadians something that is vastly different from reality and truth. This is not a cash grab.

The Conservatives ask about the GST on fuel at the pumps. I remind them that they put the cascading tax on the pump price. I remind the Conservatives that their Party ignored the environment to the degree that it now demands the type of attention it has been given over the last few years. We just voted last night on the emergency facing our environment. Once again, the Liberals, the Greens, the Bloc and the CCF all voted yes that we did need to take the environment far more seriously. They recognized that it as an emergency. Only the Conservative Party voted against that motion.

The Conservatives say they have a plan. They have been saying that for a long time now. For the last 400-plus days, all they have been doing is criticizing the price on pollution, even though it is widely respected and acknowledged as the best way to deal the reduction of emissions.

However, now Doug Ford has apparently met with the federal Conservative leader and hammered out a plan. Tomorrow, Mr. Ford will share his plan with the rest of Canada. He took Ontario out of the old plan,. Now he will present a national plan, worked on with the federal Conservative Party. I look forward to seeing that plan. A little more transparency on the environment is long overdue when it comes to the Conservative Party of Canada.

It would be nice to compare our plan with the Conservative plan. Our plan talks about hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in clean energy and working with the different stakeholders. I will provide some tangible examples. In the last budget, there was an incentive for individuals to buy electric vehicles. Other provinces, like the beautiful province of Quebec, had a complementary program that would give the residents of Quebec a more substantial discount. Tesla reduced the price on a vehicle in order to get under the threshold. The biggest winner in this is the consumer, followed by the environment.

Governments can make a difference. To get a better appreciation of that, look at what happened in the taxi industry in the province of Manitoba with the Prius car. It was through government action. Government actions can make a difference. We came in with a plan after working with indigenous communities, provincial governments, municipalities, school boards and the private sector in developing ways to reduce emissions in every region of our country.

Through this debate, I have learned that the Conservative Party opposes supporting private sector initiatives with public dollars. That became very clear in the last number of weeks. I am anxious to see how the Conservatives might spin on that dime as they try to convince Canadians they care about the environment. In reality, there has been no indication that is the case.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that was also part of the question from the hon. member for the Green Party across the way, which was how do we have sustainable development in terms of pipelines and getting oil to export markets? That is really the purpose of Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 working together. How do we measure greenhouse gas emissions upstream and downstream, working with indigenous people to make sure we also have the social licence to do what we need to do?

The pipeline we are going to be talking about later this week has 200 conditions against it. This is not a matter of creating a corridor and plowing through with no environmental or social review. We are following the new review processes, which take into account climate change and our impact on the world, hopefully getting our oil to market to take off dirty coal or other emitters that are worse than what we would be providing through our resources in Canada.

Equalization

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the hundreds of people who have signed this petition and are so frustrated with the government's policy to destroy Canada's energy sector through bills like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. The petitioners are calling on the government to review the equalization formula, given the punitive policies against the Alberta energy sector. This is a petition that I support. They are also calling on the government to scrap Bill C-69. It is crazy.

Notice of Closure Motion

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to give notice that with respect to consideration of the Senate amendments to 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, at the next sitting of the House a minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that the debate be not further adjourned.

Bill C-48—Notice of time allocation motion

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings of the bill.

Natural Resources

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, this government remains committed to delivering on its promise to Canadians to put forward this oil tanker moratorium and to formalize it in legislation.

I stood in the House this morning, addressing the Senate amendments that came over. We are hoping to work with all parliamentarians here. It is important for Canadians to understand that when it comes to Bill C-48, every single party in the House was in favour of it. The only party that did not vote in favour of it was the Conservative Party.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals must approve the Trans Mountain expansion tomorrow, which they already did before in 2016, except now this time it actually has to get built. The Liberals are blocking all new pipelines with their anti-energy, anti-business Bill C-69, which nine out of 10 provinces and all three territories oppose this.

The Nisga'a, Lax Kw'alaams and hundreds of other indigenous communities are against the Liberals shipping ban, Bill C-48, and they have been against it from day one. Instead of cancelling it, the Liberals are steamrolling opposition and indigenous communities to force it through before summer.

Will the Liberals kill these anti-energy bills before it is too late?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Trans Mountain project is essential to the economy of all Canadians, and above all, it is good for all of Canada. Unfortunately, since announcing the project a year ago, the Liberals have not done a single thing. Not a shovel has hit the ground. All they have done is take $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money and send it to Houston. They have also passed two bills, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, that fly in the face of the principle of sound energy development.

Could the Liberals finally do what is right for Canadians by approving this project tomorrow and, most importantly, by announcing when Trans Mountain will be built?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, four major pipelines were built under the Conservatives' watch, with not one dollar of taxpayers' money used.

Over the last four years, though, the Prime Minister has done everything in his power to destroy jobs in Canada's energy sectors. He is forcing through devastating bills, like Bill C-48 and the no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69. Right now, he is playing political games with the TMX pipeline.

Will the Prime Minister finally be honest with our energy workers and admit he has no intention for construction to start in Burnaby?

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to the government's motion on the Senate amendments to Bill C-48. While I do appreciate the opportunity to speak to the motion, what I do not appreciate, what millions of other Canadians do not appreciate, is that we have to respond to the bill at all.

I want to recap what the bill would do.

First, this legislation was created as a result of a directive in the Prime Minister's mandate letter to the Minister of Transport dated November 2015.

If passed, this legislation would enact an oil tanker moratorium on B.C.'s northwest coast. The proposed moratorium would be in effect from the Canada-U.S. Alaska border to the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

The legislation would prohibit oil tankers carrying crude and persistent oil as cargo from stopping, loading and unloading at ports or marine installations in the moratorium area. Vessels carrying less than 12,500 metric tons of crude oil would be exempted from the moratorium.

I would suggest that this bill is an open, sneering attack on our oil and gas sector, an anti-pipeline bill poorly masquerading as an environment bill.

Environmental legislation is supposed to be based on science. Bill C-48 is not. It is not science but rather politics and ideology that inform this legislation; Liberal ideology that is as damaging to national unity as it is cynical.

Afer reviewing the bill, which included travelling across the country to hear from witnesses from coast to coast, the Senate transport committee recommended that it not proceed. While the Senate as a whole rescued Bill C-48, the Prime Minister should have taken the hint and withdrawn this anti-energy legislation.

Six premiers, including Premier Scott Moe from my province of Saskatchewan, wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister outlining their legitimate concerns about the anti-oil, anti-energy legislation pushed by the Liberal government here in Ottawa, in particular, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48.

The premiers explained the damage that these two pieces of legislation would do to the economy, but more importantly, they warned of the damage this legislation has done and will continue to do to our national unity.

This was not a threat. This was not spiteful. These six premiers were pointing to a real and growing sense of alienation, alienation on a scale not seen since the Prime Minister's father was in office.

Rather than listening to their concerns, the Prime Minister lashed out at the premiers, calling them irresponsible and accusing them of threatening our national unity if they did not get their way.

The premiers are not threatening our national unity. It is in fact the Prime Minister's radical, anti-science, anti-energy agenda that is; but he is refusing to listen.

Since the Prime Minister is refusing to heed these warnings on Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, I am going to take this opportunity to read them into the record now:

Dear Prime Minister,

We are writing on behalf of the Governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Collectively, our five provinces and territory represent 59 per cent of the Canadian population and 63 per cent of Canada's GDP. We are central to Canada's economy and prosperity, and it is of the utmost importance that you consider our concerns with bills C-69 and C-48.

Canadians across the country are unified in their concern about the economic impacts of the legislation such as it was proposed by the House of Commons. In this form, the damage it would do to the economy, jobs and investment will echo from one coast to the other. Provincial and territorial jurisdiction must be respected. Provinces and territories have clear and sole jurisdiction over the development of their non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources, and the generation and production of electricity. Bill C-69 upsets the balance struck by the constitutional division of powers by ignoring the exclusive provincial powers over projects relating to these resources. The federal government must recognize the exclusive role provinces and territories have over the management of our non-renewable natural resource development or risk creating a Constitutional crisis.

Bill C-69, as originally drafted, would make it virtually impossible to develop critical infrastructure, depriving Canada of much needed investment. According to the C.D. Howe Institute, between 2017 and 2018, the planned investment value of major resource sector projects in Canada plunged by $100 billion – an amount equivalent to 4.5 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. To protect Canada’s economic future, we, collectively, cannot afford to overlook the uncertainty and risk to future investment created by Bill C-69.

Our five provinces and territory stand united and strongly urge the government to accept Bill C69 as amended by the Senate, in order to minimize the damage to the Canadian economy. We would encourage the Government of Canada and all members of the House of Commons to accept the full slate of amendments to the bill. The Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources heard 38 days of testimony from 277 witnesses including indigenous communities, industry, Premiers, and independent experts. Based on that comprehensive testimony, the committee recommended significant amendments to the bill, which were accepted by the Senate as a whole. We urge you to respect that process, the committee’s expertise, and the Senate’s vote.

If the Senate’s amendments are not respected, the bill should be rejected, as it will present insurmountable roadblocks for major infrastructure projects across the country and will further jeopardize jobs, growth and investor confidence.

Similarly, Bill C-48 threatens investor confidence, and the tanker moratorium discriminates against western Canadian crude products. We were very disappointed that the Senate did not accept the recommendation to the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications that the bill not be reported. We would urge the government to stop pressing for the passage of this bill which will have detrimental effects on national unity and for the Canadian economy as a whole.

Our governments are deeply concerned with the federal government’s disregard, so far, of the concerns raised by our provinces and territory related to these bills. As it stands, the federal government appears indifferent to the economic hardships faced by provinces and territories. Immediate action to refine or eliminate these bills is needed to avoid further alienating provinces and territories and their citizens and focus on uniting the country in support of Canada’s economic prosperity.

Perhaps having heard the letter read aloud, the Prime Minister will acknowledge that it contains no threats, but rather it is an appeal from leaders who have listened to their constituents. The Prime Minister needs to understand that simply saying things louder is not going to make them go away. Shouting will not put food in the stomachs of the laid-off construction workers' children. Chanting talking points will not pay the gas bill in the middle of winter.

If this were the only piece of legislation that the government had introduced, one might argue that this is an overreaction, but it is not just one piece of legislation, it is a targeted, cynical, ongoing political attack of our resource sector. The Prime Minister has filled his cabinet with vocal opponents of the oil sands. In 2012, the now Minister of Democratic Institutions posted a tweet that read: “It's time to landlock Alberta's tar sands - call on BC Premier @christyclarkbc to reject the #Enbridge pipeline now!”

Then there is the President of the Treasury Board who said publicly that the approval of the Trans Mountain extension was deeply disappointing and who celebrated when the Prime Minister killed the northern gateway pipeline project. Here I should pause and point out the ridiculous theatrics surrounding the TMX project.

In 2016, the government approved TMX, yet tomorrow, we are told, the government will decide on whether to approve the project all over again. It is like we are in a terrible remake of Groundhog Day. Meanwhile, not an inch of pipeline has been built since the government nationalized Trans Mountain.

However, it is not only the cabinet that the Prime Minister has filled with anti-oil activists, but senior staff positions as well. Here I quote an article from the March 14 edition of the Financial Post:

Prior to ascending to the most powerful post in the Prime Minister’s Office, from 2008 to 2012 Gerald Butts was president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada...an important Tides campaign partner. Butts would use his new powerful position to bring other former campaigners with him: Marlo Reynolds, chief of staff to the Environment Minister...is past executive director of the Tides-backed Pembina Institute. Zoë Caron, chief of staff to Natural Resource Minister...is also a former WWF Canada official. Sarah Goodman, on the prime minister’s staff, is a former vice-president of Tides Canada. With these anti-oil activists at the epicentre of federal power, it’s no wonder the oil industry, and hundreds of thousands of workers, have plummeted into political and policy purgatory.

Why should we be surprised? The Prime Minister is no friend of the oil sands. The Prime Minister stated that he wants to phase out the oil sands and during the election loudly proclaimed that, “If I am elected Prime Minister, the Northern Gateway Pipeline won't become a reality”.

The Prime Minister has spent his time in office attempting to do just that and he has been willing to trample on not only the rights of the provinces, but the rights of aboriginal peoples as well to get his way. When the Prime Minister used an order in council to cancel the northern gateway pipeline, he stole the future of 30 first nations that would have benefited enormously from it. This very bill is facing a lawsuit from Laxkw'alaams Indian band for unjustly infringing on their rights and titles.

Bill C-48 will prevent the proposed first nations-owned and -operated eagle spirit pipeline project from being built as the proposed route to tidewater ends within the area wherein this bill bans tanker traffic. It was done without any consultation with first nations communities. Again, this should come as no surprise.

Just last week I spoke against another anti-energy bill, Bill C-88. As I said then, C-88 makes a mockery of the government's claim to seriously consult with indigenous and Inuit peoples. Without any consultation with Inuit peoples or the territorial governments, the Prime Minister unilaterally announced a five-year ban on offshore oil and gas development. Not only did the Prime Minister refuse to consult the premiers of the territories, he gave some of them less than an hour's notice that he would be making that announcement.

Does that sound like a Prime Minister who wants to listen, consult and work with aboriginal Canadians? Does it reflect the Prime Minister's declaration that his government's relationship with indigenous peoples is their most important relationship or does it sound like a Prime Minister who says what he believes people want to hear and then does the exact opposite by imposing his own will on them? If he had consulted, this is what he would have heard:

Minister Wally Schumann of the Northwest Territories, on how they found out about the ban and the impact it will have on our north, stated:

When it first came out, we never got very much notice on the whole issue of the moratorium and the potential that was in the Beaufort Sea. There were millions and millions, if not billions, of dollars in bid deposits and land leases up there. That took away any hope we had of developing the Beaufort Sea.

Councillor Jackie Jacobson of Tuktoyaktuk said:

It’s so easy to sit down here and make judgments on people and lives that are 3,500 klicks away, and make decisions on our behalf, especially with that moratorium on the Beaufort. That should be taken away, lifted, please and thank you. That is going to open up and give jobs to our people – training and all the stuff we’re wishing for.

Then premier of Nunavut, Peter Taptuna stated, “ We do want to be getting to a state where we can make our own determination of our priorities, and the way to do that is gain meaningful revenue from resource development.”

Mr. Speaker, I note that you are indicating that my time is up. I assume that I will be able to continue at another time.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my constituents in Guelph are concerned about the environmental impacts of oil shipments off our west coast and what Bill C-48 would do to try to mitigate some of those concerns. It is interesting to see the amendments coming back from the Senate, especially to see the independence of the Senate in doing its studies.

Could the hon. member comment on the five-year review process being recommended, that Parliament look at this again in five years to see how things are working, working with all stakeholders and people who have given us input, either through the other place or through the House of Commons, and to see how effective the legislation is?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Vancouver Island is my previous home town. My friend and I have had the opportunity to work on several pieces of legislation, including in my previous role in fisheries.

It is important to bring to the attention of the House the extraordinary history that has led to the creation of Bill C-48. In 1971, a House committee suggested we oppose tanker traffic off the north coast of British Columbia. This was also backed by a unanimous motion by the B.C. legislature, also in 1971, opposing crude oil tankers on the north coast.

Some actions went all the way to 1985, when the first voluntary tanker exclusion zone was negotiated and then formalized in 1988. Of course, this happened just before the major incident in 1989 of the Exxon Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska, just showing how important this measure is.

With regard to the question of the limit of 12,500 metric tonnes, that was done in consultation with industry, environmental organizations, local governments and indigenous people. We think we got the number right.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to discussing, during this question and answer period, our government's approach to balancing the environment and the economy, versus the Conservatives' previous approach, and what is proposed for the future.

There were over 75 consultations with indigenous peoples with regard to the legislation. I listed an extensive number of consultations that happened in previous studies as well. We have studied this issue and this is the appropriate action to take. We hope everyone in the House will support us in passing this amendment and passing the overall legislation in Bill C-48.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, on what is likely the last sitting week of the 42nd Parliament, I appreciate the opportunity to outline both the necessity and benefits of Bill C-48, otherwise known as the oil tanker moratorium act. Let me begin by reminding members that Bill C-48 is the fulfillment of an election promise made in 2015. It was later included in both the minister's mandate letter and the Speech from the Throne.

Bill C-48 would provide an unprecedented level of environmental protection for the northern coast of British Columbia and the adjoining Great Bear Rainforest, one of the most pristine and unspoiled places left in Canada, and indeed the world. The Great Bear Rainforest represents approximately one-quarter of the world's remaining temperate rainforest. It is an extraordinarily rich and productive ecosystem that is often described as one of the lungs of the world because of its high oxygen production. The forest is largely intact due to special measures taken by both the federal and provincial governments over many years and by the relentless efforts of local people, including indigenous communities, to protect this extremely valuable ecosystem.

Bill C-48 would be complementary to these efforts, as well as the long-standing and well-respected voluntary tanker exclusion zone agreement between Canada and the United States that keeps Alaskan tankers like the Exxon Valdez far from our coast. Bill C-48 would effectively formalize into legislation a long-standing federal policy dating back to at least the 1970s not to allow large tanker traffic off of the northern coast of British Columbia. In fact, on my first trip to Haidi Gwaii, as the parliamentary secretary to the minister of fisheries and oceans at the time, I procured three posters that were used as fundraisers to campaign for this initial tanker ban in the 1970s, one of which is hanging in my constituency office in Burnaby.

Speaking to local residents, they are concerned about their environment and their way of life. A 2012 study reviewing offshore oil and gas development in British Columbia estimates the total annual benefits of marine-dependent activities in the traditional territories of coastal first nations at more than $30 billion. Unlike other regions in Canada, this policy legacy ensures that there is no existing tanker traffic near this coast. This means that formalizing the moratorium will not disrupt any current jobs or economic activity in the region. In fact, it would help protect existing industries, including fisheries, aquaculture and ecotourism.

Bill C-48 would continue to allow for the shipment of non-persistent oils. What this means is that communities along the north coast of British Columbia would continue to be open to economic development opportunities, including the recently announced $40-billion infrastructure project in Kitimat, B.C. Bill C-48 would not affect the estimated 10,000 jobs that are attached to that particular project. Very importantly, Bill C-48 would help to preserve the cultural and spiritual way of life of coastal first nations. As such, it is part of the Government of Canada's larger commitment to reconciliation with indigenous peoples. As we know, this is something that our government and our Prime Minister consider to be of the highest priority.

Members will recall that Bill C-48 was debated and studied in the House in 2017 and 2018. It was ultimately passed by the elected members of the House of Commons in May 2018, by a vote of 204 to 85. With the support of the Liberal Party of Canada, the NDP, the Green Party and the Groupe parlementaire du Parti québécois, only the Conservatives voted against it.

I would like to take a moment to thank the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, whose riding largely overlaps with the proposed moratorium zone and who has been a long-time advocate of formalizing the tanker ban into legislation. Along with our colleague from Vancouver Quadra, he has introduced private member's bills in previous Parliaments proposing a tanker ban, albeit through a different mechanism. He has been working with our government to secure support for this important bill in the other place, and his co-operation is greatly appreciated.

This bill was referred to the other place on May 9, 2018, and has been studied and debated there until just last week, more than a year before it was passed with an amendment and sent back to this chamber. I am grateful for the work undertaken in the other chamber, particularly during report stage and third reading. If colleagues have not had an opportunity to read or listen to some of these debates, I would encourage them to do so. They will be impressed by the high level and seriousness of the debate. Those debates ultimately led to the amendment that is before us today.

The Senate is proposing to modify Bill C-48 in a number of ways, most substantively by requiring a two-stage review. First would be a regional assessment that would be led by the Minister of Environment under authorities that would be established once Bill C-69 came into force.

The Minister of Environment would be required to invite the provincial governments of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as indigenous communities in the moratorium area, to enter into an agreement or arrangement respecting the joint establishment of a committee to conduct the regional assessment and the manner in which the assessment is to be carried out. This body would then have up to four years after coming into force to complete the report.

This would then feed into the second stage, a parliamentary review, which would take place five years after coming into force, and which would consider evidence gathered by the regional assessment and conduct further study and hearings before presenting its report to Parliament.

Let me begin by first stating we acknowledge that this is a thoughtful, creative and substantive amendment. We also recognize that the Senate's amendment, including the regional assessment component, is a well-intentioned and honourable attempt to find a compromise between supporters and opponents of the moratorium, as well as an attempt to depoliticize what has turned into a very contentious debate on this bill by requiring a more technical, evidence-based study.

In terms of the government's response, we support the Senate's call for a parliamentary review of Bill C-48 after five years. During report stage debate in the other place, Senator Sinclair remarked:

I too have concerns about the bill because it does constitute what appears to be an absolute ban on tanker traffic in an area, for good reason that might be applicable today, but I’m not so sure it will be applicable in the future.

He went on to state:

When it comes to how we can improve the bill, one of the options I want to talk to the chamber about is whether we might consider allowing for communities to change their minds at some point in the future and if they all agree that the ban should be lifted, then we would allow the bill to say so.

A parliamentary review after five years would allow such a conversation to take place. Committees could look at scientific evidence and new developments, hold meetings outside of Ottawa and provide an opportunity for all interested indigenous communities, provinces and other stakeholders to express their views.

However, for a number of reasons, we respectfully disagree with the Senate's recommendation to undertake a regional assessment. First, we feel this is unnecessary, given the requirement for a parliamentary review, as I just discussed. Secondly, there is consultation fatigue, particularly among communities living in northern B.C. and with coastal first nations, after many years of reviews and studies.

A non-comprehensive list of these reviews include the Senate transport committee study of Bill C-48 in 2019, Transport Canada consultations with communities and stakeholders held in 2016 and 2017 prior to the introduction of Bill C-48, the Canadian environmental assessment and National Energy Board review panel of Enbridge's northern gateway pipeline proposal held between 2010 and 2012, the Natural Resources Canada “Public Review Panel on the Government of Canada Moratorium on Offshore Oil and Gas Activities in the Queen Charlotte Region British Columbia” in 2004, the B.C. scientific review of offshore oil and gas moratorium in 2002, the joint Canada-B.C. “West Coast Offshore Exploration Environmental Assessment Panel” in 1986, the federal West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry in 1977 and last, but not least, the House of Commons special committee on environmental pollution in 1970-1971. I was almost tired going through the whole list, never mind the actual reports themselves.

It is important to note that many of the reviews I mentioned were led by regulators and bureaucrats, not politicians. They looked in detail at scientific evidence in a more technical way than parliamentary committees typically do. However, none of them led to a resolution of the fundamental political disagreements over this issue. At the end of the day, many of the scientific questions about whether or not it is safe or advisable to move crude oil in tankers off this particular coast are endlessly debatable. There is no reason to believe that yet another lengthy and expensive study would bridge these differences of opinion, especially one starting so soon after the coming into force of Bill C-48.

To be clear, the amendment proposes to start yet another review only 180 days after Bill C-48 comes into force. At some point, a decision needs to be taken based on the best evidence available and using the best judgment of parliamentarians about what is fair and reasonable, taking into account the wider Government of Canada approach on energy and the environment and on reconciliation with first nations.

Furthermore, there is, in our view, a need for a cooling-off period and a break to allow passions to settle and to take a breath. Coastal first nations have been fighting for a bill like this for almost 50 years. They deserve a break and some peace of mind.

Finally, the proposed approach would result in a lack of clarity over whether the authority provided to the Minister of Environment in Bill C-48 would be inconsistent or in conflict with the authority provided to the Minister of Environment in Bill C-69.

For all of these reasons, the government is proposing to accept the Senate amendment but in a modified form. We accept the adding of a parliamentary review in five years would come into force, but respectfully disagree with the requirement to hold a regional assessment. We feel this is a fair compromise with our colleagues in the other place and will allow them to achieve much, if not all, of what they intended, namely an opportunity to re-evaluate the law after a number of years.

Turning back to the bill itself, much of the debate on Bill C-48 so far has revolved around the question of why legislation is being proposed that effectively bans oil tankers from operating off the coast of northern British Columbia and not elsewhere in the country. Critics of the bill contend that this is arbitrary and unjustified, but I would argue that nothing could be further from the truth.

As the Minister of Transport explained when he appeared before the Senate transport committee, there are a number of factors that, when combined together, account for the uniqueness of the situation in northern British Columbia and the need for special measures to protect it.

The most obvious unique attribute of British Columbia's pristine north coast is the ecological significance of the area. The coastline runs along one of the last temperate rainforests left in the world and, even more rare, one of the very few to remain largely intact. These kinds of forests are unusually productive and support an extraordinarily rich web of biodiversity. The interface between the marine, coastal and terrestrial environments in this part of B.C. is seamless.

The Senate transport committee heard from experts who testified both to the unusually pristine nature of this ecosystem and to its vulnerability to the effects of a major oil spill. Canada has a kind of jewel in the Great Bear Rainforest which needs to be treasured and preserved for future generations. This is a responsibility we owe not only to ourselves but to the world. The precautionary principle, a principle I debated often within my previous role in fisheries and oceans, is fully justified in this case.

A second distinguishing factor is the long-standing policy legacy, at both the federal and provincial levels, of extending special protections to this part of the country. In essence, Bill C-48 would simply formalize an already well-established policy of barring oil tankers from this coast. As such, it would not be disruptive to any existing industries or employment, very much unlike the case if we were to propose such a moratorium off the coast of Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, or for the St. Lawrence for example.

A third factor that differentiates the northern coast of British Columbia is its shear size and remoteness and the navigational hazards of operating in these waters.

Environment Canada classifies the Hecate Strait as the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world for shipping. Winds of 100 kilometres per hour and waves between eight and 10 metres are not uncommon in both the Hecate Strait and the Dixon Entrance. These combine to make spill response more challenging than in more populated, built-up areas like the south coast, the St. Lawrence or the east coast. Although our government is dramatically boosting our capacity to respond to accidents through our $1.5 billion oceans protection plan, resources cannot be unlimited. It will continue to be the case that northern B.C. will present special challenges, particularly during bad weather which is common on these seas.

Last, Bill C-48 is responding to a more than 40-year campaign by local people, and especially indigenous communities, who live along the coast to formalize the moratorium banning oil tankers. While it is true that opinion among indigenous communities is not universal, a clear majority of these communities that are situated in the proposed moratorium area want to pass this law. Most important, the communities that would be most vulnerable to the impacts of an oil spill, such as the Haida and the Heiltsuk, have campaigned persistently for this bill. As such, it is part of our government's larger commitment to reconciliation with the first nations.

While I am sympathetic to the voices of indigenous groups further inland, which might like to participate in the economic benefits of a future, yet highly notional, pipeline that would go to the northern coast of B.C., I cannot disregard what a major oil spill would mean economically, culturally and spiritually to those who would bear the brunt of its effects. They deserve the peace of mind that Bill C-48 would bring them.

I note as well that coastal first nations have been joined by their neighbours in communities such as the city of Prince Rupert, the village of Queen Charlotte, the district of Kitimat, the city of Terrace, the town of Smithers, and the Skeena-Queen Charlotte regional district, which have all passed resolutions or written letters in support of the moratorium. There is also support by the Province of British Columbia.

In the short time that I have been in the House, I have had the opportunity to work on the government's $1.5 billion oceans protection plan, revisions to the Oceans Act in Bill C-55, restoring protections and introducing modern safeguards to the Fisheries Act via Bill C-68 and working to restore our whale population with our $167 million action plan.

We have expanded our marine protected areas from less than 1% under the previous government to over 8%. At the same time, we have reduced unemployment to historic lows, lifted 825,000 Canadians from poverty and Canadians have created more than a million new jobs.

It is the responsibility of any government to work hard to protect and restore the environment while growing the economy and creating more opportunities for Canadians. To do this successfully, we must balance competing demands and constraints, and I believe Bill C-48 would help us accomplish this balance.

I would like to quote a colleague from the other place, Senator Harder, who recently remarked:

...I hope that, one day, the people of the coast will tell the story of when their grandparents came to Ottawa to pass Bill C-48. I hope [we]...tell the story of how Canadians worked together to save the environment at this testing time.

It is time this bill was passed. I hope our colleagues in the other place will join our government in at long last making this a reality.

The House proceeded to the consideration of amendments made by the Senate to 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.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities support the committee's report which was just tabled, as transportation corridors are integral to the safe and efficient flow of goods in and out of Canada. However, we felt it necessary to supply a complementary report as the main report does not include three important recommendations that we heard loud and clear.

Those recommendations are the following: that the government of Canada eliminate the federal carbon tax and work co-operatively with individual provinces on the carbon reduction plan; that the Government of Canada withdraw Bill C-69, because it will create delays and uncertainty for proponents of projects related to transportation corridors; and that the Government of Canada withdraw Bill C-48, because it will have a negative impact on Canada's reputation and is not based in science or navigation practices.

During our brief study, we heard testimony by witnesses from Quebec and the Maritimes on the negative impact these Liberal policies would have on Canada's transportation corridors.

I encourage the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to read our supplementary report, but if they do not have time for that, I hope they will simply adopt our recommendations. We believe that doing this will greatly support Canada's transportation system and our vitally important trade corridors.

Natural Resources

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a tough week for Alberta here in Ottawa.

The Prime Minister has rammed through his anti-pipeline, anti-energy bills, Bills C-69 and C-48, and announced a carbon tax for the province of Alberta. These attacks are driving investment and opportunity out of the province.

Without a hint of irony, this very morning those same Liberals announced their western Canada job strategy. It is like hiring the arsonists to rebuild the house after they lit the fire.

When will the Liberals realize that the only growth strategy that will work is if they end their attack on Canada's energy sector?

Fisheries Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to once again be here to talk about the Senate amendments to Bill C-68.

I would be remiss if I did not talk about what we have witnessed over the last three and a half years, this week and last night, with the egregious affront to our democracy. It is pertinent to this discussion, because what we have seen with Bill C-68, Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and Bill C-88 is the government's attempt to subvert democracy to pass legislation that is really payback for the assistance the Liberals received in the 2015 election.

Last night, we had the debate, or the lack of debate, on Bill C-69. There were hundreds of amendments from the Senate, and the government forced closure on that debate without any debate whatsoever. Even the Green Party, in its entirety, stood in solidarity with the official opposition to vote against the government on this. That says something.

Bill C-68 is the government's attempt, in its members' words, to right the wrongs of the former Conservative government in amending the Fisheries Act in 2012. The Liberals said that the Conservatives gutted the Fisheries Act. The bill would replace the wording for HADD, the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat. However, we studied this. We consulted on this, and not one example was given. When pressured yesterday, throughout the last week and throughout the last year, not the minister nor anyone from the government was able to provide one example of where the 2012 changes to the Fisheries Act by the previous Conservative government led to the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat. As a matter of fact, despite the government's assertions that changes to the Fisheries Act are necessary to restore the lost protections for fish and fish habitat, the government's response to Order Paper Question No. 626 showed that the government had no record of harm or proof of harm to fish or fish habitat resulting from the 2012 changes.

On November 2, 2016, the then Minister of Fisheries and Oceans appeared before the fisheries committee and stated that “Indigenous people have expressed serious concerns with the amendments made to the [Fisheries Act]” and that his department was “holding face-to-face meetings with various indigenous groups and providing funding so that they can attend these meetings and share their views on the matter”. However, according to the government's response to Order Paper Question No. 943, DFO did not undertake any face-to-face consultation sessions in relation to the review of the changes to the Fisheries Act in the 2016-17 fiscal year.

The Liberals have stood before Canadians in the House and have been disingenuous. They continue to use the same eco-warrior talking points we see from Tides, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, which is essentially an attack on our natural resource sector, whether that be forestry, fisheries, oil and gas, mining or agriculture. That is what Bill C-68, Bill C-88, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 are attempting to do. They want to shut down anything to do with natural resources.

In the Senate right now, Bill C-48 is being debated. It deals with the tanker moratorium on the west coast, yet we have double and triple the number of tankers on the east coast, but it does not matter. We do not see groups like Greenpeace, Tides and the WWF protesting those ships and oil tankers from foreign nations that have far more egregious human rights issues than what we have here in our country.

Dirty oil is flowing through our eastern seaport, but there has not been one mention of that by the government. Instead, it wants to shut down anything to do with western Canada's economic opportunities, and that is egregious and shameful, and that is why we are here today.

The Senate amendments with respect to Bill C-68 were decent amendments. They folded into Bill S-203, the cetaceans in captivity bill, and Bill S-238, the shark finning bill.

For those who are not aware of the shark finning bill, it would ban the importation of shark fins, with the exception that they must be attached to the carcass. Shark fin is a delicacy in some Asian cultures and is used in soup and medicinal products. We asked officials at committee if shark fin in any form could be imported into our country, and they replied that it could be imported in soup. That was their testimony. When pressed further on this, they said, “soup is soup”.

The whole intent of Bill S-238 is to stop the importation of shark fins so that shark fin soup may be stopped or that at least the fins would be imported into the country with the entire carcass used. That is a fairly reasonable thing to ask.

The other Senate amendments to Bill C-68 that are important are with respect to the inshore fishery. We heard time and again that the inshore fishery is important to Atlantic fishermen. Adjacency and the inshore fishery are the same thing, but the language is different on either coast. It is important to our coastal communities and fishermen who depend on fishing for their livelihood.

Another important Senate amendment is with respect to third-party habitat banking. I went into great detail about what third-party habitat banking means in terms of fish habitat. That was a reasonable amendment put forward by a Conservative, and all senators agreed with it.

Interestingly enough, before the Senate finished studying the bill, the minister directed our fisheries committee to study third-party habitat banking. Prior to the fisheries committee getting a chance to study it, the Liberals scrapped any of the third-party habitat banking amendments brought forth by the Conservative Party and agreed to by independent senators. It was an exercise in futility.

Senator Wells, who appeared before committee just the other day, said that by all accounts, it appeared that the only people who were interested in protecting fish and fish habitat were those around the table, and the only people who were against protecting fish and fish habitat with respect to third-party habitat banking were the officials. That is odd.

I want to talk again about why we are here. I spoke at length about the influence of third-party groups at the highest levels of our offices. I will remind the House that the former chief adviser to the Prime Minister, Gerald Butts, was the president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund. The Prime Minister's new director of policy is a former top executive at Tides Canada.

Why is this important? It is important because these are the very organizations whose mandate is to shut down Canada's resources every step of the way and to tarnish Canada's natural resource sector on the world stage.

It says right on their own websites that they were going to use celebrities, their media and their influence to tarnish Canada's oil and gas and forestry to attack and landlock our resources. They have now permeated every office in this government.

In 2015, 114 third parties poured $6 million into influencing the election outcome, and many of those parties were funded by the U.S.-based Tides foundation. The World Wildlife Fund is deciding fisheries policy on the east coast.

As the shadow minister for Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, I went to meetings with the former fisheries minister, and there were no fisheries stakeholders there. The table was surrounded by environmental groups. We are placing a higher priority on these environmental groups than we are on the stakeholders who make their living and depend on our natural resources for their economic well-being.

Late last night, I took another phone call about another mill closure in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George. I know that colleagues understand our economic plight in western Canada. We have seen a lot of emotion over the last weeks and months about the plight of the west. The reality is that we are losing our jobs, and we do not have other opportunities. It is not that we are against the environment, unlike what a parliamentary secretary said yesterday, in response to Bill C-88, which is that the Conservatives blame the Liberals for putting such a high priority on the environment. That is not true. We blame the Liberals for putting such a high priority on environmental groups, not on the stakeholders, indigenous peoples and our local communities that depend on our natural resources for well-paying jobs to provide for their families.

There are hundreds of workers in my riding and adjacent ridings, and thousands of workers across the province of British Columbia, who are waking up today to more work curtailment and job closures. That is shameful.

When the House hears our emotion and concern when we raise the issues, it is not that we are against the environment, as much as the Minister of Environment would like people to believe that. It is that these policies the government has put forth have shaken the confidence of industry. They have a real impact. They may not impact those members of Parliament from downtown Toronto or in major urban centres, but they impact rural Canadians, and that is the truth.

I am going to close by reminding the House that this House does not belong to any of us who are in here. We are merely vehicles to be the voices of the electors. There are 338 members of Parliament in this House. Last night, we saw one courageous Liberal who stood against what her government was doing. We have been placed here to be the voices of those who elected us.

Despite saying in 2015 that they would let debate reign, the Liberals have time and again forced closure and time allocation on pieces of legislation. In doing so, they have silenced the voices of the electors who have put us here.

I would like to move the following motion, seconded by the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-68, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and other Acts in consequence, be now read a second time and concurred in.”

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am merely reading a quote from a concerned indigenous leader, who the Liberals say stand up for. Clearly they do not, which is probably why they take offence.

Stephen Buffalo, president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council, said:

Since his government was elected in 2015, [the] Prime Minister...has repeatedly spoken about his personal commitment to a new relationship with Indigenous people in Canada. In action, however, he has clearly privileged those Indigenous peoples, our friends and relatives, whose perspective aligns with the more radical environmental movement.

Stephen Buffalo also said:

When pipeline opponents use the courts to slow or stop pipelines, they undermine our businesses, eliminate jobs in our communities and reduce the amount of money flowing to our governments.

Why do I bring that up? Over the last four years, time and again the Liberals have stood and have said that only they no better. They point fingers and say that a certain government did this or that and that they know the NDP will not do this. The Liberals had four years, and Canadians are now learning that it was all just talk; all show, no go.

Bill C-88 is nothing more than an all talk, all show and no go type of bill. It is shameful to have bills such as Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and Bill C-88.

Bill C-88 would give the minister the authority to shut down the north and essentially turn it into a park, taking away any economic opportunity for indigenous peoples and those who live there. That is the worry.

Members can sit here and listen to all the talking points of the Liberals, but the reality is that they are being disingenuous. They will stand here, as I said earlier, with their hands on their hearts and say that it is all about reconciliation. We know that it is the opposite because they have proven it time and again.

In the 2015 election, on day 10, the member for Papineau, who is now the Prime Minister, told Canadians that he would not resort to such parliamentary tricks as omnibus bills. He told Canadians that he would balance the budget by 2019. He also told Canadians that he would let the debate reign. What did he mean? It means that he would not invoke closure or time allocation on bills.

I remind those in the House, in the gallery as well as those listening that this is your House. You have elected the 338 members of Parliament to be your voice. When the government invokes closure, it silences your voice. It is silencing the electors who elected the opposition.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, what is sad is that the term “reconciliation” has become a buzzword under the government. I take this to heart.

Many members know I have stood in the House, time and again, and have said that my wife and children are first nations. It is troubling for me when some members stand in the House, put their hands on their hearts and say that it is in the best interests of reconciliation, not just with respect to Bill C-88 but also Bills C-69, C-48, C-68 as well as the surf clam scam that took place earlier in this session.

The only part I will agree with in the hon. parliamentary secretary's intervention was when at she said there was enough blame to go around. Nobody should be pointing fingers, saying one group is better than another group. Reconciliation is about creating a path forward. It is not about pitting a first nation against a first nation or a first nation against a non-first nation. It is about how we walk together moving forward.

What I am about to say is not related to all members on both sides of the House. Some members truly understand this. However, time and again some Liberals will stand in the House and say that they support reconciliation or that this is all about reconciliation. Then a heavy-handed policy comes down or words are said, which we call “bozo eruptions”, and there is regret afterward.

I will go back to how we started the spring session. The first female indigenous Attorney General in our country spoke truth to power, and we saw what happened to her.

Bill C-88 is interesting, because it looks to reverse the incredible work our previous government did in putting together Bill C-15.

I will read a quote from our hon. colleague across the way when she voted for Bill C-15. She stated:

As Liberals, we want to see the Northwest Territories have the kind of independence it has sought. We want it to have the ability to make decisions regarding the environment, resource development, business management, growth, and opportunity, which arise within their own lands.

The parliamentary secretary has offered a lot of excuses today as to why she voted for it, such as she was tricked or voted for it for a specific reason. It is easy for members to stand after the fact and say, “I could have, would have, should have” or “This is the reason; my arm was twisted.” However, if we do not stand for something, we will fall for anything. That is what we have seen with the government taking up the eco-warrior agenda to pay back for the 2015 election. That is why we have Bills C-68, C-69, C-48 and C-88.

The parliamentary secretary wants to talk about how Bill C-88 would empower our first nations. Let me offer the House a few quotes.

Mr. Merven Gruben, the mayor of the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, stated:

Tuk has long been an oil and gas town. Since the first oil boom, or the whalers hunting whales in the late 1800 and early 1900s, we have grown up side by side with industry. We have not had any bad environmental effects from the oil and gas work in our region, and we have benefited from the jobs, training and business opportunities that have been available when the industry has worked in Tuk and throughout the north, the entire region.

Never in 100-plus years has the economy of our region, and the whole north, looked so bleak for the oil and gas industry, and for economic development, generally. All the tree huggers and green people are happy, but come and take a look. Come and see what you're doing to our people. The government has turned our region into a social assistance state. We are Inuvialuit who are proud people and who like to work and look after ourselves, not depend on welfare.

I thank God we worked very closely with the Harper government and had the all-weather highway built into Tuk. It opened in November 2017, if some of you haven't heard, and now we are learning to work with tourism. We all know that's not the money and work that we were used to in the oil and gas days that we liked.

He further states:

Nobody's going to be going up and doing any exploration or work up there.

We were really looking forward to this. There was a $1.2-billion deal here that Imperial Oil and BP did not that far out of Tuk, and we were looking forward to them exploring that and possibly drilling, because we have the all-weather highway there. What better place to be located?

The Hon. Bob McLeod, the premier from the Northwest Territories, said that the moratorium was “result of eco-colonialism”.

I speak of the moratorium. The Liberals want to talk about all the work they are doing in standing up for the north and the indigenous peoples in the north. It was just before Christmas when Prime Minister travelled to Washington, D.C. to make the announcement with the then United State President, Barack Obama. There had been zero consultation with northerners, despite consistent rhetoric about consulting with Canada's indigenous peoples. Prior to decision making, the resolution was made unilaterally from the Prime Minister's Office.

The indigenous peoples and the people from the Northwest Territories had about an hour's notice with that. Wally Schumann, the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Minister of Infrastructure for the Northwest Territories, stated:

I guess we can be very frank because we're in front of the committee. When it first came out, we never got very much notice on the whole issue of the moratorium and the potential that was in the Beaufort Sea. There were millions and millions, if not billions, of dollars in bid deposits and land leases up there. That took away any hope we had of developing the Beaufort Sea.

Merven Gruben said:

I agree the Liberals should be helping us. They shut down our offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole freaking Arctic without even consulting us. They never said a word...

Our hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, in response and to pre-empt my speech, called us the government on the other side. We are the government in waiting. We will be government in October. She said that the guys across the way would criticize the Liberals for caring too much about the environment. That is incorrect. We criticize them because they put the priorities of the environmental groups like Tides, World Wildlife Fund and like Greenpeace ahead of the local stakeholder, the indigenous peoples who are saying that they are tired of being poster boys for these eco-groups.

If my colleagues do not believe me, I will read some quotes.

Calvin Helin, chair of Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council, said “What the chiefs are starting to see a lot now is that there is a lot of underhanded tactics and where certain people are paid in communities and they are used as spokespersons.” He also said, “Essentially (they are) puppets and props for environmental groups to kill resource development” and “It’s outrageous and people should be upset about that…the chiefs are....”

Also, Stephen Buffalo, president and CO of the Indian Resource Council said, “Since his government was elected in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly—

Bill C-100—Time Allocation Motion

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have good news for the member. What we are saying today is that we should not only have debate on this legislation but also put it to a vote. After we vote on this legislation, it goes to committee. That is how the process works. Members of Parliament sit on committees. The committee to which we send this legislation will be able to continue studying it.

The member has spoken on numerous occasions about her oath to office and about how her oath is to serve her constituents. The very statistics she just provided are all the more reason this legislation should be sent to committee for study. It should be sent back, and we should be able to advance a trade deal for Canadians. Canada is a trading nation. Rather than talk about it, like the Conservatives are now wanting to do, let us actually act on it. Let us deliver for Canadians, to satisfy that very oath the member took for her constituents: Queen and country, I believe, are the words she repeats.

I will remind everyone that the Conservatives chose not to discuss the legislation during the debate on Tuesday, June 11. The member for Niagara West spoke about the carbon price, Bill C-48 and others, but refused to talk about CUSMA. The member for Calgary Forest Lawn spoke about China and foreign policy rather than about the CUSMA legislation. They have had ample opportunities, but they are trying to stop us from advancing this legislation. That does not sound like a party that supposedly supports Canada being a trading nation.

Impact Assessment Act

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I would say that it demonstrates his basic lack of knowledge on indigenous consultation and the impact of Bill C-69. Nothing in the legislation or Senate amendment package would change the current situation.

For decades, Canada has been a world leader in the incorporation of indigenous knowledge and expertise in project reviews and partnerships with indigenous communities, particularly of the top 10 major oil-producing regions in the world. Without a doubt, governments must improve their execution of their duties in this regard. However, the Prime Minister is wrong about this issue and Bill C-69.

The proposed Senate package and the specific amendments the Liberals rejected responded to the concerns of indigenous communities to elevate and amplify their locally impacted voices in early engagement and throughout the review process.

Mark Wittrup, vice-president of environmental and regulatory affairs at Clifton Associates, reinforces that point. He says that Bill C-69 “will create significant delays, missed opportunities and likely impact those that need that economic development the most: northern and Indigenous communities.”

The Liberals have caused uncertainty around resource development in the past three and a half years, with their imposition of layers of costs and red tape in policies like the carbon tax. Canada is the only country out of the top 10 oil producers in the world to adopt one.

The Liberals' new fuel standard is a reckless experiment, with severe cost consequences for refining, petrochemical processing, manufacturing and others. Then there is their unilateral imposition of the offshore drilling ban and unilateral prohibitions of activity on wide swathes of land. Their shipping ban, Bill C-48, is a direct attack on a specific industry, particularly damaging to a specific region of the country. It has already driven jobs, businesses and capital out of Canada at a nearly historic rate, resulting in a complete failure to build a single new inch of in-service pipeline.

The consequences of the Liberals' deliberate rejection of constructive suggestions from private sector proponents, economists, regulatory experts and various governments will be measured in more lost jobs, more cancelled projects, more missed contracts and more investment lost for a generation.

Energy companies are warning about the devastating impact on their workers and operations. This is in light of the oil and gas sector, which has already lost more than 100,000 jobs. It is likely closer to 200,000, if the statistics reflected employed individuals in the south. Over $100 billion in energy projects have been cancelled since 2015.

To put this in context, it is important to note that these numbers are the equivalent of losing the jobs created by the entire aerospace sector and almost all the auto sector. It is the equivalent of losing eight times the annual GDP generated by the aerospace sector and five times the GDP generated by the automotive sector.

If either of those two sectors were to face the same job losses and collapse in investment, we can bet, as there ought to be and has been, that there would be full attention and action from the federal government. However, the response to the devastation of the energy sector, of oil and gas workers and of their families has been empty rhetoric and platitudes, as well as a piling on of policies and laws, like Bill C-69, that are out right hostile and make things so much worse.

Concerns about Bill C-69 span sectors and regions.

A joint letter from the Association of Canadian Port Authorities, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the Canadian Gas Association, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, The Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C. and the Petroleum Services Association of Canada says that Bill C-69 will:

lead to greater uncertainty in the assessment and review processes [because it] requires assessment and decisions based on broad public policy questions that are beyond the scope of individual projects. It introduces longer timelines, and vague criteria that will increase the risk of legal challenges.

This is what the private sector proponents are warning.

They also take issue with the fact that Bill C-69 “gives the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada broad discretionary powers, which could further increase uncertainty for major infrastructure projects.” It also “put[s] at risk the investment needed for Canada to create the jobs and government revenues that support our quality of life.”

Certain criteria are essential to attracting and retaining investment in Canada, such as certainty in regulations, permanence of regulations, certainty in the form of timelines, performance-based policies that ensure benefits to communities by tying incentives to performance-based measures, such as job creation, research and development, innovation and capital investment.

Those criteria were hallmarks of Canada's regulatory framework for decades, with the most rigorous assessment, comprehensive consultation, high standards and strongest environmental protections in the world. However, from the beginning of the consideration of Bill C-69, starting when the Liberals rushed the bill through the House a year and a half ago, proponents raised major concerns on each of these key elements. One of those elements is timelines.

Bill C-69, as it is going to be passed by the Liberals, would create a potential for a delay that would allow the Governor in Council to extend timelines without providing justification. There is no hard time cap for the overall process. The criteria for making such an extension will be defined in regulations. Even after the Liberals ram the bill through the House, there will still be uncertainty around timelines, which we developed after the fact.

Literally, therefore, the cabinet will be the only power to decide when to delay a project. That is clear further politicization of the process and introduces further uncertainty for proponents considering a new project. That is why so many of the Senate amendments are dearly needed. They introduce legislative maximum time frames, they remove the ability for Governor in Council to extend timelines indefinitely and force the Governor in Council to provide reasons for suspending timelines. Maximum timelines set in law reduce uncertainty for investors, because time is money.

The Liberals' rejection of the Senate amendments clearly shows their intention to return to open-ended timelines. According to their legislation, the federal cabinet can keep resetting the process, forcing proponents to go through the same stage multiple times. That is the definition of “death by delay” now being implemented in law by these Liberals, which is a term and a tactic that anti-resource activists call their campaigns to kill Canadian resource projects.

Bill C-69, without accepting the amendments from the Senate, would also grant a single minister the power to refuse to undertake an assessment at all. It would grant a single minister complete discretion regarding whether to designate a project under Bill C-69's lengthy and uncertain assessment process. That would result in considerable uncertainty for proponents, even where proposed projects would not be included on the project list. They simply could be added to it by a single minister, the Minister of Environment.

That sort of political uncertainty is unacceptable. Therefore, a single minister could kill a project by adding years of delay and hundreds of millions in additional costs. It does not really get any more political than that. This is why so many of the Senate amendments must be preserved to make this legislation workable.

That is, of course, related to one of the major concerns from industry, provinces and municipalities, and the Conservatives have been warning about it, which is the uncertainty around vague project criteria. As originally worded by the Liberals, who are again intending to ram through Bill C-69, it would increase the length and the uncertainty of regulatory and judicial processes that already pose significant challenges to a timely completion on major resource projects.

Regulatory reviews already require significant commitment and exceptional due diligence by proponents, communities, as should be the case, but they are often extremely complex, duplicative and expensive and sometimes result in deep divisions.

Clear and concise criteria that projects are measured against ensures predictability for all parties and that ensures approved projects can actually get built, instead of having to repeat key parts of the process or spending years in court defending in approval.

However, the Liberals' Bill C-69 would add numerous additional criteria that would not be within the direct control of the proponent and criteria that would be so vague that it would be difficult to determine what they even would involve precisely, never mind for proponents to be able to determine how to incorporate them or how to account for them in their project proposals.

The Senate amendments, while not even as concise as the Conservatives would make them, are a vast improvement over the original Liberal wording. They would remove broad political debates from the formal review process and focus the fact and evidence-based review on criteria that would be measurable, quantifiable and predictable.

The concern with the Liberals' criteria that they are proposing in Bill C-69 by rejecting all the Senate fixes is that they are requiring the panel conducting the review to make determinations on matters that are subjective, that relate to the subjective policy priorities of the government and are inherently political.

How can a project proponent proposing a physical project based on engineering realities and the technical, economic, environmental and safety merits of a specific project anticipate and account for the particular political objectives of the current government of any given day? The answer is that it cannot. That uncertainty will stop proponents from proposing big projects and crucial infrastructure in Canada.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with grave concern for the future of our whole country that, on behalf of the official opposition, I rise to address the Liberal government's response to the 187 Senate amendments to the Liberal's no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69. It is likely the last time I will debate this proposed legislation in the House of Commons on behalf of the residents of Lakeland and the provinces, territories, municipalities, indigenous communities, economists, public policy experts, business owners and workers across this country who oppose Bill C-69 and its many negative and widespread impacts on Canada.

I will start by reviewing what has brought us to this day. I will say that Canadians can be forgiven for asking just the what the heck is going on here, because it is, frankly, unconscionable that within days of the House adjourning for the summer and five months away from an election, the Liberals are rushing through debate on their response to 187 amendments, which were also supported by Liberal-appointed senators.

These amendments were an attempt to rescue such flawed but consequential legislation that it will have significant economic impacts and ramifications for the private sector in resource development, in construction, in manufacturing and all the spin-off impacts for related sectors, as well as for provincial and indigenous governments, for infrastructure and for municipalities. It is unbelievable that the Liberals have chosen to reject the majority of the substantive and meaningful amendments passed by the Senate that private sector proponents, provinces and indigenous leaders said would at least make this very significant legislation “workable”, which is not a ringing endorsement as it is.

The response by the Liberals, tabled around midnight last night, will only exacerbate the uncertainty they have caused since 2015, which has driven nearly unprecedented levels of money, jobs, businesses, innovation and resource development out of Canada.

Let us all remember, as the minister just reminded us, that the Liberals started consultations on the bill in January 2016, when they started the regulatory vacuum for major resource development in this country. They introduced it in the House of Commons and rushed it through a year and a half ago. However, at that time, they ignored the dire warnings from committee witnesses, ignored input from expert panels and then subsequently rejected every single amendment put forward by opposition members of all parties, except for one amendment from me that mandated transparency on the reasons for holding a public meeting on discretionary matters and one amendment from the NDP.

They rammed it through the House in such a flawed, wrong-headed and disastrous state that it now faces near universal opposition across the country from a broad and diverse coalition and it requires all these amendments from the Senate, which, thankfully, was able to do a more thorough review and seek a wider scope of feedback and scrutiny than the Liberals allowed when they pushed the bill through the House of Commons so many months ago.

So much for all that rhetoric, nearly four years ago, about the importance of consultation, basing decisions on facts and evidence, and working collaboratively with opposition MPs. Sunny ways have certainly turned into very dark days under the Liberals. The Leader of the Opposition and all Conservatives in both the House and the Senate have opposed Bill C-69 from the very beginning, because, just like the Prime Minister, the bill is not as advertised.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association already did warn a year and half ago that Bill C-69, in its original state, would ensure that no new pipeline was ever proposed in Canada again. However, it is clear today like never before, by the Liberals' response to the Senate amendments, that their objective always was and is to dramatically hinder energy development, to interfere in other jurisdictions on resource development by imposing federal reviews on municipal and provincial infrastructure projects, and to make things even more difficult for farmers, rural municipalities, villages and cities by imposing federal reviews on things like irrigation and infrastructure.

To be clear, Bill C-69 is not only opposed by six Conservative premiers fighting to protect their jurisdiction, as the Prime Minister implies, but in fact, nine out of 10 provinces and the governments of all three territories have raised grave concerns with Bill C-69 in the past several months. It is opposed by private sector proponents across the economy in every corner of the country.

Bill C-69 would not provide certainty or clarity for investors. It would actually create duplication between federal and provincial reviews. It would politicize decisions by granting extensive opportunities for political and ideological interference instead of grounding decisions on science, facts and evidence, and on the technical and economic merits of individual proposals. It would implement open-ended timelines and vague criteria for major resource projects and crucial infrastructure. It would potentially expose all kinds of resource development that is within provincial jurisdiction to federal reviews. It would drive jobs, businesses and investment out of Canada and into competing countries, like the United States, and so many other countries with much lower environmental standards and performance than Canada.

Bill C-69 exposes major Canadian resource and infrastructure proposals within Canada to literally anyone, anywhere in the world, to intervene on those reviews. It removes all parameters for public participation, even reasonable limits like the requirement of a community or individual being locally impacted, and specific technical expertise or knowledge.

That is something the Senate amendments actually improved, increasing the weight of testimony from indigenous communities for example directly impacted by the project, which the Liberals have rejected.

Bill C-69 undermines the principles of fairness, predictability, certainty and clarity for major resource proponents with disproportionately harmful consequences for particular provinces and regions.

All of these reasons are why the Senate had to propose 187 amendments. It is absolutely reckless for the Liberals to reject those key amendments proposed by senators from all regions and on both sides of the political spectrum.

The proposed amendments taken together represent the bare minimum for private sector proponents to operate under, and 100% of those amendments proposed by the Senate to Bill C-69 must be accepted in their entirety. A failure to implement all of the amendments would hinder the entire Canadian economy from coast to coast to coast, which is why a future Conservative government would repeal and replace Bill C-69.

The reality is that Bill C-69 is not only an attack on pipelines and on the energy sector. It is an attack on the economic well-being of the entire country.

Canadians expect their Prime Minister and a federal government to unite and to be a champion for the best interests of all Canadians for oil and gas or refinery workers in western and Atlantic provinces and Ontario and the North, for assembly-line and manufacturing workers across central Canada and Quebec, and for hard-working Canadians and small businesses in all the other sectors that depend on the energy sector, the number one private sector investor in the Canadian economy and Canada's biggest exporter in every corner of the country.

The Liberals pit Canadians against each other over resource development in a way that has not been done since the 1980s, and they have put the whole Canadian economy at risk.

The losses in the energy sector are rippling through other sectors across Canada, whether it is manufacturing in Ontario and Quebec, financial services and banking across the country, railroads, shipping, ports and all the indirect and induced jobs in other sectors. This Liberal attack will touch every corner of the country.

The sad fact is that the Liberals are killing Canadian innovation and killing Canadian jobs. The economic and social consequences are immense: spikes in personal and business bankruptcies, foreclosures, increased food bank use, crime and substance abuse, family breakdowns, suicides, a loss of hope, and a loss of dreams and dignity. All of that is the result of the Liberals' attacks on Canada's natural resource sector and the thousands of good-paying jobs that have been killed by their anti-energy, anti-resources, anti-business policies and legislation.

Through Bill C-69, the Liberals will steamroll the provinces, giving themselves unprecedented power over even highways, passenger trains, recycling plants; over the regulation of non-renewable resources like the oil sands under provincial jurisdiction and other developments like wind, hydro, solar and natural gas. They will take over joint responsibilities like offshore oil and gas exploration.

Unbelievably, the Liberal Prime Minister dismisses provincial advocacy and concerns as being partisan. He says the outcries and the warnings are irresponsible, but that is just not true. The Liberal response of rejecting the majority of the Senate amendments today actually goes directly against requests from the Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Liberal premier of Nova Scotia. It is indicative of what the former Liberal premier of B.C. pointed out, that the “Ottawa knows best” Prime Minister considers himself not to be a first among equals, but to actually have no equals among the provinces, or anyone else for that matter.

Nine out of 10 provinces and all three territories demanded major changes to this legislation, changes the Senate proposed, which the Liberals are rejecting today.

The Liberals have given a single minister the ability to determine what projects require federal review without any prior notice or regulation. This means any future project in principal jurisdiction could require a lengthy and expensive federal review at the last minute without warning. That will not create certainty for investors and it will kill jobs in Canada.

The Liberals are taking projects away from expert life-cycle regulators with a depth and breadth of experience and knowledge and putting them under a new federal regulator without the same level of expertise while expanding opportunities for political and ideological interference.

What is really galling, and we heard it again here today, is that the Liberals have justified this legislation, while they deliberately undermine and attack Canada's reputation with ongoing and co-ordinated consistent attacks on confidence in Canada's formerly world-renowned regulator, on Canada's world-leading track record of independent science and evidence-based environmental reviews, and on Canada's leadership on indigenous consultation and the incorporation of traditional knowledge for which Canada has long been renowned, for decades.

It is a pattern. The Liberals constantly divide Canadians, pitting regions and provinces against each other for Liberal partisan purposes at any and all costs, while they say one thing and do another. This time, the Liberals' cynical tactics have backfired. Canadians do not always agree on everything, and thank goodness for that. People across Canada are united in their opposition to this disastrous bill.

On Monday, those premiers that the Prime Minister attacked yesterday, the premiers of the Northwest Territories, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, representing 59% of Canada's population and 63% of the GDP, called on the Prime Minister to seriously consider their concerns and accept all the Senate amendments in Bill C-69, because “the damage it would do to the economy, jobs and investment will echo from one coast to the other.”

They say, “Bill C-69, as originally drafted, would make it virtually impossible to develop critical infrastructure, depriving Canada of much needed investment.”

They talk about the fact that “the planned investment value of major resource sector projects in Canada plunged by $100 billion” between 2017 and 2018, “an amount equivalent to 4.5 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. To protect Canada’s economic future, we, collectively, cannot afford to overlook the uncertainty and risk to future investment created by Bill C-69.”

The premiers also issued a stark public warning of the impact of Bill C-69, and its impact on national unity if it is passed without 100% of the Senate amendments. They say their “governments are deeply concerned with the federal government’s disregard, so far, of the concerns raised by our provinces and territory related to these bills.”

Talking about Bill C-69, as well as Bill C-48. They say:

As it stands, the federal government appears indifferent to the economic hardships faced by provinces and territories. Immediate action to refine or eliminate these bills is needed to avoid further alienating provinces and territories and their citizens and focus on uniting the country in support of Canada’s economic prosperity.

They raised real concerns about the willingness of the Liberal government to trample on the provinces. They remind the Prime Minister that:

Provinces and territories have clear and sole jurisdiction over the development of their non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources, and the generation and production of electricity.

They continue:

Bill C-69 upsets the balance struck by the constitutional division of powers by ignoring the exclusive provincial powers over projects relating to these resources.

The premiers call on the federal government to adopt all of these amendments or “risk creating a Constitutional crisis.”

What is crazy about this is the Prime Minister's response to the premiers yesterday. That was a complete failure of leadership. He dismissed their concerns as partisan and attacked them for being irresponsible. The scale and the intensity of alienation and frustration captured in the premiers' cautions reflect the views and experiences of the people they represent. That is a direct consequence of this Prime Minister's divisive, calculated, regionalized and anti-energy, anti-resource development agenda.

Let me remind the Prime Minister, again, it is not only those six premiers who have opposed Bill C-69 in recent months. The only government that did not speak out is an anti-energy, anti-resource NDP-Green coalition government that is not even representing the majority view of its citizens when it comes to pipelines, and oil and gas. It, of course, is no accident that provincial Liberal leaders request the Liberal Prime Minister to steer clear of their provinces during provincial elections, whether in Atlantic Canada or in western Canada.

The provinces have been very clear about the economic consequences of the Liberals' Bill C-69.

The Government of Saskatchewan, in talking about Bill C-69, said, “[T]he uncertainty and the non-transparency that it would introduce is really disastrous.”

The Government of Quebec said, “Bill C-69 gives the federal government substantial powers, the equivalent of a veto over Quebec's economic development and the management of its natural resources.”

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador says Bill C-69 is an “unnecessary regulatory burden”, potentially undermining development opportunities and the global competitiveness of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore area.

The Government of Nunavut says Bill C-69 may “muddy or lengthen the processes, potentially leading to a reduction in investor confidence in Canada and Nunavut.”

The Government of Nova Scotia says the new assessment criteria in Bill C-69 “raise significant uncertainty and there is risk that they may not be interpreted similarly in different offices across the country.”

The Government of Ontario says Bill C-69 is “fundamentally contradictory to several of Canada’s long-term strategic goals and it effectively hinders natural resource related economic development within the country.”

The Government of New Brunswick says Bill C-69 “represents an unacceptable risk, an unacceptable impediment to Atlantic Canada's and New Brunswicker's future prosperity.”

The Government of Manitoba says Bill C-69 will “drive down investment, compound economic losses...and sacrifice jobs.”

The Government of Alberta called Bill C-69 completely “unacceptable” and has announced it will launch a constitutional challenge against it.

The premiers are speaking out because they must represent their provinces. They are simply voicing the rising alienation, frustration, anger, anxiety and experiences of the people whom they represent. They are making the plea to protect their jurisdictions with good reason. One of the amendments from the Senate that the Liberals are rejecting was the implementation of an exemption list of projects to ensure that projects under provincial jurisdiction would not be exposed to federal review. That is an amendment that the Liberals are rejecting.

Let us talk about the areas that are potentially open for review, under Bill C-69 as the Liberals want to pass it: the construction, operation, decommissioning or abandonment or expansion of a new facility, plant, structure, or thing for recovering oil sands by drilling or other in situ recovery operations; the construction, operation, decommissioning, abandonment or expansion of existing or of new pipelines other than an offshore pipeline or other than pipelines across interprovincial jurisdictions; the construction, operation, decommissioning or abandonment or expansion of new or existing facilities, plants, structures or things for the generation of wind electric power or solar electric power; the same for a facility, plant, structure or thing for the refining, manufacturing or processing of natural gas, natural gas liquids or petroleum to produce refined products or other light hydrocarbon components or products; and the same for generating units that use natural gas as their primary fuel for coal-to-gas generation and for simple cycle turbines.

This is the reason that premiers are speaking out and raising such grave concerns about this almost unprecedented intervention into provincial jurisdiction.

However, the impact of Bill C-69 will not stop at the provinces. The Liberals' “Ottawa knows best” approach will even impose costly and time-consuming federal reviews on municipalities. The mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and the mayor of the MD of Bonnyville lead a coalition of at least 20 municipalities that say Bill C-69 would impede municipal infrastructure projects and would fail to provide the necessary clarity on municipal land-use planning, waterway use, indigenous consultation and federal grants.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities says, “[T]he proposed Bill could result in more municipal infrastructure projects falling under federal review. This could add additional financial and administrative costs to municipal operations.”

The Prime Minister committed to a “collaborative relationship“ with provinces and territories, and he promised Canadians that he would maintain an ongoing partnership with provincial, territorial and municipal governments. However, when those governments sent the Prime Minister a letter with a plea for due diligence and for serious consideration of their concerns and a warning about the consequences for Canada, he essentially told them to get bent. He patronized and condescended to them, dismissed the substance of what they said, and both ascribed and criticized their motivations and really all of the hundreds of thousands Canadians whom they represent. What a contrast it is to four years ago, and what a disheartening and bitter legacy.

What is even more hypocritical is the intensely partisan use of separatism in the past by this very Liberal Prime Minister. In 2012, he threatened to become a Quebec separatist if Canadians did not do as he liked. He said, “I always say if there comes a point where I thought Canada really was Stephen Harper's Canada...maybe I'd consider making Quebec a country. Oh yes, absolutely. I know my values very well, even if I no longer recognize Canada.”

That is why his response to nine out of 10 provinces and three territorial governments raising these very serious concerns, that they either do what he wants or they get kicked to the curb, is absolutely mind-boggling. For him to have the gall to suggest the premiers are being irresponsible and threatening national unity if they, in his words, “don't get their way” or “do not get everything they want” is unbelievable. What kind of a sorry, divisive, petulant, flippant response is that from a Prime Minister?

In his case, and on this subject in particular, what profound hypocrisy. Canadians do and should expect more from their Prime Minister. The Prime Minister should be rising to the occasion and providing the leadership that Canadians so desperately need right now, but, again, he is not as advertised. Make no mistake, the actual clear and present danger, the real threat to national unity and the risk of a constitutional crisis, is the Liberal Prime Minister.

There may be no better example of how he is not as advertised than how he treats indigenous communities.

The Prime Minister likes to claim his most important relationship is with indigenous people, but even in that respect, he is divisive and, in turn, dismissive when it suits him. The Liberals claim Bill C-69 would improve consultation with indigenous people and somehow would expand the rights of indigenous people to consultation or would enhance the Crown's duty to consult and accommodate, but it does not.

Hundreds of indigenous communities and indigenous business owners represented by the national chiefs council, the Indian Resource Council, the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council, the Alberta Assembly of Treaty Chiefs and the majority of Treaty 7 First Nations oppose Bill C-69.

Roy Fox, chief of the Blood Tribe First Nation, said, “ I don't have any confidence in Bill C- 69. I am fearful, and I am confident, that it will keep my people in poverty.”

Steven Buffalo, the president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council, said, “Indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, one that finally allows Indigenous people to share in Canada's economic prosperity. Bill C-69 will stop this progress in its tracks.”

The 35 first nations in B.C. and Alberta involved in the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council said that they would take the government to court over Bill C-69 because it could make it “impossible to complete a project” and because the removal of the standing test for participation and project reviews could lead to foreign interests “overriding the interests of aboriginal title holders.”

Like most Canadians, indigenous leaders are concerned about the total lack of parameters that allows anyone anywhere in the world to intervene in impact assessment processes, significantly reducing the voices of local indigenous communities and risking the aspirations of local communities to be drowned out by distant and activist commentators. A lack of discretion to determine how different groups will participate in reviews will make processes more vulnerable to legal challenges in the case of any slight differentiation or disagreement between parties.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister claimed that the Senate amendment made indigenous consultation “optional”. Not only is that completely false, but the Liberals' rejection of Senate amendments will have a detrimental impact on locally impacted indigenous communities that want to meaningfully participate and seek accommodation in consultations on major resource projects, for which the Crown has a rock solid, undisputed primary duty.

The amendments the Senate made to Bill C-69 would have helped ensure that review panels, the agency and the Canadian energy regulator would have the discretion to hear from and prioritize those directly affected by a project and to consider the information, expertise and opinions of other experts as they would see appropriate.

As a representative of nine indigenous communities, almost all of which are involved in oil and gas, as a person of Ojibway descent myself and as a Conservative who is more interested in action, concrete measures and actual positive outcomes in the lives and well-being of the indigenous and all Canadians, it is very frustrating to listen to the Liberals and the left talk about the real crippling poverty and the particular socio-economic challenges and barriers facing indigenous Canadians, while they impose policies and laws, like Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and others, that will block economic reconciliation and self-sufficiency through financial opportunities and that actively undermine years of efforts and work of those indigenous communities to secure agreements and build businesses through responsible resource development to benefit their communities' elders, youth and futures.

Legal experts agree with the assessment that Bill C-69 would not enhance or enforce expanded meaningful consultation with indigenous communities on major resource projects.

A University of British Columbia law professor, who specializes in indigenous law, says that there is nothing in Bill C-69 that improves meaningful dialogue with indigenous communities. He says, “the courts have said for 15 years that you need to have meaningful dialogue [and] there is nothing in [Bill C-69] that seems to do that.”

For the Prime Minister to stand in the House and say that indigenous consultation is weakened or made optional by the Senate amendments demonstrates either his basic lack of knowledge on indigenous consultation or he is deliberately misleading Canadians for political purposes.

Indigenous consultations are a constitutional requirement, a duty of the Crown. Nothing—

Federal-Provincial Relations

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is taking our country down a dangerous path.

Yesterday, in response to the united plea of six premiers urging him to accept amendments to Bills C-69 and C-48, he angrily accused the Conservatives of threatening national unity, as though the very real anger and anxiety over these two destructive bills are some kind of Conservative plot against him. This, from a Prime Minister who has made comments backing Quebec separatism if Conservatives stayed in power.

These premiers are not making a threat. They are stating the facts and they are pleading their case.

The Prime Minister is too partisan or too petulant to care. If he is so concerned about national unity, he should look in the mirror. If he does, he will see the greatest threat to national unity of the country staring right back at him. This is not about impressing celebrities or drinking boxed water; this is about doing what is best for Canada.

Alberta Energy Sector

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to fight for the people of my riding of Calgary Nose Hill. They work hard and contribute much to the prosperity of Canada.

For many, that means working in a job in the energy sector. However, they have suffered as the Prime Minister vetoed the northern gateway pipeline, purposefully mismanaged the still unbuilt TMX pipeline, chased away any hope of investment in the energy sector with Bill C-69, landlocked Canadian energy with Bill C-48, told the world that he wished he could phase out the energy sector faster, celebrated when his efforts killed the energy east pipeline and refused to reopen the equalization formula after killing our jobs.

This is not nation-building policy. This is anti-Alberta policy. Here is a message to the Prime Minister and the anti-energy left on behalf of the people in my riding: We have had enough. Continue on this path and they do so at the detriment of our confederation.

Third Reading

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

I have a speech, but I think I will start by trying to answer questions and concerns that have been brought up. If I do that, then members could vote unanimously for this bill.

The first thing members have been asking is why there are only five more hours to debate this bill. For a lot of bills, that would be a valid question, but at this particular time we have had Conservative after Conservative getting up and not talking about the bill. We heard a lot about Bill C-48, Bill S-6, a letter from premiers not related to this bill, Bill C-15 and a northern moratorium.

I have been here awhile, and last night I witnessed an amazing situation. One of the Conservative speakers, in a 10-minute slot to speak on this bill, spent nine and a half minutes talking before they got to the bill, and then answering three questions by not referring to anything in the bill.

If the public wonders why Parliament has decided to call time allocation on this bill, it is obviously because the Conservatives have nothing more to say. We have heard the same arguments over and over again, and they are not valid. I will go through them one by one right now.

I am not sure why a party would want to stretch out a debate on a terrible injustice that it has caused, and it has done this a number of times. It is strange. Why would they want to put that in the light? Why would they not want to fix that injustice by supporting this bill? One of the members mentioned that he was not here at the time that it happened, so in good justice, he could support the bill.

People have asked what we have been doing for the last four years and why we did not debate this bill earlier. Some of the people in the House now have actually asked this question. This Liberal government has passed something like 85 bills. I think some members' constituents would like to ask them where they have been while these very important 85 bills were being discussed and debated.

One bill in particular was in the exact same situation as this one. It was Bill C-17. Again, the previous government had unlawfully, either technically or in spirit, abrogated a modern treaty, a constitutionally protected treaty, and tried to pass a law that got around it. That was certainly disrespectful.

Some may ask why Liberals did not get more things done, and a good example was what happened when Bill C-17, related to the treaty, was ready to pass. There was a grand chief, chiefs and aboriginal people here in the galleries. It cost thousands of dollars for them to get here from the Yukon. What did the Conservatives do at that time? They called a dilatory motion that the next speaker be allowed to speak, and then the bill could not be done. Some members ask why things are not done, yet they continue to do tricks like that.

This particular bill broke a constitutionally protected treaty, as I said earlier, a land claim. The members opposite have asked—and it is a good question for the ones who were not here before—why Liberals voted for that bill. This question has been brought up a number of times. The reason is that the part of the bill in which the law was broken in spirit or in technicality was snuck in in a much larger devolution bill.

The devolution bill transferred the remaining federal powers to the territorial government. That was a tremendous move, and that is why the party supported that initiative. Unfortunately, even though the people affected by this wanted this taken out and some parliamentarians tried to get it out, the Conservatives pushed ahead with the bill, and that is why the other parties voted for it.

Another concern the Conservatives have noted a number of times is that there are two parts to the bill. I think the member for Northwest Territories corrected them and said there are three parts. Nevertheless, they said there is part 1 and part 2, and there was no consultation regarding part 2. That is not true at all. When we consulted, we consulted with all the local governments involved regarding the entire bill, both part 1 and part 2. Shortly, I will read to members some of the things they said, because the opposition has suggested they did not support both parts of the bill.

The bill concerns the Sahtu, the Gwich’in and the Tlicho. When the Tlicho signed its constitutionally protected land claim and its self-government agreement, I was parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Affairs. At that time, unfortunately, we had to fight against the Conservatives to get that agreement signed. At least the Conservatives can now make peace with that wrongdoing of the past and support the bill.

I will read some comments of support, because the Conservatives have said that indigenous groups did not support part 2 or the bill.

Grand Chief George Mackenzie, from the Tlicho Government, said, “We urge the community to move swiftly and decisively to ensure that Bill C-88 comes into force during the current session of Parliament.”

David Wright is legal counsel to the Gwich'in Tribal Council. I say to David, drin gwiinzih shalakat. He said the following at the INAN committee:

If Bill C-88 is not passed, not only will Canada not have fulfilled its commitment to Northwest Territories indigenous communities, but these communities will be forced back into time-consuming, expensive, acrimonious litigation, all adversely affecting that treaty relationship and the broader reconciliation project. Further, this would generate regulatory uncertainty that benefits no one....

I know the Conservatives have spoken against uncertainty in the past, so that is another reason for them to support the bill.

Premier McLeod and Grand Chief George Mackenzie, in a joint letter, said:

[W]e are hopeful that Bill C-88 will proceed expeditiously through the legislative process and receive Royal Assent [in this Parliament].... The negative implications of the status quo are significant.

Mervin Gruben was also quoted as supporting the bill, as well as Duane Smith from Inuvialuit. It was suggested he was not allowed to come to committee, but he was actually invited. He did provide a written submission, and it was nice to have that information added to the record.

A Conservative member talked about not listening to indigenous people and indigenous voices. The member said that not listening to the people of the north is arrogance. I just read that the four governments involved, the Sahtu, the Gwich’in, the Tlicho and the GNWT, all support the bill. Conservatives are right; we should listen to those people. They should listen to those people as well, along with the rest of the parties supporting the bill, and support the bill.

Another thing the Conservatives have talked about a lot is support for resource development. I am sure all other parties agree with sustainable development. It is another reason the Conservatives should vote for the bill. I will read some comments about how the bill promotes and ensures this.

Chief Alfonz Nitsiza, from the Tlicho Government, said:

[F]ailure to resolve this matter co-operatively would damage our treaty relationship and undermine the process of reconciliation as directed by the courts. Long-term regulatory uncertainty for any reason will damage the economy of the Northwest Territories, including within the Tlicho community. This is all avoidable with the passage of Bill C-88.

David Wright, legal counsel to the Gwich'in Tribal Council, said, “Bill C-88 is a step toward certainty in the Mackenzie Valley, and that is a step that should be taken at this time”.

Finally, Premier McLeod said:

The proposed amendments to the MVRMA in Bill C-88 would increase certainty around responsible resource development in the Northwest Territories. That certainty is something our territory needs as we continue to work with the indigenous governments in the territory to attract responsible resource development.

Conservatives, to be true to the values they so eloquently put forward on resource development, can support those values by supporting this bill.

I support Bill C-88, an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act. Although the debate so far has focused on the content of the proposed act, I want to talk about what is not in Bill C-88 and why it would be a mistake to make major amendments at this stage.

Amending Bill C-88 at this stage of the process would defeat its overall purpose, which is to resolve a court challenge arising from the previous government's decision to merge the land and water boards without holding appropriate consultations.

The Northwest Territories Devolution Act, Bill C-15, was assented to in March 2014. The act transferred the administration and control of public lands and waters to the Government of the Northwest Territories and amended the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. The act includes provisions restructuring the Mackenzie Valley land and water boards.

The Tlicho government and Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated challenged the changes to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act that would have dissolved their regional land and water boards. They argued that theses changes violated their land claims agreements and infringed on the honour of the Crown. They added that the consultations had been inadequate. On February 27, 2015, the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories granted an injunction that suspended the proposed board restructuring, along with the coming into force of other regulatory amendments.

I would like to point out that those regulatory amendments, which included the addition of a regulation-making authority for cost recovery, administrative monetary penalties, development certificates and other provisions related to regional studies, all passed through the parliamentary process in 2014. Those same provisions are being presented today. However, they were rewritten to ensure that they could apply under the existing four-board structure. They were not part of the court challenge. Bill C-88 responds to the court challenge by reversing the provisions to merge the boards and re-introducing some regulatory elements that are applicable under the existing four-board structure.

On September 23, 2016, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations sent a letter to indigenous governments, organizations and stakeholders to launch the consultation process on Bill C-88.

Consultations were held with indigenous governments and organizations in the Mackenzie Valley, transboundary indigenous governments and organizations, resource co-management boards, organizations from the mining, oil and gas sectors, and the territorial government. To ensure that the indigenous governments and organizations were able to fully participate in the process, the Government of Canada provided funding to these groups and to the resource co-management boards that took part in the consultations.

Representatives from Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, or CIRNAC, held a teleconference with stakeholders to consider next steps and to discuss the consultation plan. A legislative proposal to repeal the board restructuring provisions was drafted and submitted to the groups for review. During the review period, the groups had the opportunity to meet with CIRNAC representatives in Yellowknife to talk about the content of the proposal and to ask questions. This was also an opportunity for CIRNAC representatives to determine whether any part of the proposal was unclear or could be improved, based on the feedback they received.

I will not have time to finish, but I do not want to miss this particular point. The only other questions someone could ask that I have not already answered are whether the consultation that was done was serious and, although they were in agreement at the end, whether any changes were made. The answer is yes. I will give an example of two of the changes that were made.

The first was that because of the consultations with the people involved, a court jurisdiction related to a judicial review of administrative monetary penalties, AMPs, was modified in order to ensure consistency with the exclusive jurisdiction of the Northwest Territories Supreme Court under section 32 of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act.

A second change was that consultation obligations related to the AMPs were added to the bill to ensure consistency with the comprehensive land claim agreements.

The only other thing I think someone might ask is related to the position of national interest and whether this is the only case of that. The answer is no; it is a clause, an idea, that comes up in different legislation. I will give members some examples from the north: the Mackenzie Valley Resource Act, Statutes of Canada 1998, chapter 25, section 130, and the Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act, Statutes of Canada 2013, chapter 14, section 2.

Section 94 of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act provides for the federal minister to refer a proposed project to the Minister of Environment for the purpose of a joint review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act if it is in the national interest to do so.

The Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act also provides for the responsible minister to reject a board decision or to reject or vary recommended terms or conditions if it is in the national interest to do so.

A few close references can also be found in section 51 of the Yukon Act, Statutes of Canada 2002, chapter 7, and in section 57 of the Northwest Territories Act, Statutes of Canada 2014, chapter 2, section 2.

To boil it all down, basically an act was passed that abrogated the land claim and went against a constitutionally protected law of Canada, which we cannot change by just doing another law. Of course, the court found that out and would not let it go ahead. All this bill would do is to put into law what the court had ordered.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the letters from six premiers to the Prime Minister came out yesterday. There are letters from the territories, New Brunswick, the premiers of Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. As well, one of the biggest oil and gas demonstrations this country has ever seen was taking place today in Calgary, Alberta.

It is shameful what the government has done with Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and certainly with this legislation, Bill C-88.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on some of the comments my colleague made regarding the arbitrary decision-making that the government has done. The Liberals have not done any consultations. It seems that the Liberals' desire to consult is only when they feel like it, and that would be related to a number of projects, like the tanker moratorium, Eagle Spirit and the northern gateway. There is also the moratorium that was announced down in the United States.

We are hearing increasing concerns not only from indigenous communities, who have not been consulted properly, but also from the premiers of these provinces. I speak in particular about a very concerning letter regarding Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 and how dismissive the Prime Minister and his party are in terms of engaging the premiers and indigenous communities to allow projects to move forward. The Liberals are happy to cancel projects, but they are reluctant to create an environment for projects to move forward.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I should note that I was not here when Bill C-15 first came forward under the previous government. However, of course, the Liberals voted for Bill C-15 in the last Parliament. Here they are now, saying it is no good, yet at the time, they voted for it. It is really interesting.

So what is the national best interest regarding the oil and gas in this country? Today, we saw the Prime Minister ridicule six premiers of this country, including the Premier of the Northwest Territories. They have major concerns over Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and the Prime Minister took shots at all six of them today in the House.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight to speak to Bill C-88, an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act.

Once again, this bill, like many other bills we have seen in the House, is being debated and rushed through Parliament in the last few days before the House rises for the summer. It is worth noting that this is a bill that was only studied in our committee on indigenous and northern affairs for one meeting before we went into clause-by-clause consideration. As a result, we were unable to hear live testimony from stakeholders such as the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce.

We have recently seen these legislative delays with other important bills, such as Bill C-92, which was passed at third reading in this House just last week, on June 3. It is totally unacceptable that the Liberals have so utterly mismanaged their legislative schedule when it comes to the bills that are now before us, days before we rise.

Bill C-88 is a bill that forms part of a long Liberal saga to kill natural resources development in this country. The bill would amend subsection 12(1) of the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to allow the Governor in Council to arbitrarily ban any oil and gas activity across the Arctic offshore. Under this bill, the government would only need to invoke the national interest to ban oil and gas development in the Beaufort Sea. However, the term “national interest” remains undefined in this bill, so the government would have complete discretion to decide when it should ban oil and gas activities in the Arctic offshore. These opportunities for greater economic prosperity in the north would therefore be limited and controlled by the ministers here in Ottawa. Again, under the current government, Ottawa knows best.

We have already seen the Liberals reveal their paternalism when it comes to economic opportunities for northern communities. We just have to go back to December 2016. While the Prime Minister was in Washington, D.C., he announced that there would be a moratorium on offshore oil and gas development in the Beaufort Sea. No, he was not up in northern Canada. He was, in fact, meeting with President Obama in Washington.

There was absolutely no consultation with the Government of Northwest Territories before this moratorium was announced in Washington. In fact, the territorial leaders of the day were given less than half an hour's notice before the Prime Minister declared the moratorium, in the United States, the farthest destination away from northern Canada.

By single-handedly introducing a moratorium on oil and gas development in the Beaufort Sea, the Liberals are telling northern communities that Ottawa knows best. The Liberals are saying, through their actions, that northerners do not have the right to pursue their own economic opportunities without the approval of the current federal government.

We heard from multiple witnesses in committee about the devastating impact the Liberals' moratorium has had on northerners. Wally Schumann, the minister of industry, tourism and investment and the minister of infrastructure for the Northwest Territories, said the following about the moratorium:

I guess we can be very frank because we're in front of the committee.

When it first came out, we never got very much notice on the whole issue of the moratorium and the potential that was in the Beaufort Sea. There were millions and millions, if not billions, of dollars in bid deposits and land leases up there. That took away any hope we had of developing the Beaufort Sea.

We also heard from Merven Gruben, the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk. He was very disappointed with the Liberal decision to unilaterally impose this moratorium on northerners. He was very concerned about the effects this ban would have on the people of his community. He said:

It's so easy to sit down here and make judgments on people and lives that are some 3,500 klicks away, and make decisions on our behalf, especially with that moratorium on the Beaufort. That should be taken away, lifted, please and thank you. That is going to open up and give jobs to our people—training and all the stuff we're wishing for.

Unfortunately, the Liberals are not listening to the voices, again, of the northerners, and as a result, communities are paying the price now for the Liberal government's arrogance. There is absolutely no doubt that Bill C-88 is just another attempt by the Liberal government to polarize oil and gas extraction in this country. It explains the power of cabinet to block economic development and adds to the ever-increasing levels of bureaucratic red tape that need to be navigated by proponents of energy development.

The bill makes northern energy development more difficult by increasing the obstacles that must be overcome by energy proponents before they can even put shovels in the ground.

In response to these polarized anti-energy provisions, many stakeholders have voiced their concerns. One of the numerous stakeholders that want to see the Governor in Council power to ban oil and gas development removed finally from the bill is the Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce. It has written submissions to our committee. The chamber indicated its opposition to the final authority of the Governor in Council to ban northern oil and gas development.

The chamber wrote to us as follows:

The final decision needs to be approved by the Indigenous Nation of the prescribed area who are the steward's of the area but also rely on the land to provide economic independence to their membership and throughout the NT.

Of course, in pushing through Bill C-88 without any amendments, the Liberals have demonstrated that they do not care about the opinions and concerns of our northern communities, which will be deeply affected by this piece of legislation. These northern voices are once again being ignored by the Liberal government.

Another important stakeholder that expressed really serious concerns about Bill C-88 was the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. Unfortunately, like the Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce, the IRC was not afforded the opportunity at all to present live testimony to our committee, because, as I mentioned before, we were only given one day to hear from witnesses on this very important matter.

Again, the Liberals rushed the process. It was the result of the Liberals' mismanagement of the parliamentary agenda and a consequence of the fact that the Liberals left this bill to the very last minute for deliberations.

Like so many other crucial stakeholders, the IRC is opposed to the unilateral power to ban oil and gas development in the Arctic offshore, which the bill gives to the Governor in Council.

It is hardly surprising that the IRC is against the arbitrary power given to politicians here in Ottawa to determine the fate of energy development in the north. Bill C-88 says that the Governor in Council can ban oil and gas development projects when “it is in the national interests to do so”. However, does Bill C-88 tell us what the national interest is? Does Bill C-88 tell northern communities what the national interest is? No, of course not.

Like so many other Liberal anti-energy policies, questions of the national interests are only for the Liberals to decide and nobody else. The bill is simply a reinforcement of the arrogant mantra that the Liberals know best.

Given that the IRC was not given the opportunity to offer live testimony on this discussion on Bill C-88, I would like to read into the record some of the serious concerns the IRC highlighted in its written submission to our committee.

First of all, it bears noting that the IRC is an organization that was created way back in 1984 to manage the settlement that formed part of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, better known as the IFA. The Inuvialuit occupy the Inuvialuit Settlement Area, or the ISR, and beyond.

The IFA was the first comprehensive land claim agreement settled north of the 60th parallel and only the second settled in Canada's history.

Why was this land claim agreement so important for Inuvialuit people, and why did they initiate the negotiations with the Government of Canada? In the IRC's own words, the land claim negotiations “came in response to our limited influence in increasing development activity on our lands and the vast marine areas of the ISR.”

In the short term, then, the Inuvialuit secured a land claim agreement, in part, so that they could have greater influence over development activities on their own lands.

With this background in mind, the IRC has written about its serious reservations with regard to the power the bill would give to Ottawa to declare oil and gas moratoriums on IRC lands. In fact, the IRC already saw the Prime Minister declare a moratorium in a significant portion of their settlement region when the Liberals were first elected to power in 2016. In regard to this ban, the IRC wrote,

it is important to note that the imposition of the Moratorium by the Prime Minister was done without consultation with any Inuvialuit in contravention of the IFA and with the framework established and the promises made under the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement.

The Liberals simply seized the opportunity in 2016 to unilaterally implement a moratorium on oil and gas in the north while the Prime Minister, as I mentioned before, was not even in this country. He was in the United States of America looking for photo ops and free publicity. The Liberals did not consult at all with stakeholders before they took on this decision. What is worse, instead of apologizing to many of the northern communities that are suffering because of this moratorium, the Liberals are going full steam ahead with Bill C-88, as we see tonight, to ensure that they can unilaterally put bans on northern oil and gas development again and again.

Bill C-88 says that the Governor in Council can make these bans when it is in the national interest to do so. The IRC and Conservatives would like to know what the Liberals mean when they say “in the national interest”.

The IRC had the following to say on the issue of the national interest:

The national interest criterion is problematic as it elevates the national priorities of the day vis-à-vis Inuvialuit priorities within our traditional territory. It would be akin to an appropriation a constituent might experience in the south without any restitution from the government. Bill C-88 does not define national interest or incorporate an express requirement to consider how the national interest ought to be balanced against the ability of rights holders to provide for their economic future.

Despite these concerns from indigenous stakeholders in the north, the Liberals have demonstrated repeatedly, through their anti-energy policies, that they have no intention at all of ever balancing their vision of the national interest against the views of indigenous groups that do not share the Liberals' hostile attitude toward natural resource development.

Unfortunately, Bill C-88 is not the only bill the Liberals have pushed forward, to the detriment of the indigenous communities across this country. We have just heard from indigenous communities about the real concerns they have about Bill C-69, the Liberal environmental assessment act.

Stephen Buffalo, the president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council and a member of the Samson Cree Nation, said:

Indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, one that finally allows Indigenous people to share in Canada's economic prosperity. Bill C-69 will stop this progress in its tracks.

Roy Fox, chief of the Kainai or Blood tribe first nation, said the following about Bill C-69:

...I and the majority of Treaty 7 chiefs strongly oppose the bill for its likely devastating impact on our ability to support our community members, as it would make it virtually impossible for my nation to fully benefit from the development of our energy resources.

Bill C-48, the northern B.C. oil tanker ban, is yet another Liberal anti-energy bill that the Liberals have rammed through this Parliament against the wishes of major indigenous stakeholders. Bill C-48 shuts the door to the Eagle Spirit pipeline proposal, an energy corridor that is supported by over 35 first nations and is an indigenous-led and indigenous-owned initiative. It is a $17-billion project that has the potential to provide economic opportunity to numerous indigenous communities. However, as with Bill C-88, this one tonight, Bill C-48 is another Liberal anti-energy bill that is both hurtful and patronizing to indigenous communities. Bill C-48 is another example of the Liberal government here in Ottawa telling indigenous communities that they cannot pursue their own natural resource development when it does not suit the interests of the Liberal agenda of the day.

Indigenous communities are tired of the paternalism that has been constantly demonstrated toward them by this anti-energy Liberal government. The chair and president of Eagle Spirit Energy, Calvin Helin, who is a member of the Lax Kw'alaams First Nation, had the following to say about the viewpoint of the 35 first nations that are in favour of the Eagle Spirit pipeline. He said that these first nations “do not like outsiders, particularly those they view as trust-fund babies, coming into the traditional territories they've governed and looked after for over 10,000 years and dictating government policy in their territory.”

However, the Liberals clearly do not think that these indigenous viewpoints are part of the current government's idea of a national interest, so they choose to ignore these voices. As a result of Liberal indifference to the concerns of these indigenous groups, in 2018 the chiefs council for the Eagle Spirit pipeline had to launch a GoFundMe campaign just to help pay legal costs in a court challenge to Bill C-48. The Eagle Spirit project noted the sad state of affairs by stating that this action is required to be taken by Canada's poorest people against a federal justice department with unlimited resources. Other indigenous groups have either filed lawsuits or are planning to do so pending the legislative fate of Bill C-48.

Sadly, the Liberals again did not listen to these indigenous voices then, and they are not listening to the indigenous voices in our northern communities today. It is glaringly clear that all the Liberals care about is the pursuit of their anti-energy policies at all costs. However, the cost is a very real human cost to the ability of northern communities to be in control of their own economic development opportunities.

The Liberals have promised time and time again to work with northerners. With only days left now in this Parliament, when will the Liberals finally live up to this promise?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have found it very interesting that as the Liberals have been debating this particular bill, they only pay attention to half of the bill, and that is the half related to the water board issue. They are completely silent on the very important second half, which is a direct paradox to consultation and collaboration. It is where the government is taking the power onto itself, in terms of placing moratoriums through Governor in Council, through the executive branch, for very vague national interest reasons.

I would ask my colleague to ignore part A in his answer, but look at Bill C-69, Bill C-48, the letter that was sent yesterday from the premier of his territory and part B of this bill, and tell us if he believes that the government is acting in the best interests of his territory.

Fisheries Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's intervention.

That brings me back to a word that you used in your intervention, Madam Speaker, and that is “trust” . That is what has brought us all down this path. When Bill C-68 went to the Senate, we had trust that the Senate was going to do its job. Bill C-68 came back, and we had trust that the government was going to take a reasoned look at it, but n it has gutted the amendments from the Senate.

I was going down a path with this in terms of trust. Canadians have lost trust and are weary of hearing the Liberals stand there and say they have our best interests at heart. It truly is relevant to Bill C-68 and to the Senate amendments, because members of the Senate heard from Canadians that they represent in their respective areas. They came at it, as I mentioned, in a collaborative spirit, as we do at the fisheries committee, and tried to enhance the bill.

I will offer this explanation as to why we are going down this path. When the minister stood and gave his presentation and intervention here, colleagues will remember that he talked at length about Bill C-68 and the Senate amendments and why the government felt it was necessary to go down the path that led to Bill C-68. Therefore, I believe I have the ability to talk about Bill C-68 and the background to it, and part of that background is Canadians' trust in the government, or their lack of it.

The hon. colleague can stand on a point of order as much as he likes. It is his privilege to do that, but it is also my privilege to be able to stand in this House and represent the electors of Cariboo—Prince George.

In time allocation, time and again the government chooses to ignore that there are 338 members of Parliament in this House, and that all members are here to represent the electors who elected them to this House. This House does not belong to the Prime Minister. It does not belong to you, Madam Speaker, and it does not belong to me. It belongs to the electors and those who elected us. It is our job to be here and bring our voices here.

When I am talking about priority and trust, I am trying to bring forth the voices of indigenous groups who have not been consulted on Bill C-68. I am bringing forth the voices of coastal communities who have not been consulted or who feel that they have not been heard in terms of Bill C-68. I am bringing forth the voices of my electors in Cariboo—Prince George, who feel that the government is not listening to them.

I will go back to Bill C-68 again and talk about protecting the livelihood of fishers in coastal communities, which is what the minister said was his intent in tabling this bill. If the minister was truly interested in protecting the livelihood of fishers in coastal communities, then probably both the former minister who made the statement and the current minister should have travelled to Grand Bank. They should have come to the Lax Kw'alaams first nation, which has major issues in terms of Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. They should talk to fisheries organizations, which have some serious concerns. They should talk to the farmers and municipalities that all have concerns with Bill C-68.

The minister received a letter from the Fisheries Council of Canada with respect to Bill C-68, and I should make it clear that it was the former fisheries minister who first tabled Bill C-68. He received a letter from the Fisheries Council of Canada that outlined some of their grave concerns over the way he had managed that file to that point.

I will provide a bit of background. The Fisheries Council was established in 1915. It has been the national voice for Canada's commercial fisheries for decades. Its members include small, medium and large companies along with indigenous groups that harvest fish in Canada's three oceans and inland waters. Member companies are also processors. They process the majority of Canada's fish and seafood products. The members take pride in being key employers in their communities. They are also stewards of the resource and work diligently to protect the waters, because sustainability of the fisheries is in the best interest of all involved, and they know that without the proper care and conservation, the resource will disappear.

Members of the Fisheries Council of Canada provide jobs for people like my friend, Edgar, who I met in Grand Bank, where the minister's corrupt surf clam decision shook their foundation and people's livelihoods. Members of the Fisheries Council create an economic base that helps sustain the whole economy of these small towns and villages, these coastal communities, many of which have no other source of economic income. What the minister's actions did in taking away the lucrative surf clam quota, Bill C-68 at that point, was shake those communities to the core.

In its letter to the minister, the Fisheries Council wrote that recent actions and announcements from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had undermined the fishing sector and therefore undermined the economic growth of Canada's coasts. It said, “Taking away the long-standing licences and quotas does not respect past investments and has put a chill on the future investments by Canadian fish processors. Many coastal communities and fish harvesters rely on their local fish processor to purchase their goods in order to bring their products to market. Without continued investment, the industry will stall.”

This is astounding. The Fisheries Council has worked with governments of all colours and stripes and it had to write this letter to the former minister. The fact that it had to do this speaks volumes. In fact, what we heard from people all across Canada and in Grand Bank is that the current government has done nothing to ensure a stable, reliable, sustainable fishery.

It would seem to me, after witnessing what the government has done in regard to the Arctic surf clam, Bill C-68, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, that unless one holds a Liberal Party membership or was once a Liberal member of Parliament or has made successful financial contributions to the Liberal cause, one is plain out of luck.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to continuing. I know that all my colleagues look forward to hearing the rest of my remarks.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House and speak to the Senate amendments to Bill C-68.

I listened intently as the minister did whatever he could, every step of the way, to disparage the previous government while trying to prop himself and his department up along the way. This comes from a minister who took credit for a Coast Guard vessel just last week on social media. He said that the Liberal government did this, but it was our former Conservative government that did it. It is very disingenuous for a minister to use his time to continue to slander and disparage the previous government.

I have said time and again, very publicly in this House and at committee, that consecutive governments, including Liberal governments, should take blame for where our fisheries stocks are. When questioned as to why our fisheries stocks are at critical levels, there are bureaucrats who have been in their positions for 20-plus years who have consistently told every government that they promise to do better. It is quite shameful that this minister would stand up here and trumpet that the Liberals are moving the ball. I will provide proof in my speech that they are not.

Today we are here to talk about the Senate amendments to Bill C-68, which is essentially a flawed piece of legislation. We saw that it was flawed when it was first introduced. Unfortunately, again the government put time allocation on the bill. I believe at that time it was the 40th time that the Liberal government did that, the same government that is led by the member for Papineau, who, during the 2015 campaign, said that his government would let the debate reign and would not resort to parliamentary tricks, such as invoking time allocation.

Here we are today, and I think it is now over 70 times that time allocation has been used. We have not seen time allocation on this bill up to this point, but the day is still early.

I will return to the Senate amendments. Early last week, the Senate sent back 15 amendments to Bill C-68 on about four different topics. As mentioned earlier, they cover inshore fisheries and habitat banking. Bill S-203, which is the bill that would end keeping whales in captivity, was rolled into Bill C-68, as well as Bill S-238, which is the shark finning bill put forward by a Conservative senator. I will get back to this shortly.

It was interesting when the department was before our committee recently regarding Bill S-238. The officials mentioned that while we would be banning shark fins unless the fin is attached to the shark carcass itself, the importation of shark fin soup was still going to be permitted. The department has committed to getting back to us and double-checking that, but the comment we received from the official when he was asked and pressed on it was that “soup is soup.”

Here we are now, talking about the Senate amendments to Bill C-68. Bill C-68 was introduced early last year and, as mentioned, is a piece of flawed legislation. During the 2015 campaign, the Liberals promised to restore the definition of “harmful alteration, disruption or destruction” of fish habitat. From this point, I will refer to that as “HADD”. I mention that for the Canadians watching from coast to coast to coast, as well as for those in the gallery, which is full once again today.

As the Liberals put it, they wanted to restore the lost protections implemented by our previous Conservative government. As a matter of fact, I will use the term that our minister just used, that the Conservatives “gutted the Fisheries Act”. That is what he was saying, and that is shameful. That is the same eco-warrior language, shamefully, that the government used in 2015 to tarnish any of the great work that our previous Conservative government did. As well, cabinet ministers and members of the current government have used this language to disparage some of our natural resource companies, such as mining and oil and gas, and, again, our former Conservative government.

The fisheries committee did an extensive study on the so-called “lost protections” in the changes that were made in 2012 to the Fisheries Act under our previous Conservative government. Not one group and not one witness could provide any evidence that there were lost protections that resulted from the changes in 2012—not an academic, not an environmental group, not a scientist. I will get into that more throughout my speech.

Not surprisingly, the government has capitalized politically with these environmental groups and the public at large with this proposed legislation. The Liberals have positioned themselves as the defenders of the environment, and restoring the imaginary lost protections has garnered positive support through various media outlets. This is the same government that continues to approve the dumping of millions of litres of raw sewage into our waterways, yet here they are defending their actions, standing up and disparaging those who are opposing what they are saying. They continue to this day to approve the dumping of millions of litres of raw sewage into our waterways. Canadians should be paying attention.

We oppose Bill C-68 because of the HADD provisions, but there are some positive aspects of the bill. It potentially has some good points. We have always said that Bill C-68 is a bill that we will repeal and replace, and that we will bring stakeholders around the table and build a piece of legislation that truly represents the intent of Bill C-68.

On the 15 reasoned, responsible amendments that the Senate sent back, the Senate did its job. It attempted to fix an omnibus piece of legislation that should have probably been split into two or three different bills, and there is another broken promise.

I believe it was in the Liberal 2015 campaign, and probably it was the same day when the member for Papineau said that he was not going to resort to such parliamentary tricks as omnibus bills. Well, here we are, and Bill C-68 is one of those. He has not let the debate reign. Time allocation has been seen time and time again.

The amendments focused on changes to the Fisheries Act, such as the owner-operator fleet separation, which, as my hon. colleague across the way mentioned, the fisheries committee has heard about time and again. The bill also talks about habitat protection and habitat banking, and it rolls in Bill S-203 on cetaceans in captivity and Bill S-238 on shark finning.

Bill C-68 introduced habitat banking as a means by which companies could restore waterways affected by development. As an example, when I was in aviation, we built one of Canada's largest runways. To be good neighbours, we noticed during our environmental assessment that there was a potential area for waterfowl or the western spadefoot toad.

Therefore, we had a toad rodeo. We looked to find how many toads were in that certain area that was designated or that could be environmentally sensitive. We also looked for the water fowl that could be present in those wetlands. To be good neighbours, we worked with Ducks Unlimited Canada, the conservation group. We are not the experts in this. We needed somebody to tell us what would be more appropriate, and we wanted to make sure that if there was going to be displacement, it would be within our region. We worked with Ducks Unlimited and other local groups. We found an area that was suitable, and we committed and purchased that area. That is an example of what habitat banking is.

There are concerns with moving down the way in terms of habitat banking, as well as, let us say, carbon credits. It is very similar to carbon credits.

As I was running for election in 2015, I was interested to find that we have offshore companies, European companies, that were buying up huge swaths of agricultural land in my riding. They were literally showing up to a farm and offering suitcases full of money. Many of our farmers are long-time generational farmers and do not have that next generation coming in. Who can blame them, if they have this opportunity present itself? The companies told a good story. Very quickly after purchasing the land, they mowed under all that agriculture potential. They were buying it for carbon credits to be applied in other countries. We cannot create more land; we are not able to do that. We put a stop to that.

Therefore, the habitat banking provisions that the Senate tried to fix with its amendments dealt with third party offset payments and they would keep the restored habitat closed. Habitat banking is a market-oriented approach to environmental conservation. As a matter of fact, we are starting to see this more and more. When I was in aviation, “carbon credits” was the buzzword. It was carbon credits this and carbon credits that. Every passenger who was flying on an airline had an opportunity to buy carbon offsets as part of his or her ticket. A habitat bank is now the next generation of a very similar type of market-oriented approach to environmental conservation. A habitat bank is defined in the bill as “an area of a fish habitat that has been created, restored or enhanced by the carrying on of one or more conservation projects within a service area and in respect of which area the Minister has certified any habitat credit”.

A habitat credit, before being amended at committee, was defined in the bill as “a unit of measure that is agreed to between any proponent and the Minister under section 42.02 that quantifies the benefits of a conservation project.” In plainer language, the old version of the bill stipulated that the proponents, and only the proponents, can offset the adverse effects on fish or fish habitat as a result of conservation work being done by the proponent. That leaves out important third party conservation groups and indigenous groups.

I do not know of too many mining or forestry companies that are experts in conservation projects. If a mining operation leads to deleterious effects on fish habitat, for example, that mining company may offset the impacts of those effects through a conservation project, like moving affected fish to another pond. Other examples include the construction of a salmon ladder, preservation of a wetland, as I described with our airport, or any other measure that creates, restores or enhances a fish habitat. Ensuring that proponents offset their impacts on fish habitat is necessary for environmental conservation. We all agree with that.

There is not a single compelling reason to restrict habitat banking solely to proponents. When we say that only a proponent can create a habitat bank, we are excluding first nations groups and conservation specialist groups like Ducks Unlimited or wetlands advocates. We are also excluding municipalities, among other prospective participants. These stakeholders all want to be on the front lines of habitat restoration and enhancement, and they should be. Not all proponents have the expertise, resources or knowledge to build a physical offset.

We all know that the balance of power in the Senate rests on the independent side, which we know is the government side. Under the amendment passed by our senators, proponents would now be able to purchase the credit rather than designing and building their own physical offset. The offset must still be created, but now it could be created by a group with a specific conservation expertise. In these cases, the proponents would essentially be funding the construction of an approved physical offset. The proponents would say, “We understand that our project has displaced fish, wildlife or aquatic species, and we will work to make amends. However, we are not the experts on this, so let us partner with an approved group to get this done.”

It is a win-win for industry and the environment. Companies do not have to divert their attention from the core aspects of their business and creating the jobs that come with it; all they have to do is buy the credit for the habitat bank established by a third party group. With a new market for the credits, there is an incentive for third parties to get into the habitat banking game, thus leading to additional biological protections.

The second amendment the Senate sent back on this issue relates to the offset payments. This amendment would allow the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to collect and offset payment in lieu of establishing and offsetting a habitat bank. The purpose of introducing this tool, as argued by the Canadian Wildlife Federation and others, was to provide the flexibility in areas where an appropriate offset project is not available or cost-effective. That makes sense.

As an alternative to purchasing credits, proponents could pay into a habitat protection fund, for example the environmental damages fund, to offset any impacts their project may have. Under this amendment, funds would need to be spent as close as practicable to where the work, undertaking or activity is located, or at least within the same province where such work occurred. If the displacement or impact is taking place in a region such as Cariboo—Prince George, I would like to see that habitat banking take place right in my riding. I would have to say that it has to be done there. We do not want to see these other companies coming in and doing something similar to what we mentioned earlier with the carbon credit program. If that displacement is taking place in an area such as Cariboo—Prince George, then an appropriate project should be found in the same region. I would suspect there are a lot of conservation projects that could benefit from this type of program.

Adding these parameters to the system was imperative to ensure equal treatment among all provinces, territories and, hopefully, if administered accurately by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, among watersheds as well.

This amendment does not mandate how the government should collect or spend the money. It simply establishes a structure by which private sector funds, determined and accepted at the discretion of the minister—again, it is all about this minister having all the power—can be used to support restoration projects in Canada. It makes sense to me.

The third amendment on habitat banking shares the spirit of the second, but it is entirely distinct among the three, and here is how. Bill C-68, in both its current and former iterations, specifies that certified habitat credits must be used within a service area. A service area is defined in Bill C-68 as “the geographical area that encompasses a fish habitat bank and one or more conservation projects and within which area a proponent carries on a work, undertaking or activity.”

The broadness of that definition was concerning. As currently written, a service area could technically be considered the whole country. For discussion purposes, let us say that SNC-Lavalin, working on a project in Quebec, is deemed to have done some damage to fish or fish habitat or is looking to buy some habitat banking credits, but it also does work in Vancouver, Toronto or other areas. It could apply those habitat banking credits to those areas, not necessarily the area in which it is making the displacement.

That is incorrect, and the third amendment sought to fix that. The intent of this amendment is to ensure that the benefits of an offsetting habitat bank remain local in comparison to the work, undertaking or activity. “Local” would be either as close as practicable to the area, or within the same province. The general idea is that the closer to the affected area it is, the better. A mining project in St. John's should not be offset by a habitat bank in northern Ontario or Vancouver Island, or vice versa.

This amendment maintains that it needs ministerial flexibility while protecting the local fish populations and providing certainty to industry about where credits can be used. Habitat banking benefits should remain as local as possible, as a guiding principle. If that is not practical, then the benefits should at least remain in the province where the work was carried out.

Late last night, the government set forth and gave notice of its amendments to the Senate amendments. Unfortunately, late last night the government responded by removing the new habitat banking provisions. The government said that it “respectfully disagrees with amendment 11 because the amendment seeks to legislate in respect of third-party, or market-based, fish habitat banking, which is beyond the policy intent of the Bill that is to provide only for proponent-led fish habitat banking.”

Is the government kidding? What a bunch of hogwash. The government put the habitat banking provisions into the bill. To say that the amendments to the habitat banking are beyond the policy intent is absolutely absurd, unless, of course, this bill is nothing more than just a cover and a piece and is not really intended to actually do anything but is just another thing for Liberals to stand up and say, “We did it”, getting all the support from the third party groups that supported them in 2015. I will say more on that later.

Let us go back and look at the absurdities of the bill from the beginning. On restoring lost protections, the minister stood and said that the former Conservative government gutted the Fisheries Act. Bill C-68 started with the Liberal campaign promise in 2015 to restore lost protections. After forming the government, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans asked the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to investigate the so-called lost protections.

After an extensive study, an 86-page report to Parliament was issued. To my colleagues who are in the House, and the packed gallery, how many lost protections were found? There were none. Zero. Not one witness came before the committee and said that the 2012 amendments to the Fisheries Act by the former Conservative government resulted in lost protections. As a matter of fact, what we heard was that they gave some assurances or some consistency to the application process. We also had some proponents who said that it actually made things tougher, but at least they knew the steps in the process they had to go through.

It is shocking that these guys, time and time again, stand in the House and use the same old talking points. Canadians are not going to be fooled. I think I just saw a poll that ranked the Prime Minister and the Liberal government at 15% in terms of environmental protection. Our hon. colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands scored the highest, and I think our leader was next. Way down the list was the member for Papineau, our Prime Minister.

After that extensive study and an 86-page report, not one lost protection was found. The dissenting report we issued said the following:

Contrary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard's correspondence to the committee dated June 29, 2016 whereby the minister directed the committee to undertake a study investigating the 2012 changes to the Fisheries Act and any resulting lost protections,

I thought committees were supposed to be at arm's-length and masters of their own destination. How many times has a minister or parliamentary secretary stood in the House and said, “Madam Speaker, committees are on their own to do whatever they want”? Probably they even had their hands on their hearts. It is crazy. It just adds to the hypocrisy of those across the way.

The report continues,

witnesses who appeared before the committee were unable to provide any scientific or legal proof of harm resulting from asserted lost protections under the Act as a result of the 2012 changes. This fact was noted on page 33 of the committee report, which states, “The preceding paragraphs in this section indicate the differing testimony heard with no scientific or legal evidence provided to show whether the 2012 changes broadened or reduced the circumstances under which section 35 applies.”

In some cases, witnesses like the Mining Association of Canada expressed that the 2012 changes to the Act actually increased habitat protections. They said, “...the 2012 changes have in practice broadened the circumstances in which the section 35 prohibitions apply and increased the circumstances in which an authorization and offsets are required.”

The CFA also added that, “...it is the CFA's position that a complete revert to reinstate all provisions of the Fisheries Act as they were would be unproductive [and] reestablish the same problems for farmers, and...provide little improvement [in conservation]”

I have just gone through the Senate amendments as they apply to habitat banking. I could go on at length about inshore fisheries, and I will do that later in my speech.

I will talk about Bill S-203, which is ending whales in captivity, which was rolled into this bill, and some of the concerns Conservatives have. Previously, when a southern resident killer whale was in jeopardy and in need of rescuing, there had to be an order in council from the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. The Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and the province do not have the mechanisms in place to respond quickly to that request. When every minute counts when trying to save the life of a resident killer whale or a cetacean, we need to have a tool in our tool box to act quickly. In that regard, Bill S-203 was flawed at that point. That was a serious concern the Conservatives had. The Senate amendments took that away, and that power now rests with the minister in this House, which I think is the right way of moving forward.

While there are still concerns about Bill S-203, we believe that the amendments from the Senate give us some assurances that some of the main concerns we had were addressed. However, in Bill S-203, there were some differences in the translation from French to English. In legal terms, one could argue that the intent may not be the same. That was brought up at committee, and the legal team and officials could not answer questions as to whether those discrepancies in the translation from French to English could have serious consequences down the road.

Bill S-238 is the shark finning bill. As I mentioned, a Conservative senator put forward Bill S-238. It is similar to the bill my hon. colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam put forward earlier in this session, which was voted down, but I am glad to see that Bill S-238 has been rolled into Bill C-68. Again, there are concerns as to how Bill S-238 could be prescribed down the road, but I believe in my hon. colleague's intent and in the spirit of the bill.

As was mentioned earlier, when the officials were before committee during the study of BillS-238 talking about the practice of shark finning and the importation of shark fins, shark fin soup is apparently still allowed to be imported. Shark fin soup can come in, because “soup is soup”, which is a quote from one of the officials. They committed to get back to the committee as to whether that was true. I have yet to hear if they got back to the committee.

My hon. colleague talked about the intent of Bill C-68. It is important for Conservatives to state our concerns about the bill once again. They were mentioned previously, and I have expressed some of them. Bill C-68, from a policy perspective, is a piece of legislation that makes Canadians feel good.

It is interesting that after the Senate amendments beefed the bill up, the minister and the Liberal government watered it back down, just as senators were trying to beef things up and do their job. The Senate does great work. It sent the bill back to us with some good amendments, yet the minister and the government are scrapping a good portion of them.

As I said, Bill C-68 was payback for all the third-party groups that supported our Liberal colleagues across the way. Well, they supported anyone but the Conservatives. This leads me to my next point, which is relevant, because it goes to the crux of Bill C-68.

Bill C-68 can be grouped with Bill C-69, the Liberals no pipeline bill, and Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. Recently, six premiers from across the country wrote the Prime Minister to say that the bills represent one of the largest threats to national unity we have seen, that the threat to our national economy is real and that the damage these bills would do to our economy, jobs and investments is profound.

Why do I bring this up? As I mentioned, Bill C-68 is payback for all the support the Liberals got in the 2015 election. What support am I referring to? In 2015, 114 third parties poured $6 million into influencing the election outcome. Many of those parties were funded by the U.S.-based Tides Foundation. The new director of policy was a top executive there. The Prime Minister's former chief adviser, Gerald Butts, was previously the president of the World Wildlife Fund, another Tides-sponsored organization.

Another Tides-sponsored organization is Leadnow. As noted in an article, it is a “non-profit society that was created in 2010 with the goal of bringing to Canada a model of on-line, political campaigning and movement organizing that began in the U.S. behind President Barack Obama.”

The article states:

During Canada’s 2015 federal election, Leadnow ran a strategic voting initiative called Vote Together. Leadnow claims to have defeated 25 Conservative incumbents.

Leadnow targeted me, but it did not win. However, it was successful in 25 Conservative-held ridings.

The article continues:

From Leadnow's 2010 Business Plan, it is clear that as far back as 2010, Leadnow has been focused on defeating the Conservative government. Leadnow's “Investor Package” states that Leadnow intended to "offer tangible support to parties that adopt their policies, and use tools like strategic voting to “swing elections” to reflect Canada's progressive majority.”

Why am I bringing this up? What is the relevance? This goes back to 2008, when a group of radical American anti-fossil-fuel NGOs created a tar sands campaign. It was geared, as quoted in a column in the Financial Post, to landlocking “the Canadian oil sands by delaying or blocking the expansion or development of key pipelines” by “educating and organizing First Nations to challenge construction of pipelines across their traditional territories” and bringing “multiple actions in Canadian federal and provincial courts.” These NGOs wanted to raise the negatives, including by recruiting celebrity spokespeople, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, to “lend their brand to opponents of tar sands and generat[e] a high negative media profile for tar sands oil.”

The column states:

[T]he Rockefeller Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation... along with environmentalist charities, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.S.-based Tides Foundation

Why did the they do that? It was to do whatever they could to target our natural resources.

I say this because fish is a natural resource, and Bill C-68 is another bill, along with Bill C-69, the no pipelines bill, and Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, that targets our resource sector.

I will bring members back to the earliest days of this sitting where the Prime Minister stood and said that Canada would become known more for our resourcefulness than our resources.

Make no bones about it; these groups have infiltrated our government at the highest levels. Gerald Butts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, was a chief adviser to the Prime Minister. He brought with him former campaigners. Marlo Raynolds, chief of staff to the environment minister, was a past executive director for the Tides-backed Pembina Institute. Zoë Caron, chief of staff to the Minister of Natural Resources, was a former WWF Canada official. Sarah Goodman, on the Prime Minister's staff, was a former vice-president of Tides and now holds potentially one of the most powerful positions as director of policy in the PMO. It is concerning at every step of the way.

I will bring members back to question period when the Minister of Democratic Institutions said that one side of the House likes to cheat and the others are doing everything to protect our democracy. We have seen time and again, going back to 2015, where we have all of these groups that were funded to take on our former prime minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives to defeat them and they propped up this Prime Minister, then the member for Papineau, and he made all of these promises. What do we see? We see now that he is following through on those promises to the environmental groups, the NGOs.

I have had fisheries groups and first nations say to me that when they want to get in to see the minister, they have to go through environmental groups. I do not think there is a government that has had more lawsuits against it from first nations than any other than the current government. On marine protected areas, the government is doing what it calls consultation. I will get into the consultation on Bill C-68. The Liberals like to say it is consultation. They will stand in the House and they are disingenuous to Canadians who are listening in. We have the proof. I talked a little about how the foreign funding has influenced our highest offices of the government, and that is what we are seeing in our pieces of legislation. Bill C-68 is no different.

As part of the economic action plan in 2012, and in support of a responsible resource development plan, our former Conservative government put forward changes to the Fisheries Act. They were geared at strengthening the act and removing unnecessary bureaucratic red tape. They were geared at making that process manageable so that proponents knew the steps that had to be taken. It was not letting them off the hook. We heard testimony from the Mining Association of Canada that it actually increased areas to which its members could be found negligible and fined. Our changes supported a shift from managing impacts to all fish habitats to focusing the act's regulatory regime and managing threats to the sustainability and ongoing productivity of Canada's commercial, recreational and indigenous fisheries.

Now, instead of listening to experts, the people who actually use our waterways and fish our rivers, lakes and oceans, the government turned a deaf ear to practicality and pushed forward, through the use of time allocation, legislation that will affect lives and do little to enhance the deterioration of fisheries in Canada. I said that in a previous speech. At that time, I believe it was 23 out of 25 of our core fisheries that were at very serious levels. Why was that? The fisheries management plans were not done. We do not manage fisheries to grow more fish. We manage fisheries to extinction.

I would put our team up against that team any time. Our member of Parliament for North Okanagan—Shuswap, our member of Parliament for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa and our member of Parliament for Red Deer—Lacombe all had previous careers in this. We hunt. We fish. We live off the land. We are farmers. We are conservationists at heart. Bill C-68 actually made things harder with some of the changes that we did.

One of the Liberal members who was on the committee at the time, who himself is a farmer, said that if he had a flood on his property, the changes that the former Conservative government had done would actually make it easier for him to respond. If a community or a municipality had a road that was washed out, it actually allowed workers to go in, without skirting any of the rules or regulations, work within the prescribed timelines and schedule to actually get the work done and respond quickly.

Intergovernmental Relations

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and now the Northwest Territories have just written an urgent letter to the Liberal Prime Minister calling on him to amend or withdraw Bills C-48 and C-69. The provinces simply want to be respected as the valuable partners that they are.

When will this centralist and paternalistic Prime Minister consider these democratically elected provincial premiers and their governments as he should?

Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise once more in the House to talk about the NAFTA trade deal. I listened to the talking points of the Liberals. They talk about all the good things international trade and the free trade agreement do. They are the same old talking points.

Once upon a time when we were in government, we said the same thing in support of free trade. However, I need to remind members on the other side that it was the Conservatives who were the party that pushed for free trade. NAFTA came about because of the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney. No one in the country would say that NAFTA was not a good deal for Canada.

However, as my colleague from Prince Albert has just eloquently said, the problems are with NAFTA .5. When the parliamentary secretary says why .5 and not .0, simply and straightforwardly, we do not trust the Liberals to set up any kind of a good deal, knowing the results since they have come into power.

I remember very clearly that it was the Liberal Prime Minister who shunned TPP in Vietnam. He was the only leader not to go. At that time, he had his own idea of free trade. Even the Chinese shut the door in his face. The point of this story is the reason why the Conservative Party supports this, despite all the flaws and everything here, because the business community needs this. The Conservative Party has always been a very proud free trade party. During the time of Prime Minister Harper, we signed a lot of free trade agreements around the world because we knew it is right.

The biggest one for everyone was NAFTA. Today, we call it NAFTA .5. The Liberals want to call it NAFTA 2.0. Mexico calls it NAFTA 8. The fact is that, yes, the business community needs stability. The business community is looking for some kind of stability in this economy so it can move forward. This is one way in which we can bring that kind of stability.

However, to remind all Canadians, since the Liberal government has taken power, five premiers have written to the Prime Minister today. They has said that under his regime, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 will threaten national unity. That has never happened before, where five premiers have written to say that Liberals have created an environment in the country that is not conducive to business and actually threatens the security of national unity. It is unprecedented. That is the record the Liberals have for the economy, which is why we do not trust them to get NAFTA back.

However, there is some hope in the sense that even with this flawed NAFTA deal, the business community will have some kind of confidence in the economy, forgetting about what the Liberals have done. The country needs to do it. We do not know where the Liberals are going with the Trans Mountain pipeline. Hopefully very soon we will have shovels in the ground.

I come from a province that has taken a massive hit by the Liberals' economic policy, and it continues. Right now, confidence in Canada is declining under the government.

Under Prime Minister Harper's government, confidence in Canada was going up. Under the current government, investor confidence in Canada is going down. We can talk to anyone out there, in London or New York and so on. If it comes to Canada, they slowly turn their heads away. The sunny days and sitting on the international stage by the Prime Minister has all evaporated in the air. He is no longer the darling of anything and if he continues the way he is, we could face serious economic poverty.

Hopefully, on October 21, Canadians will have a choice and will send the Liberals packing on their economic record, which is one of the most important things that needs done, because jobs bring stability.

I saw the most foolish ads yesterday when watching the Raptors. They were so-called third party advertisements against the leader of the official opposition. I have never seen a more idiotic advertisement. They will make Canadians more angry.

Unifor, the so-called journalists' union, is absolutely at the forefront of this sentiment, making it very clear that it does not like the Conservative Party. What it seems to forget, however, is this is not about Unifor; it is about Canadians and jobs. Unifor keeps saying it wants to fight for jobs. However, if it wants to fight for jobs, it should be honest about it. It should work for all Canadians and not be partisan.

Once more, I am standing in the House of Commons to stand up for free trade. We all know free trade has immense benefits for our country and for our jobs. If there were no tanker ban, no problematic Bill C-69, there would be such confidence in Canada. We would be a model country.

We have been blessed with natural resources. We do not have just one natural resource, but multiple. We should develop them, although I agree 100% that this should be environmentally sound.

Let us look at our oil production. We have one of the best systems in the world. We can compare it to those in countries like Venezuela and Nigeria, where there are no environmental standards. They are moving full steam ahead. Let us be honest. Let us work environmentally. It is time for the country to move forward with developing its natural resources.

With respect to the new NAFTA that has just been signed, all my colleagues have, very eloquently, made it clear that it has serious flaws. We want confidence. It is the one piece of legislation the government has brought forward that can give some kind of confidence to the business community that Canada is a free trade country.

Many people do not understand the amount of money Canadian businesses invest overseas. It is in the trillions of dollars. If it were not for free trade agreements, Canadian businesses would be unable to invest overseas. The Canadian investments of over $1 trillion will, in the longer term, help our country's economy, making businesses very strong.

Free trade agreements go both ways. They are for us and the countries with which we sign. That is why so many are signing on to the TPP. I am glad that the government finally, after insulting the leaders of the TPP, came to its senses. This came after China told us to take a hike when Canada went to China to sign a free trade agreement.

In the end, the Conservatives will support the bill because we believe Canadians need confidence, the economy needs confidence and the business community needs confidence so we can proceed forward and create jobs that will benefit each and every Canadian.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Madam Speaker, as has been mentioned before by my colleague from the NDP, I would caution the government to move prudently on this. We have already seen the Democrats not wanting to give Mr. Trump any kind of victory. Therefore, we have not seen a lot of co-operation from the U.S. If we get too far ahead of ourselves regarding ratification, that could be an issue. Therefore, I would echo the comments of my colleague from the NDP that as a result of the uncertainty we see in the U.S., we need to be cautious as we move forward with ratification.

The government's legislation aims to implement the Canada-United States agreement. The government is calling it by its acronym CUSMA. The bill would reaffirm key NAFTA provisions, but it would also introduce new conditions on Canadian trade and economic strategy.

Mexico and especially the United States are Canada's natural trading partners. A framework agreement that governs trade and other commercial issues between all three countries is essential.

I would like to state from the beginning that the Conservatives will support the speedy ratification of CUSMA's implementing legislation. However, having said that, it is also important to say that the deal and how it came to be is not without significant flaws.

In the beginning of negotiations, the Prime Minister pushed an agenda, including issues that were not on the radar of the Americans whatsoever. This nearly derailed the whole deal. It was very similar to what the Prime Minister did just months before negotiations of the trans-Pacific partnership with his erratic behaviour. The government pushed non-trade-related matters, which seemed to irritate the Americans, instead of seeking to find common ground on priorities and mutual interests.

As a result of taking that type of tactic to negotiations, the Americans negotiated most of the steel provisions with the Mexicans and then brought Canada in at the eleventh hour to deal with some of the remaining issues that had not been dealt with. We had an opportunity to be at the table with our most important and significant trading partner, but we were talking about issues the Americans did not want to talk about. As a result, they decided that since we did not want to talk about trade and NAFTA, they would talk to Mexico. We should think about the implications of that. We were not even at the table at the time the agreement came into effect. That speaks volumes to how the government handled this process.

As I said before, of course the Conservatives are going to support the bill. We reached out to stakeholders. I had a chance, like some of my colleagues, to talk to stakeholders across the country. They said that they needed certainty, that they needed a deal. There was no question about that. However, the concern is that the Liberal government talks about what a great deal it is, but that is definitely not the case as we move forward. What stakeholders and people have told us is that a deal is better than no deal. That is why Conservatives will be supporting the bill.

The government did not fight for our own interests. Let us think about that. It talked about the interests that were important to the Liberal Party and its political brand. The Liberals were focused on non-trade issues instead of worrying about the national interests of Canadians.

Let us consider auto manufacturing, agriculture and lumber. After four years, we still do not have a softwood lumber deal. I do not even know if the conversation has been brought up. Despite our many interests, which include auto manufacturing, agriculture, lumber and prescription drugs, the Prime Minister represents his own political interests. That should be very concerning for Canadians.

In addition, during the negotiations, the Americans decided to impose devastating steel and aluminum tariffs for close to a year. This was after months of them asking the Liberals to fix the loopholes that allowed steel dumping into the United States via Canada.

Now we have a bill before us that does not put safeguards in place. The Americans asked us to do this four years ago, but because the Liberals decided it was not important, we ended up with steel and aluminum tariffs. For years our manufacturing sector was under a bunch of uncertainty. We saw our jobs move to the states and a number of other things. Only now are the Liberals reacting. It it almost as though they created the crisis so they could point out they fixed it. That is what Canadians should really understand.

Canadian businesses and producers are still reeling after this very difficult period. The imposition of these very avoidable tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum have served to erode our competitiveness and have impacted thousands across the supply chain. The Liberals announced a $2-billion assistance package for the steel and aluminum sector, but almost none of this money has gone to the workers.

I talked to a number of businesses the other day. They said that before steel and aluminum tariffs were lifted, there was a big push from the government to get their applications in and it wanted to work with them. Then, all of a sudden, there was radio silence.

Are all those companies left holding the bag with respect to not having money and not having access or is the government going to follow through? It is easy to announce and reannounce programs. It is more difficult to ensure the money gets out the door. This is a huge issue. The reality is that these tariffs were avoidable. There was no reason for those steel and aluminum tariffs and the pain that our manufacturing sector has had to endure over the last couple of years.

Once again, the Liberals talk about all the money that has been collected, which I believe almost $2 billion. My point is that very few businesses have received any money. We studied this at committee for quite some time. Company after company said that the application process was difficult and that was hard to figure out how to make this thing work. They also said that they were not getting money. Once again, the announcement talked about the money, but the proof was whether the companies had the kind of help they required, and that was not the case.

This was all avoidable if the government had acted when the Americans asked it to close the loophole that allowed cheap and dumped steel to flood the American market, using Canada as a transit country.

The Liberals have lurched from crisis to crisis on trade and tariffs. They have been constantly out of step with Canadian workers and manufacturers. The government's negotiations of CUSMA also delivered no progress on buy American provisions with respect to government procurement.

Another issue we have not talked about is buy American. It is concerning for our Canadian manufacturers. Are they going to have the ability to access some of those things? It is a major blow to Canadian businesses and jobs across the country.

The Liberals also made concessions on the Canadian supply-managed agriculture sector, which the foreign affairs minister deemed to be key to our national interests . The Americans did not budge when it came to their use of agriculture subsidies. As a matter of fact, we have seen the subsidies grow over the last number of months.

The government and the Prime Minister also made key concessions on intellectual property, which will see provinces burdened with higher costs for biological drugs.

The government also restricted future trade deals, with unparalleled provisions granting Americans an indirect veto over Canadian trade partners. Think about this for one second. This is an issue of sovereignty. While the U.S. negotiates trade deals with China, basically it has told us that we need to get its permission if we want to move forward on any deal with China. This is huge. This was not discussed a whole lot in the general public, but has long-term consequences for our ability to do our job as Canadians and get our products to market.

I will give credit where credit is due. One of the major achievements was to preserve chapter 19, the dispute resolution provisions. The minister mentioned that. It is fair to say that it was a concern if we did not have an independent third party to look at some of our challenges. Therefore, I will give credit to the Liberals on that one, but that will probably be it right now. However, that was definitely important.

A trade deal is judged by what one has gained from the negotiations. In this deal, compared to previous versions, Canada lost a number of key sectors and gained absolutely nothing. However, the Liberals go on tour around the country like they are some kind of heroes and it makes no sense. They have lost ground from previous governments. We do not talk about it as a save, but it could have been a lot worse. However, to travel around the country and say somehow this is an amazing deal for Canadians is just not true.

It has been very clear from the beginning that the Liberal government was unprepared to renegotiate the NAFTA deal. When the negotiations started, the Liberals kept stumbling and in the end, they were forced to take a deal where they lost on many fronts.

As I mentioned earlier, we will support the bill because it is essential to provide our businesses and producers with certainty. We have heard that on the ground. They have also suffered enough under the government. The Liberals have mismanaged the economy and trade. They have created a lot of uncertainty as we move forward.

Another thing we need to point out is that last year the U.S. grew its economy by 3.2%. That was after a government shutdown for the first quarter. In 2018, when the government was shut down for a large part of the first quarter in which it only had 2% growth, it still was able to notch up growth of over 3.2%.

We need to compare our record with that. In the last quarter of 2018, we saw growth at 0.3%. This quarter it was 0.4%, which is not quite a third of that of the U.S. The U.S. economy is on fire right now and the best we can muster is a growth of 0.4%, with all the money we are spending and all the deficits we are creating. The comparative is important to understand.

In order to compete with the United States and Mexico, our business environment needs to be more competitive or else we are setting up our businesses to fail in the face of strong competition from our counterparts to the south.

How is Canada doing with respect to competitiveness? The government has managed to make things worse on this front as well.

Let us start with the most important mistake first, and that is the carbon tax. First, let us just get this out of the way in the beginning. The carbon tax is not an environmental plan; it is a tax plan. It will do nothing for the environment. The Liberals are fully aware of this and Canadians know it as well.

The Liberal carbon tax is not a plan to lower emissions. It is just another cash grab, which is hurting already overtaxed Canadians. Small businesses and their employers are already being overtaxed. The Liberals have increased CPP and EI premiums. They have increased personal income tax rates for entrepreneurs. They have made changes to the small business tax rate that will disqualify thousands of local businesses.

Dan Kelly, president of Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said:

Many small businesses want to take action on climate change, but the carbon tax is putting them further behind. In fact, 71 per cent have told us that the carbon tax makes it harder for them to make further investments to reduce their emissions.

Seventy-one per cent of small businesses have said that the carbon tax makes it harder for them to make further investments to reduce their emissions. What more proof does the government need, when the ill-advised carbon tax makes no impact on the environment and makes our businesses uncompetitive.

Last Friday, the Canadian Press reported that the average carbon tax rebate Canadians received in 2018 was significantly lower than the amount the Liberals had claimed they would receive. When announcing the carbon tax rebate program, the Liberals established the average payment would be $248 in New Brunswick, $307 in Ontario, $336 in Manitoba, and $598 in Saskatchewan. However, the actual average rebates have been much lower: $171 in New Brunswick, $203 in Ontario, $231 in Manitoba and $422 in Saskatchewan.

Like the Prime Minister himself, these carbon tax rebates are simply not as advertised. The Liberals continue to cover up the true costs of the carbon tax. They still have not told Canadians how much more it will cost them for everyday essentials, like groceries, gasoline and home heating.

With less money being returned to Canadians, they will have even less money in their pockets, thanks to the Prime Minister and his Liberal carbon tax. The Liberal carbon tax will go up, if he is re-elected in October. Environment Canada is already planning for $300 per tonne, which is 15 times more expensive than it is today.

Make no mistake, a Conservative government will scrap the carbon tax, leave more money in the pockets of Canadians, let them get ahead and allow our businesses to stay competitive.

How else is the government making Canada's business environment uncompetitive? It is a good question, because Canada recently fell to the lowest spot ever in competitiveness. Canada has fallen out of the top 10 in a ranking of the world's most competitive economies. We are now 13th. Let us think about that. In an age where we are competing with one of the largest and most successful economies in the world, the U.S., which is ranked at number three, not only are we not in the top 10 anymore, we have dropped to 13th.

Competitiveness drives our economy. It helps us to compete when we have deals and when we try to move our goods and services across the border. This will only continue to make it tougher for Canadians to succeed financially in the coming years.

As I mentioned, the United States is number three. We are trying to compete with the world's biggest economy and it is tough when we see it use tax reform and regulation reform. What we a doing is making it more difficult for Canada to compete as a country.

If we look at the other things that are going on right now, and some of the things we talk about when it comes to competitiveness, there is the whole issue of pipelines. We have tanker moratoriums and things like that.

Let us think about that. In a day and age when the U.S. is building more pipelines, we have bills like Bill C-69. I noticed in the paper this morning that six premiers have come together to say that if something is not done, this is going to create a potential national unity crisis. In terms of the investment that we have chased from this country, it is almost $100 billion in energy investment.

Let us look at the things we are doing. We have a country south of the border that is looking for ways to reduce regulation and red tape. We have a government here that is barely chugging along in terms of its GDP. As I said, it is 0.3% in the last quarter and 0.4% in this quarter. That is without the new rules in this legislation that is before the House right now.

If we look at bills like Bill C-69, which is to increase the regulatory reform when it comes to pipelines, and Bill C-48, where we are trying to get our goods to market around the world, this is one more thing that makes us uncompetitive as we move forward. One of the things we need to be on guard against is that as the U.S. and countries around the world are reducing and streamlining regulation, we are making these things more difficult.

We need to look at what we are doing as a country. Trade deals are important. The U.S. is extremely important as a partner. As I said before, stakeholders have told us that it is more important to have a bad deal in place, for certainty, than it is to have no deal at all. Therefore, as we move forward on these issues, one of the things we need to be talking about is not just the trade deals we have right now, but how we are going to become more competitive in the future.

Looking at the kind of money we are spending on deficits, the current government has racked up almost $80 billion in deficit spending, and yet we have very little to show for it when we start talking about GDP growth and some of these things. There was the tax on small businesses that we experienced two or three summers ago. How are these things helpful in terms of making us more competitive?

As I look at what is going on around the world, I believe we are heading in the wrong direction. I believe we should be doing much better, given the fact that the U.S. economy is on fire south of the border. Yes, we need to do other things, like work on how we can get our goods and services across interprovincial borders and a number of these things. However, one of the things we need to constantly work on is how we streamline to reduce the burdens that business owners have to deal with.

In looking at this bill before us today, we realize that it would create some certainty for some businesses. In the long term, the challenge will be how we deal with this issue in terms of competitiveness. How do we deal with the issue that we need to do a better job of getting our goods and services to market? How do we deal with the issues of trade infrastructure in this country?

When we were in government, we spent a number of dollars on trade infrastructure, as it was very important to us. We have not seen a whole lot of money go out the door in terms of infrastructure. There has been some talk about an infrastructure bank, and yet in the three or four years, there has been very little money flowing out the door. We have somewhere in the neighbourhood of almost $80 billion in deficit spending and we do not have a lot to show for it.

Sure, we have more programs, but at the end of the day, what do Canadians feel about that? I would say that Canadians are not feeling that they are any better off. As a matter of fact, we have seen it reported in the press that Canadians are feeling the pressure, in terms of what they have to take home at the end of every month.

As we move forward, these trade deals are important, but we have to continually focus on competitiveness here at home. We have to figure out ways that we can reduce taxes, reduce regulations and streamline the process, and then we can move in a direction that helps us to compete around the world. We have a great opportunity, with what is going on around the world right now, to attract the best and the brightest. I would encourage the government to continue to move in that direction. I can assure members that when we have the opportunity to form government in October, some of the things we are going to be looking at are how we become more competitive as a country and how we compete with the U.S. and other countries around the world.

In closing, the Conservatives will be supporting this deal. However, we have some concerns with how it was handled. We have concerns with some of the crises that were created that we believe did not need to happen. We will do our best to try to fix these things when we are elected with a strong, stable Conservative government in October of this year.

Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1

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

Mr. Speaker, this speech is well timed, because I know now that the Raptors game is over. Canadians will now be able to switch their dials back to CPAC and watch this, so I appreciate that. I am very pleased about the Raptors' success this evening. I have been a long-term fan. For two weeks, I have been following the games and I am sure that devotion is going to mean a lot for my continuing visits to the ridings of the members across the way in the greater Toronto area.

We are talking today about the budget implementation act and I want to frame this by talking about what I think is on a lot of Canadians' minds when they look at the budget. They are asking themselves how they can get ahead. Frankly, a lot of Canadians are struggling to get ahead. They might be getting by, but not getting ahead. When I think about getting ahead, I think about my paternal grandfather. He just passed away a couple of weeks ago and it was great to hear some of the stories shared at his funeral. My grandfather came here as an immigrant from Malta with not very much money. If there was someone who could get ahead, who could make a looney go a little further, it was my grandfather.

I remember one story he told us. He came from Malta right after the Second World War. Malta was heavily bombed by the German Air Force during the Second World War. When he bought his first car, he saw the ad in the paper, the guy came over and they negotiated a price of $300 for the car. The guy thought he recognized my grandfather's accent and asked where he was from. My grandfather answered that he was from the island of Malta. It turned out the guy he was talking to had served in the German Air Force and the guy said he had dropped so many bombs on that country. They talked back and forth a little and at the end of the day, my grandfather gave him $200. When the guy said he thought they had agreed to $300, my grandfather said that was a discount for all the bombs he had dropped on his country, and the guy took the money and left. That was the immigrant experience for so many people who came then and come now and need to use every advantage they can get just to get ahead.

I look at the economic reality that the government is presiding over and it is one in which it is harder and harder for Canadians to get ahead, so I want to contrast the economic vision we see from the government and the alternative vision of the Conservatives.

The government's approach, which we have heard in the speeches that were given tonight, is that if someone has a problem, the government has a program for that. If people are struggling with accessing the Internet, the government will have an access-the-Internet program. If people want new tires, the government will have a new tires program. There is a program for every problem. Of course, every time there is a new program, there are people to administer the evaluation and delivery of those funds. Thus, in the name of providing help to the specific issues people face, and I do not doubt that many members of the government are sincere in their intentions, the effect of it is the piling on of expenditure and bureaucracy and on the other end of it, it is taxes. Taxing people more and more is like trying to lift people up in the bucket they are standing in.

The government purports to want to be more generous, but generous with whose money? The effect of its constant growth in program spending, with more bureaucracy and more administration, is that people have to pay more taxes. Not only do they have to pay more taxes today, but they feel a great deal of uncertainty about the taxes they will have to pay in the future. We know, and we have seen it before, that when governments run unplanned, uncontrolled deficits, that leads to higher taxes, as surely as night follows day. The government is already imposing higher taxes on Canadians as a result of its inability to control spending and people are worried that if that spending does not get under control, we are going to see higher taxes in the future.

My friend from Winnipeg North spoke a lot tonight about his favourite politician: Doug Ford. I would like to take us back to how Ontario got the challenges that it faces. I will share a little about my own province as well. In Ontario, there were successive Liberal governments under Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne. They did not believe that the budget ever had to be balanced, so it seemed, although at least they had a theoretical target for balancing the budget, which the federal government does not even have. They wanted to convince people that the party could just go on forever. Now Liberals are looking at the situation and asking why spending could not just increase forever right now.

We have to understand how we got here. The fiscal challenges that Ontario experienced were created by multiple terms of reckless spending. I believe that we can avoid that at the federal level. I believe that we can prevent this Prime Minister from doing to Canada what Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne did to Ontario. I believe we can avoid that kind of a situation.

I think we can effectively manage spending and reduce taxes at the same time, while continuing to invest. However, I think it is important that we act now by replacing the Liberal government with a government that actually understands the importance of balance and prudence in our spending.

I heard the member for Mississauga—Erin Mills talk about the U of T Mississauga in her riding. I have been to that university. Actually, I spoke at a number of events at that beautiful university in her riding. One of the big issues on the minds of students at that university, and other universities, is how they will have to pay back, over the long term, the deficits, the debts that are being accumulated today.

Young people are aware of this. I have young children. I have three young children and one more on the way. My children should not have to pay, in their future, for the things that I got to enjoy today.

The government talks about all these areas in which it is spending more. However, it is going to cost the future. It is going to cost our children and our grandchildren. I asked the new member for Outremont if the budget should ever be balanced, if there is a point at which she thinks the budget would be balanced. She told us that in the current conditions, it makes sense to be “investing”, which for the Liberals is a code word for “spending more than we have”. If the conditions are always, in their view, such that we should be spending more than we have, then eventually the Liberals are going to run out of other people's money. Eventually the rubber is going to hit the road.

Where does this thinking come from? How do they come to the place of just not understanding this basic reality of the rubber hitting the road, not understanding the reality that my grandfather understood? My grandfather understood, intuitively, when he negotiated a reduction in the price of his car that every dollar matters, every dollar counts. However, we have a government led by a Prime Minister who has never had to make those tough choices in his own life. Therefore, he does not recognize or appreciate the importance of being prudent in his spending decisions.

We see these concerns that everyday people are facing in terms of the uncertainty that comes from high deficits and high taxes. They are looking at their futures and they are saying, “Okay, the government might be promising to spend more in this area, this area and that area, but in the long run, how can be confident that those investments will continue into the future if they are not made from a balanced budget position?”

The great advantage of a balanced budget situation is that when spending decisions are made in the context of a balanced budget, people can have confidence that those investments will stay in place. However, we have seen, consistently, how when one does not spend within their means, eventually the rubber is going to have to hit the road.

In addition to this, while the situation we have is creating economic uncertainty for individuals, it is also creating some level of economic uncertainty in our business environment. We want to aspire to be the sort of country where entrepreneurs succeed by having their own ideas, not by their ingenuity at filling out grant applications, not by their ability to hire well-connected lobbyists and to justify their desire for more money in terms of whatever the government's priorities of the day are. I think we want to be the kind of country where people succeed on the basis of their ingenuity, acting independently from government, where government establishes the framework, the infrastructure that allows them to succeed, but then they are making those investments on their own.

In the past, the Conservative government was able to facilitate entrepreneurs' success by lowering business taxes. We saw that when we lowered business taxes, there was an increase in business tax revenue. The government was taking in more money from business taxes because the government was creating the conditions in which businesses were making greater investments.

Some politicians in this place want to raise business taxes. The government would like us to forget that when the Liberals first came into office, they tried to raise small business taxes. In fact, they did, but then they unraised them in response to subsequent criticism, and trumpeted that as some kind of great success.

It seems like yesterday when the Liberals told us that the fact that they had appointed a minister for seniors showed how committed they were to seniors. The member for Edmonton Mill Woods, whose riding I look forward to visiting this Saturday, is applauding that. He may have forgotten that there was a minister of seniors throughout the tenure of the previous Conservative government. The minister of seniors position was then removed at the beginning of the Liberal mandate, but then in the final year they had this great idea of appointing a minister of seniors, and that demonstrated their commitment to seniors.

The member for Edmonton Mill Woods is applauding. I have to say that I am looking forward to having the great Tim Uppal back in the House of Commons. I know he is going to do a great job for the constituents of Edmonton Mill Woods. He is probably out door-knocking right now. It is not too late in Alberta to be doing that. Probably while he is doing that, he is talking about things like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, which the member for Edmonton Mill Woods voted in favour of.

This is maybe a good point in which to transition to talk a little about the Alberta economy, because in Alberta we see continual attacks on our economy coming from the current government. We see legislation put forward that even the Alberta NDP saw problems with. We see bills that essentially would make it impossible for new pipeline infrastructure to ever proceed in the future. We see so many efforts from the government to block the development of the natural resource economy in Alberta, and that is a particular source of concern and anxiety in the greater Sherwood Park area in which I live.

What is the alternative to this vision that the government has put forward? It is an alternative Conservative government that lives within its means, that understands the importance of balancing budgets over the medium term and believes in cutting taxes.

I will respond to some of the comments that the member for Winnipeg North made about the Doug Harper or the Stephen Ford government that he was talking about. What he said was that deficits were run during the period of the previous government, which is true. We had a Liberal opposition that was calling for us to spend so much more, but we made the decision to have timely, targeted and temporary deficits in a time of economic recession that were focused on significant infrastructure investments, such as building up our university campuses and building up our roads. They were actual infrastructure investments, and we had a clearer, tighter, well-defined definition of infrastructure. These were investments that genuinely stimulated our economy, and we returned Canada to a balanced budget before the next election. Members across the way will say an “alleged” balanced budget, which was told to us by the alleged Parliamentary Budget Officer.

I know that the members across the way are worried that they will not get their questions and comments in. They do not have to worry. I will be back here tomorrow morning, and I look forward to the questions that the members are going to ask.

However, all of the spending commitments that were made by the Conservatives were within the framework of a balanced budget plan, which means that Canadians could have confidence in them. When we raised the guaranteed income supplement, when we introduced the universal child care benefit—which the Liberals have since renamed—when we supported families, when we brought in income splitting for parents with children—which the current government took away—and offered these forms of vital support, Canadians could have confidence that those investments were going to stay in place.

Where did this way of thinking come from? Our leader understands what it means to live within a budget. That is his experience and the experience of his family. He understands what everyday families are going through in struggling to get ahead.

I also want to comment on the government's immigration policy, because there is discussion of immigration in the budget. The government's immigration policy is very clearly not as advertised.

With respect to the issue of illegal immigration into Canada, we have had an epidemic of illegal immigration under the current government. For a long time, it tried to demonize the opposition for even raising this concern. Then, the government's bright idea was to appoint a minister responsible for the border who is not actually responsible for the Canada Border Services Agency. Finally, with this budget, it brought forward measures that attempted to respond to the issue. However, the government has not taken any action on the need to renegotiate the safe third country agreement, for instance, or on the need to change the tone.

Where do I hear most about these problems in our immigration system? I hear about them in my riding, to be sure, but I hear a lot about them in ridings like Edmonton Mill Woods, Winnipeg North, York Centre and Etobicoke—Lakeshore. People there are very concerned about these issues, because they know the costs and the challenges of coming to Canada the right way. They do not believe it is right when people can take advantage of the fact that they are in the United States and can walk into Canada. It is not fair to those in China, India, the Philippines or other parts of the world who are trying to come to Canada the right way and cannot just walk across the border. That is why we need to renegotiate the safe third country agreement.

I look forward to continuing the debate.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

I want to welcome all of you who have joined us for this second hour of our meeting by video conference. Ms. Field, thank you so much for coming to Ottawa.

I found my colleague's speculation about what a Conservative government will do around infrastructure very interesting. All we need to do is look at the previous Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative transportation infrastructure fund, which was created in 2006, and carried on all the way through to 2018, and which I believe this fund was built on. I think you can only look to the past to perhaps see the importance that a Conservative government would place on getting transportation infrastructure done, and done in a timely way.

Mr. Xotta, you stated, “Buy our stuff and we'll get it to you.” Really, it's our reputation that's on the line when our infrastructure isn't efficient enough to meet the growing needs and demands of our exporting nation.

That's an interesting observation, as well. Much of what we export is either grown or taken out of the ground, yet we have a government that continuously introduces legislation that will not only have a devastating impact on our resource development but also our ability to get those products to market.

My colleague referenced Bill C-69, and I think you spoke to some of the issues you have with that piece of legislation, never mind Bill C-48 or even the carbon tax. None of us have mentioned today the impact that has on transportation across this country.

In the time that I have left, I want to ask a question of you, Ms. Field.

I know that short-line railways are an important part of Canada's railroads, a part of the broader network that moves goods from coast to coast, and that we have many in western Canada. You've had an opportunity to share with us your experience with this fund, but could you share some of your infrastructure challenges, and perhaps the opportunity we have through our short-line railways to address greenhouse gas emissions?

Report Stage

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have been here for over 23 years, and I have always spoken to budget bills, whether the Conservatives were in opposition or on the government side. That is because a budget is what defines our economy; a budget is what defines where Canada's economy will move.

My colleagues on this side have highlighted, in very great detail, what is wrong with this budget bill put forward by the Liberal government. Let me start by saying certain things. I have been sitting here and listening to the Liberals when they get up. They like to attack us, calling out Mr. Harper's name all the time. The Liberal members have used Mr. Harper's name more than anybody I have ever heard. Somehow it is in their psyche that the former prime minister should be used to highlight their deficiencies.

Let me just show, using facts, why they are wrong. The international Institute for Management Development puts together a yearly world competitiveness ranking. Within one year, Canada has fallen three spots on the world competitiveness ranking, from 10th in 2018 to 13th this year. We are the lowest of the G7 countries. In 2018-19, the Liberals were in power. We fell from 10th to 13th.

Let me say this. In the same report, previously, from 2007 to 2015, Canada rose from 10th place to 5th place. That was under the Conservative government of former prime minister Harper. Let me repeat that for the Liberals who speak from their points. Under their regime we dropped in the ranking, going from 10th to 13th, the lowest of the G7 countries. During the period when we were in power under former prime minister Harper, which was 2007 to 2015, we rose from 10th place to fifth place. This is something they should take into account every time they talk about it.

When it comes to economic performance, government officials, business efficiency or infrastructure, the institute says we are not in the top five countries in this index. This is terrible management. Business investment in Canada under the Liberal government has fallen by an annualized rate of 10.9%. This is the second time it has fallen by over 10%. What a shame. This is the management record of the Liberal government.

The Liberal government seems totally oblivious to economic conditions. I come from Alberta. We have seen the devastating impact the government has had on my province. In my city of Calgary, the downtown is completely empty. Right now, businesses in the suburban area are suffering from tax hikes, because the downtown, which used to be the core economic sector in Calgary, has half its buildings empty. That is since the Liberals came into power. They had the opportunity to fix that.

The Liberals bought the Trans Mountain pipeline, but even if they started construction on it, what about Bill C-69, and what about Bill C-48, the tanker bill? Those bills are a direct attack on Alberta.

Albertans are now reeling from the disastrous management of the government. When the father of our current Prime Minister was there, that was the first time Alberta was suffering. I was there at that time. The government tried to seize the oil royalties. The finance minister was Marc Lalonde. It was a disastrous result. Since then, the Liberals have never recovered in Alberta. During the election of 2015, the current Prime Minister said that he would do business differently than his father in Alberta. Lo and behold, those sunny days are gone. This is something that, again, he has not fulfilled.

I am talking about Alberta and the energy sector. The energy sector benefits the whole country. It is not only Alberta's sector. It is British Columbia's, Quebec's, Ontario's, the Maritimes', everyone. It is one of our key sectors.

What is very important is that our companies have spent billions of dollars on clean technology. I will give one example. I was on the foreign affairs committee in the opposition. At that time, in the oil fields of Sudan, Talisman, a Canadian company, had a percentage of the operation in Sudan. All these NGOs that are based in western Canada found that it was easy to target a Canadian company, so they went after the Canadian company, accusing it of all kinds of crimes committed against the environment. The ultimate result was that Talisman sold its shares to China and to India. The next day, all the protests were over.

Has oil stopped? No, it has not. Who will they target? They will target Canadians. Why will they target them? It is an easy way to do it for these environmentalists. All of a sudden, they disappeared. That shows that the targets of these environmentalists are where they are doing it right now.

I want to go on to another issue, which is the media outlets these guys are giving money to. I can tell members why it is going to be a problem. What about the ethnic media? There are a huge number of ethnic media in the country. Are the Liberals going to give money to the ethnic media, or are they only going to give money to the old Canadian media that are sitting here on the national scene? Are they the only ones who are going to benefit? This is a slippery slope. I will accuse them of discrimination if they do not give money to the ethnic media.

On the panel, there sits a guy who is absolutely anti-Conservative. He said the day before yesterday that he has a right to speak freely. Absolutely. We in the Conservative caucus warn their labour union that he is absolutely right that he can speak, but he is not going to sit on an independent panel and decide which media are going to get money. That goes against democracy. That goes against the principles of democracy. It puts all journalists under a cloud. These journalists had better wake up, because they are going to be under a cloud. Can we trust them when they are getting money from the government? Any time anyone else gets money, they oppose that. How can I believe that what these journalists are writing is unbiased? All indications are that the government is using the money it has to buy votes and to buy publicity. It is a slippery road. It is best not to get involved. The whole country has media, so it is easier for the Liberals not to do that.

In my conclusion, let me say clearly that this is an absolute economic disaster by the government.

The Environment

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House today to talk about this motion. It gives me an opportunity to highlight some of the discrepancies in some of the Liberal policies when it comes to talking about issues and important crises around the world, and certainly in Canada, and to highlight the failures of the Liberals becoming very much apparent when it comes to addressing these crises, instead of just talking about them.

As we discuss this motion that was brought forward last week, and then talk about the amendments put forward by my colleague, the member of Parliament for Abbotsford, it really highlights some of the differences we are trying to put forward. When I talk to Canadians, and certainly constituents in my riding of Foothills, they understand that climate change is an issue. It is something that we all agree we need to do our best to address. However, we also need to look at this as a global problem and not put the onus only on Canadians. The solution certainly is not just simply taxing Canadians, that is, coming up with a tax solution rather than an environmental and climate solution.

The amendment put forward by my colleague from Abbotsford and seconded by my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill reads:

the House recognize that:

(a) climate change is a real and urgent global problem requiring real global solutions, and that Canada can and must take a leadership role in developing those global solutions;

It is very important to recognize that this is a global issue, and we must look at it in that context. The amendment continues:

(b) human activity has an impact on climate change, and its effects impact communities across the country and the world;

(c) Canada and the world must take urgent action to mitigate global climate change and combat its impacts on the environment;

(d) the government’s own “Clean Canada” report shows the government is falling short of the Paris targets by 79 million tonnes;

and, therefore, as an alternative to its current proposal to tackle climate change involving a non-binding declaration, the House call upon the government to produce a real climate change plan that will enable Canada to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions according to the targets of the Paris agreement.

Something I really want to focus on in my intervention today is the difference between talking about something and taking definitive action to resolve a problem. What we see in this motion brought forward by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, once again, is nothing more than an empty gesture and more rhetoric by the Liberal government, which is very good at window dressing, virtue signalling and talking about the problem but very ineffective and falling short when it comes to governing and doing the heavy lifting needed to try to resolve these issues.

When we look at this motion, we see that the Liberal government is defying logic when it says that imposing a carbon tax on Canadians will somehow resolve our GHG and global emissions problems. I have brought this up many times as I have heard the rhetoric of my Liberal colleagues become more and more heated over the last couple of months. I think that was highlighted by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change when she said that if she stuck to her talking points and said it loudly enough, people would really buy this.

We keep hearing about climate change and forest fires, floods and these types of things. I grew up in the community of High River, which had a devastating flood in 2013. However, that community has had many floods over my lifetime, as well as floods that go back generations. I find it a bit disingenuous to go back to my constituents and tell them that if they just pay a carbon tax, they will never have to worry about flooding again. That is a bit of a reach and far-fetched, but it is exactly the argument the Liberal government is putting forward. The government is saying that if people pay a carbon tax, they will somehow get the money back, which I do not think any Canadian believes, and that they are never going to have any of these natural weather phenomena. I do not think that is a fair argument.

The government is trying to sell Canadians a bill of goods. We have talked about these issues for quite some time. The government has to start being honest and doing the heavy lifting when it comes to addressing our environmental goals.

Instead of the government imposing a carbon tax on Canadians, why do we not go out of our way to embrace the technological advancements and innovation that we have across Canada and create new technologies and innovation that will help the Canadian economy while also addressing environmental goals not just here in Canada but around the world? This is something we absolutely have to do.

As we have seen over the last several weeks through polling and Canadians talking about this, they are sick and tired of the political posturing. They do not want to hear the rhetoric of impending doom. They want to talk about real solutions and real ideas when it comes to addressing climate change and measurable reductions in our emissions.

This motion highlights the Liberal approach to just about anything when it comes to government. When a crisis arises, the Liberal response is always to tax it or talk about it, but not actually to do anything about it. They want to make sure they get a photo op. They want to make sure they get out in the community and fill one sandbag and carry on, but not do anything to address the situation.

Another great example this week, which also came up in question period, is the sudden issue of obesity. What is the solution? The Liberal solution is a sugary drink tax. Whenever there seems to be a problem, the Liberal government, for whatever reason, thinks the solution is to tax it and the problem will go away. A carbon tax. A sugary drink tax. A mortgage tax, which is supposed to address the housing crisis. It just seems to be an ongoing broken record that does not resolve the problem. The Liberals have to get their hands dirty. They have to come up with solutions. They have to come up with ideas.

There is no question about that if we compare it with a couple of other issues that we have seen in the energy sector and agriculture. I want to compare the Liberal response to these issues.

When the Liberal government feels there is an issue with climate change, it puts out this flowery motion. But when there is an issue in our energy sector, what has it done? Can anyone give me an example of a definitive action the government has taken to try to resolve this? Almost 200,000 people have lost their jobs in the energy sector, and I do not recall the Liberal government putting forward a motion saying it is a national emergency. When $80 billion in capital investment leaves Canada to go to other jurisdictions, I do not recall a motion calling it a national emergency, let alone the government taking any action to address the issue.

I toured some facilities last week, including a lodge of the Building Trades of Alberta, which cover boilermakers and pipefitters as well. Seventy per cent of its members are out of work. I do not recall that being a national crisis, but it is, and we need to have definitive action to address it, action such as the Leader of the Opposition has talked about, a national energy corridor. This would be a definitive solution toward addressing what is a national emergency. Embracing our energy sector would very likely address the issue we are talking about today, our environment and our global greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of putting up every obstacle possible, like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 do, blocking the development and export of Canadian energy or talking about phasing out Canada's natural resource sector, just imagine we were exporting our innovation and our technology as well as our natural resources that are developed under the highest standards of environmental and human rights in the entire world. Imagine we were exporting those initiatives to countries around the world that are not developing their resources to the same Canadian standard. We would be addressing our global GHG emission targets while at the same time creating good quality middle-class jobs right here in Canada.

The world needs more Canada. The world needs more Canadian energy. The world needs more of the innovation and technology that is developed right here in this country, such as in situ mining, horizontal drilling, carbon capture and storage. These are incredible technologies and innovations that have been developed right here in Canada and that we could be exporting and sharing with other countries around the world, allowing us to definitively meet the targets and the goals that we have set for ourselves when it comes to our global emissions.

The current government is doing none of those things. It is listening to a very small group of environmental activists and foreign actors and doing everything it can to try to shut down our energy sector. If we really looked at it, that sector is likely one of the main potential solutions to addressing the problem this motion is allegedly talking about. Imagine if we were able to develop an energy corridor that would make Canada energy self-sufficient by 2030 and displace the foreign oil that is being shipped thousands of miles to Canada from other countries like Venezuela, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. We could develop our own resources right here at home with world-class standards, and cut our reliance on those other sources. That would address our global GHG emission targets.

Another example we talked about is our canola crisis. I would say that our producers in western Canada, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, are certainly facing a crisis. What is the Liberal solution to this crisis? The Liberals are keeping their heads down and hoping it will resolve itself. We asked the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of International Trade and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to take some very strong action to try to address this with our colleagues from China. Thus far, there has been nothing.

The one initiative the Liberals tried was the advance payments program. Late last week, when approached by producers who said they had filled out the applications and put the paperwork in but could not get the funds, the response from the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food was that it could be several months before those payments are rolled out the door. Several months? Our farmers are having to pay their input costs right now. When they harvest in the fall, they are going to have a significant amount of canola, 27 million tonnes, with nowhere to go. They do not have storage. Many producers I have spoken with were going to use that advance payments program as an opportunity to buy additional storage bins. Now they cannot even do that. Once again, we asked the minister for another solution, such as filing a complaint with the WTO against China regarding canola. The response was that the government does not think now is the right time. When is the right time? Is it when our farmers are bankrupt and insolvent, or when they harvest in the fall and have nowhere to put their canola because they have not been able to sell last year's crop?

Once again, this goes to show that when there is a real crisis, the Liberal solution to everything is to talk about it, get that photo op and bring forward a motion in the House. The Liberals had three and a half years to try to do something about the environment and our emissions. Clearly, they have not done anything. They are going to miss their own Paris targets by 79 million tonnes. However, at the very last minute they are going to try to do something. It has been the same with our energy sector, and certainly when it comes to agriculture. How can we compare the two? On the canola issue, we are talking about 43,000 producers and 120,000 jobs across Canada relying on that industry. Not addressing the canola issue has expanded the problem. Now, 95% of our soybeans that were previously exported to China are no longer being exported to China, which is one of our critical markets. We have two pork processors that have had their export permits revoked. Certainly, we have to wonder what is next. Is it going to be B.C. fruit, beef or seafood? What is the next target?

Our producers are wondering what qualifies as a crisis. We cannot send our canola and soybeans to China. We cannot send our pulses and lentils to India. We cannot send our wheat to Italy. We cannot send our barley to Saudi Arabia. Vietnam is also blocking Canadian commodities. As a producer, that is very thin pickings, yet I have not seen a motion by the Liberal government saying it is an emergency. In fact, Conservative members got up in the House eight times asking for an emergency debate on the canola crisis, and eight times the Liberals said no.

Conservative members of the official opposition have recognized this as a crisis and put forward definitive solutions or potential solutions to try to address this: name an ambassador to China, file a WTO complaint on the canola issue and withdraw the funding of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. These are all things that Liberals have chosen not to do.

We have even asked that the government, at the very least, send a high-level delegation to China to start addressing this issue. Again, the government has not even done that. If we were able to file a WTO challenge, it would ensure that the science question, which the Liberals continue to say this is all about, would be addressed in a formal process. Both parties would be forced to find a mutually agreed-upon solution. During the consultation phase, there would be consultation between the parties, adjudication by different panels, and there would be an implementation of a ruling. We would have this resolved. However, so far, nothing.

When producers are asked, they say they do not want aid; they want trade. Having the advance payment program is a solution to the problem: try to throw some money at it and hopefully it resolves itself. That would allow our producers to go further in debt. However, they will not get out of debt if they do not have a market to sell their product in next fall.

The comment from the ambassador to China last week was that the relationship between Canada and China is at rock bottom; it is frozen. That certainly does not give our producers and constituents any encouragement that this issue will be resolved any time soon.

I know that this is not necessarily talking about climate and environment, but I wanted to highlight the similarities to what we are talking about here, the similarities between the various issues that have come up during the Liberal mandate over the last three and a half years. Whenever there is a crisis or an emergency, their solution is to put something in the window to try to show Canadians they are working to resolve the problem.

However, when it comes to actual governance, to putting forward legislation and making the tough decisions to ensure these issues are resolved, the Liberals have failed. They have failed our energy workers, and they have certainly failed our agriculture producers. They are failing when it comes to our emissions goals and our targets for our environment.

What Canadians are looking for is a definitive solution to these problems. That is exactly what our leader, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, the Leader of the Opposition is going to be offering Canadians. In the next couple of weeks, we are going to be unveiling our own environment policy. It is going to be the most comprehensive environment policy ever tabled by an opposition party in the House of Commons.

I am very proud of the program we are going to be putting forward. We are going to be standing with Canadians, ensuring that we create solid jobs here in Canada, without putting the burden of that on Canadians or small businesses. We are going to ensure that we use our technology and innovation to address the global issue of climate change and emissions.

I hope that the members of this House will take a very hard look at the amendment to this motion that we have put forward, which talks about this issue as a global problem, not one that is on the backs of Canadians. It certainly puts forward definitive actions to try to address and maintain our goals when it comes to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to speak to the government motion that would, among other things, extend the hours we would be sitting in this place until we have completed this Parliament on June 21. It would also take away a lot of the tools we have as the opposition to hold the government to account.

As we listened to some of the answers by the government House leader, it is no surprise that in the dying days of the scandal ridden, promise breaking, tax raising and very severely ethically challenged disaster of a Liberal government, we are seeing Liberals use disrespectful, draconian and bully-like mannerisms to get their agenda accomplished.

It was quite interesting and telling when the government House leader was answering questions and referring to a couple of things. First of all, when I asked her about our opposition day and whether she was going to make those days short, she stood and said to my colleague, the House leader for the NDP, as well as to me, that somehow our behaviour earlier in this Parliament was the reason she was going to punish us with shorter days.

That speaks volumes, and not in a positive way, to the utter lack of respect the Liberals, under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the government House leader, have for the work we do in the opposition. We are not doing anything on this side of the House outside of the rules. We are using the rules, mechanisms and the tools we have to hold the government to account. What is the answer from the government to that? It is going to punish the opposition because it can. It is going to punish the opposition by giving us a very short day and not extend our hours of opposition. That answer was very indicative of the attitude of the Liberal government and the Liberal Party in general to this House of Commons and Parliament.

Secondly, when the government House leader was giving answers about debate, she talked about members of Parliament repeating themselves or speaking about partisan issues. She felt that that was when she should tell her members not to speak quite as long and that they should shut down their comments. Are we now in a new day and age when the Liberal House leader will tell duly elected members of Parliament that they should not use all of their time, and that she is going to shut down the opposition as well because she thinks that what we are saying is not relevant and that we are repeating ourselves?

When the Prime Minister appointed the House leader to her position three years ago, a lot of us had concerns because she was a very newly elected MP. She had not been in the House as a backbencher or sat on committees. She had been in her role for I think 70 days or so. She has really done a commendable job in that time with the hand she has been dealt. However, I do believe that with her comments that I mentioned, it is clear that is the message she is getting from the top. That is what she is hearing from the Prime Minister and the people at the top who direct her. She has been told by them to shut the backbenchers down. If members are talking too much on our side, she is to shut them down, as well as do whatever she can to shut down the opposition.

At the end of the day, the Liberals are in charge and are the bosses, so they are going to tell people what to think and members of Parliament what they can and cannot say. If they are talk too much or for too long, or the Liberals think their remarks are repetitive or partisan, because God forbid, Conservatives act like Conservatives and New Democrats act like NDP, they must be shut down. The Liberals are clearly partisan, but the Liberal belief is that if something does not align with what they think, then it must be dismissed and shut down. We have seen that on a number of occasions.

Sadly, the House leader's comments in the last few minutes regarding opposition days and that she is going to punish us, as well as telling her own members not to speak because it would be repetitive, are absolutely unbelievable and a very sad reflection of what we have seen over the last four years.

Now here we are. We have all returned from another May constituency week to another Liberal motion to extend our sitting hours. I have already acknowledged, and will say for the record, that our previous Conservative government did the same thing in 2013 and 2014.

In the last election year, 2015, however, we did not have to extend our sitting hours, because we managed the House in an efficient, respectful way. Stephen Harper's government had a well-managed parliamentary agenda. His House leader, my former colleague, the very well-respected Peter Van Loan, would often remind the House of the ambition to have a hard-working, orderly and productive Parliament. That is what Canadians enjoyed up until the 2015 election.

Since then, things have changed, and they have changed drastically. That change is where the seeds for today's motion were planted. In came a new Prime Minister in late 2015, heavy on charm and light on substance, as it would turn out. One government, ours, with a track record of delivering, was replaced by a government obsessed with something called “deliverology”. Do members remember those days? I think my colleagues opposite were also kind of interested in what deliverology meant and where it was going to take us.

Deliverology was like a lot of things from the government. There are a lot of buzzwords. No matter how many buzzwords the failed Liberal government has repeated, it has conjured up pretty well zero results.

Let us go through some of those buzzwords, because they really are interesting to reflect on. Let us look at what was presented to Canadians, what was advertised and what was actually delivered, which was not as advertised.

Let us begin with the buzzwords “hope” and “hard work”. I am afraid the Liberals put way too much emphasis on a lot of hope and very little emphasis on hard work.

There were some things they worked hard on. The Liberals worked very hard on mastering government by Instagram and Twitter. They worked hard on posturing and, unfortunately, on dividing Canadians. The Liberals worked hard on finding ways to run endless deficits, to the point where it would take decades for the budget to balance itself, as our Prime Minister said. The Liberals have also worked hard on virtue signalling. In fact, they have that one down to an art form.

What about actual hard work and actual accomplishments here in the House of Commons? So far in this Parliament, 48 government bills, other than routine appropriation bills approving spending, have received royal assent, with 17 more passed by the House. Some of these bills were simply matters initiated by us, the previous Conservative government, such as a number of the bills related to the border. Those were bills we initially brought forward.

There were also free trade agreements, such as with the European Union and the Trans Pacific Partnership, as well as bills on victims' rights in the military justice system. Obviously, we agreed with those bills. We basically brought the government to the one yard line, and it took it across the finish line. The Conservatives know that we did the heavy lifting, but we were in agreement with those bills. Those are among the bills the government passed.

These numbers are also in spite of the government regularly using time allocation and relying on omnibus bills, even though that flies in the face of all the sanctimony the Liberals have thrown our way. Let us remember that. Let us remember that during the 2015 election, the Conservatives were preached at by the then-Liberal candidate, soon to be the Prime Minister, about how Parliament was going to be respected. He was not going to use time allocation. The Liberals would not be using omnibus bills, and they would allow parliamentarians to have their say. Let us remember the sanctimony.

By comparison, when the 41st Parliament drew to a close, a total of 95 government bills, other than appropriation bills, had received royal assent. That was under the Conservative government.

The contrast gets no better for the Liberals when it comes to private members' bills. Since the 2105 election, 20 private members' bills have received royal assent. At the close of the previous Parliament, 41 private members' bills had become law. That is why the previous Conservative government was able to claim that it had posted the strongest legislative results in a generation. No matter how many midnight sittings the Liberals plan, they simply will not be able to match our record.

I think of all the time the Liberal government has wasted. I think back to a year and a half ago when the Liberal government tried to bring forward changes to the Standing Orders. Those changes would have given us a four-day work week, when the rest of Canadians work all week long. The Liberals wanted us to get Fridays off. The Liberals wanted to make changes so that the Prime Minister would not have to come and answer questions in this place.

The Liberals wanted to make a number of massive changes, and they fought tooth and nail for them. Thankfully, between the NDP and the Conservatives, we were able to put a halt to that. With the small tools we had that they had not tried to take away, we were able to stop that.

We have seen, again, the lack of hard work on matters of substance that needed to be completed in the House of Commons on the legislative agenda. It never really happened. That is one buzzword we heard.

Here is another buzzword we were all really interested in. That was “Canada is back”. Do members remember that one? Boy oh boy. That one has not turned out well at all.

Right now, under the present Prime Minister, Canada has probably fewer friends than ever. The Prime Minister has managed to tick off and offend just about every one of our major friends and allies. It has been shameful to watch. We know that we will have our work cut out for us when the Conservatives win government in October. We will once again restore respectful, principles-based foreign policy on the world stage so that countries around the world know that they can respect us. They will know that we are not just lecturing them. We will have a relationship with our trusted allies, and we will build on those relationships.

The Liberals first talked a big game on peacekeeping, then they stalled and dithered. Then, when the rubber had to hit the road, they put forward a token effort, limited in time and scale, yet quite dangerous and misaligned with Canada's national interests.

In the NAFTA talks, the Prime Minister capitulated and failed to get Canada a better deal. Instead of negotiating, the Liberals focused on opportunistic leaks, photo ops and sound bites.

The Liberal leader, in the presence of the Japanese Prime Minister, twice mistook him as a representative of China. Do members remember that? That was only a few weeks ago. I am still shocked by that.

Then there was the strident, knee-jerk virtual signalling tweet sparking a diplomatic standoff with Saudi Arabia, with ramifications in a range of areas, including front-line health care in Canada.

Speaking of social media, the Prime Minister's infamous “Welcome to Canada” tweet sparked a massive, unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings into Canada.

In foreign relations, we were told what wonderful doors would open in China for Canada with the arrival of the new Liberal government. Tell that today to canola farmers. Tell that to our pork farmers. Tell that to any number of Canadian businesses, large or small, trying to do business in China. Tell that to individual Canadians who have been harassed by the Chinese government, denied visas, detained and arrested on political grounds.

Of course, there was the Prime Minister's unforgettable trip to India. It was a seven-day trip with half a day of government meetings. Each outfit was more colourful than the last; each development was more embarrassing than the previous one. The Prime Minister spent tens of thousands of dollars flying in a celebrity chef to cook supper, a celebrity chef who happens to be on his hand-picked Senate selection panel.

However, that was hardly the worst. The Prime Minister invited a convicted attempted murderer to hobnob with him at two receptions, and when that was discovered, the fingers started pointing. Wow. Of all the things that happened in the Liberal government, when we look back at the India trip, it was probably one of the most embarrassing for Canadians, not only because of what their Prime Minister did in India but because of the aftermath and the blame that was levelled. It started with it being a backbencher's fault. The Prime Minister threw one of his own backbenchers under the bus. He does that quite often.

Then it was an Indian government plot, then maybe it was someone else. In the end, Daniel Jean announced his retirement. In no circumstance would the Prime Minister fess up and acknowledge that he had blown it and that his office had blown it with a bad decision and bad judgment.

God forbid that the Prime Minister would actually apologize for something he did. He will apologize for all kinds of things, but there have been so many opportunities, as we have seen in the last four years, when he has done things that are wrong, when he has done things that are unethical and when he has done things that are on the borderline of illegal. That remains to be seen. He has fired people. He has treated people disrespectfully. He has done things that have shocked and appalled us.

The India trip was one of those where the Prime Minister could have stood up and said, “I am sorry. I made a mistake. I have issues with bad judgment. I'm trying to learn from my mistakes. All of you are paying for it, but I am human. I err a lot." He should have said that, but no, he did not. Everyone else got the blame.

Saying “Canada is back” really has not panned out very well, has it? It certainly did not help the Liberals advance their agenda here in Parliament.

Let just try another one on for size. How about “Sunny ways, my friends. Sunny ways”? Do members remember that one?

To start with, I think this is one of the things that has disturbed Canadians across the board, even those who voted for the Prime Minister. There were a lot of people, obviously millions of Canadians, who voted for the Prime Minister, believing him, believing his promises, believing that he was a fresh face who was going to do things differently. One of the things that is so frustrating and disappointing is his lack of ability to really embrace diversity. People may wonder how I can say that, because the Prime Minister always says that diversity is our strength. Just like everything with the Prime Minister, he says one thing with his words, but his actions are completely different.

The Prime Minister has very little tolerance for diversity of thought and different opinions. He wants to embrace diversity when it is easy for him and when it might help him score some political points. However, if an individual dares to disagree with him, that is when his real character seems to be exposed.

One of those items became very clear when illegal border crossers started crossing into Canada. There were a lot of concerns. A lot of Canadians, including in my riding, have been doing a wonderful job helping refugees who are coming into this country who need solace, who need protection and who need to be able to be in a country where they can live, worship and raise their families. Canada is welcoming them. We have so many private sponsors and Canadians across the country who are helping them, but there have been concerns raised about people coming across the border illegally. However, the minute these concerns were expressed, the Prime Minister, Prime Minister “Sunny Ways”, began the reckless name-calling, calling people racist, or, as his minister said, “un-Canadian”. It is un-Canadian if someone dares to ask questions of the government.

We will remember the Canada summer jobs attestation, where if one disagreed with the government on matters of conscience, one would not be allowed to have government funding. So much for diversity, again.

We should have seen this from the very early days and early months of this Parliament, when the Prime Minister almost lost a vote, and certainly lost his temper. Everyone will remember, after his legislation to help his friends at Air Canada squeaked through on the Speaker casting a vote, the Liberals proceeded with the draconian and outrageous Motion No. 6. Does everyone remember Motion No. 6? I think we all remember Motion No. 6, an outrageous and scandalous power play to silence the opposition and sideline critics.

In the midst of the uproar over Motion No. 6, the Prime Minister, as everyone will recall, stormed across the floor of the House, jostled some MPs who were slowing down his day and fiercely elbowed one of my colleagues. It was clear then that this was a prime minister who would have his way when he wanted it. We understood those words just recently with respect to the SNC-Lavalin scandal and how the Prime Minister would ensure he would get his way. We saw this tactic coming, foreshadowed by Motion No. 6.

Then, a year later, the government House leader released the so-called discussion paper, which I alluded to earlier, about standing order changes. It was a naked power grab that her colleagues on the procedure and House affairs committee were keen to rush through.

I also remember the government noting that committees were free to do what they wanted to do. That has become the biggest punchline around this place. Committees are not free to do what they want to do. They are completely directed by the Prime Minister. We saw that at the procedure and House affairs committee regarding the Standing Orders.

This would have eliminated 20% of question periods, would have the Prime Minister show up once a week, would have silenced the opposition at committees and would have created a new time allocation on steroid procedure. Thanks to the efforts of the opposition, the Liberals would back down some six week later on the worst parts of their proposal. That did not represent a very sunny ways type of government.

With respect to name-calling, I want to mention something particularly disturbing. We heard the finance minister call our deputy leader a “neanderthal” because she dared challenge him on some of the policies he was bringing forward. Then the Prime Minister called her an “ambulance chaser”. I think that was during the time when we were asking why in the world Terri-Lynne McClintic was being moved to a healing lodge. At around that time, the Prime Minister called the Conservatives ambulance chasers.

Not only are the Liberals trying to shut us down in what we do in the House of Commons, but they are trying to shut down Canadians through this name-calling. We have been specifically called names by the Prime Minister, again, with no apologies at all. I think the former attorney general has also been victim to the same kind of thing. She has been accused of things, called names, maligned and has not been able to defend herself. She not only has not received an apology from the Prime Minister, but has not been able to defend herself.

This brings to mind somebody else who needs an apology from the Prime Minister. In all honesty, this man more than anybody deserves an apology from the Prime Minister, and it is Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.

All of us on this side are used to these kinds of attacks from the Liberals and the Prime Minister, but not Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, who has served his country with such distinction. Before any charges were even brought against him, the Prime Minister was already saying the issue would go before a court. It looked as if the Prime Minister and the PMO tried to bankrupt him. They accused him of things and put him and his family through such an emotional ordeal. I am sure it affected his family's physical health, financial, mental health and reputation. It is absolutely disgusting to see what the Prime Minister and his minions did to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.

I do not like that the Conservatives were called neanderthals and ambulance chasers and that Canadians were called racists and un-Canadian, but above anyone, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman deserves an apology from the Prime Minister. All of us, including those on this side, need to remind the Prime Minister that before he writes up any more apologies to anybody else, for whatever reason he thinks might do him well politically, he needs to apologize to that man, this honourable Canadian. He needs to show the courage that he should have as a prime minister and apologize to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.

The actions and this attitude reflected in the Liberals' relationship with Parliament have only served the paralyze the House, not facilitate the passage of an agenda. As I said, so much for sunny ways.

I have given a few examples of all these empty gestures and slogans, but I want to highlight a few of them.

The next one is, “better is always possible”. That was another one from the government. After watching how the Liberal government has approached the criminal justice system, I cannot help but think this. After the Liberals leave office, things will get better for Canadians on a lot of fronts. Better will definitely be possible.

For example, the Prime Minister sees the criminal justice system as a toy. We saw the Prime Minister weigh in and condemn a unanimous jury verdict that he did not like in Saskatchewan. However, that was just small potatoes, as we would learn later.

As I said, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman would be charged with the breach of trust. That was his interference in that case. The charge was not a surprise, of course. The Prime Minister had been musing for months, a year actually, that Mark Norman would end up before the courts. How could he have known that?

He had demanded an investigation into an embarrassing leak that some members in the Liberal cabinet were looking to do the bidding of well-connected friends. The RCMP had clear signals from the very top that something must be done. Therefore, once before the courts, the government denied the vice-admiral access to the material he needed to defend himself. He was not even allowed access to his own emails. Things kept getting worse and worse for the Liberals. Finally, a well-respected MP, the Prime Minister's former chief whip, announced he would testify against the government. Days later, the charges were withdrawn.

I refer back to that case because I want to link it to the SNC-Lavalin affair. Even though a lot has been said, again it very much shows the disrespect of the Prime Minister.

In short, the Prime Minister wanted yet another friendly corporation to enjoy the blessings of its well-groomed Liberal connections. Amendments to the Criminal Code, as members will recall, to let SNC-Lavalin off the hook from a trial for foreign corruption and a ban on government contracts were shoved into a mammoth omnibus budget bill, the very thing Liberals swore off, and whisked through Parliament last spring. However, the Liberals were stumped, even though they got this bill passed. The director of public prosecutions was simply not going to do what the Liberals expected her to do.

Therefore, the Prime Minister set all kinds of pressure from various angles upon the former attorney general to get her to overrule the Public Prosecution Service, but she was not going to do it. She said no to the Prime Minister. How dare she, but she did. She said no not only to the Prime Minister, she told the finance minister that he and his staff needed to back off. She told the Prime Minister, his chief of staff and the clerk of the Privy Council, as we all heard on that tape, to back off, that they were interfering.

However, let us remember that the Prime Minister is used to having his way all the time. Some people who feel they are entitled and have never had to go through a hardship in their life and have a lot of privilege are used to getting their way. Clearly, the Prime Minister is one of those. When the former attorney general stood up to him and stood by her respect for the rule of law in Canada, she stood up to political interference in the criminal justice system. For that, she got fired. Sadly, we have not been able to hear her full story because the Prime Minister has not waived that privilege, but we have seen enough that we can connect the dots. We can see that when she was fired as attorney general and moved to Veterans Affairs, that was the reason why.

Thankfully, courageously, all of this has been exposed. Although we still do not have the full truth of what the Prime Minister has done, again it has shown Canadians that the Prime Minister is not at all as advertised. So much for hope and hard work, so much for sunny ways, so much for diversity, so much for tolerance, all of that is a sham under the Prime Minister.

We do hope the Prime Minister will one day lift the gag order. If he will not, the next prime minister probably will, and I think there will be an opportunity for that to happen. Canadians will hear the truth at one point or another.

What happened? Both the former attorney general and the former president of the Treasury Board stood up to the Prime Minister. and not only did they get fired and resign from their positions, they got kicked out of the Liberal caucus in violation of the Reform Act, again in violation of the law. That is a day in the life of the Prime Minister.

How many laws did he break with respect to conflict of interest and ethics? Four. He is the first Prime Minister in the history of Canada to break those laws. Then he broke the rules and the law regarding the Reform Act.

That entire episode gripped this entire House and paralyzed the government. It was in chaos. I think it had 10 cabinet shuffles in three weeks. The government was in absolute chaos. While there were all kinds of issues going on across the country, the Liberal government and the Prime Minister could only focus on one thing. It lost the clerk of the Privy Council. The principal adviser, Mr. Butts, resigned. It lost a number of cabinet ministers. It was in absolute chaos and shambles. We were gripped with this in the House of Commons as well.

In fact, it is the continuing mismanagement by the government that has brought the need for it to propose government Motion No. 30, which we are debating right now. It is the mismanagement that comes from the very top.

The Prime Minister is so infatuated with his own image and so focused on being a celebrity that he overlooks the substance and hard work of leading a government. That is a very sad reflection of the government and where we are in the country today. This is a prime minister who does not understand that being a prime minister is not a ceremonial role, not something just for a celebrity, but the top job in the country. It is governing not only the people of the country but the budget, the economy and foreign affairs. All of these aspects of a country like Canada should be at the forefront in the mind of the Prime Minister. Instead, he is focused on his celebrity status and getting on the pages of Vanity Fair or Vogue. Perhaps it is GQ, People or TigerBeat, if it is still a magazine. Imagine Donny Osmond and the Prime Minister on the cover of TigerBeat. He is sadly overlooking the substance and hard work of leading a government.

I have been here for almost 11 years and it really has been quite a privilege. I started as a backbencher. Backbenchers are underrated. They do such tremendous work.

I was on a committee for a number of years and learned so much about how committees worked. I was then privileged to chair a committee. That also helped me understand the rules of this place. I chaired a committee during a minority parliament. Even more so, when chairing the committee, I had to ensure I was impartial and applied the rules equally to both sides, the government members as well as the opposition, which at that point was a smaller Liberal opposition, the NDP and the Bloc. It was such a privilege to learn and work with colleagues. Then I was privileged to be a parliamentary secretary. In 2013, a number of years later, I became a minister. I believe that experience really helped me become a good minister, and now the opposition House leader.

Many of us on both sides have worked our way up from being backbench MPs to maybe working on committees and into other offices.

As I watched, I was inspired by the example set by our former prime minister, Stephen Harper, an exact opposite of the current Prime Minister. Stephen Harper knew every file backward and forward. He was not concerned about celebrity status. He wanted to connect with Canadians to know what their concerns were and to govern in a responsible way. He was an example of tireless devotion and hard work on behalf of Canadians.

The current Prime Minister has not helped his case by building a PMO where everything is reportedly bottlenecked through just one or two staff. We are hearing a lot about that. Even current Liberal MPs are very concerned with what is going on in the PMO and how decisions are being made there. As the House leader just confirmed, she tells her backbenchers whether they should shorten or lengthen their speeches.

Another example, and I already mentioned that, is the government House leader's early appointment. As I said, the hon. member for Waterloo had been here 70-some days when she was appointed as the government House leader. I felt that it sent a message. This is with respect to the House leader. She and I work well together. We certainly disagree, and I am certainly not happy that she is giving us more short opposition days, but as I said earlier, I think she has done the best she could with the hand that was dealt to her.

When the Prime Minister appoints as a House leader an individual who has been here only for 75 days, it tells all of us that he really is not very serious about getting things done. Maybe he thinks her position is just a ceremonial role as well. We certainly have seen her have to carry a lot of very difficult answers and non-answers to questions for the government. She has been put in a position where unfortunately she has lost a lot of credibility. While the Prime Minister is sitting there silently or signing autographs, she is having to defend his trip to billionaire island. While he is sitting in question period staring off into space or thinking about things, she is the one who is standing and answering or not answering very difficult questions. It is sad because I feel that the Prime Minister set her up to fail, and it is very disappointing to see that he has done that.

I did give a longer speech about this point previously. It was a speech around the Prime Minister's so-called approach to feminism, which I find to be fake. It is a lot of signalling and not true respect for the equality of women, and for us as women in this place being able to be where we are based on merit, based on our ability and our strength, being able to speak truth to power, being able to stand in this place knowing that we got here absolutely on our merit. When the Prime Minister appoints people just because they are women and then does not even respect them and listen to them, as he did with the former attorney general, we have seen time and time again that his approach to feminism is a lot of words and no action.

I am going back to the power of the PMO. I imagine the House leader has had a lot of struggles with the PMO behind the scenes trying to line up a legislative agenda and trying to get departments to hustle and bring their long-overdue proposals to the cabinet table and convert them into bills, and trying to get her colleagues to meet what a coordinated plan requires of them. However, it sounds like she is basically just telling her colleagues what to do.

News flash for them, that is not the way it happens. In the previous government, not only did we pass many private members' bills, but we had more government MPs vote against the government's position. We had more free votes than any other government. It was really quite remarkable.

I would never betray caucus confidentiality, but I will say this. I think this is a departure for the Liberals and it might be a good thing for them to think about when they are the third party again or maybe opposition after the next election, which remains to be seen, but they may want to allow their caucus members to speak their minds freely and not have to set their agenda ahead of time or allow the Prime Minister and his minions to tell them if they can speak. It is wonderful in caucus to be able to stand and not get permission, but be able to speak to the leader freely. He or she listens, and sometimes decisions are changed.

That actually happened in our previous government, and it is wonderful to be able to speak freely in our caucus to each other and to our leader. That would be a nice thing. Maybe those who have served under previous leaders like Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin or Michael Ignatieff were able to speak freely, but it does not appear that they are able to do that with the current government.

It is the Prime Minister's way, or they are out. Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more members of Parliament who were Liberals and who, under various circumstances, were disrespected and did not feel welcome anymore in the Liberal caucus. That is very sad to see.

Let us get to the next mess that the Prime Minister has made, and that is in the Senate. It is quite something to see what is happening in the Senate. The Prime Minister has a leader of the government in the Senate whom he tries to disavow. The Prime Minister has, however, done an excellent job appointing ideological fellow travellers to the Senate, though he likes to call them “independent”. At the end of the day, though, when something comes to a vote, the Prime Minister has always been able to count on his so-called independent senators' votes. However, getting there has not always been very pretty. I have to say it is a bit entertaining to watch on this side.

The real litmus test for his so-called independent Senate will be whether it heeds Liberal political imperatives in an election year, follows the spirit of Motion No. 30 and passes all of the Prime Minister's bills in the way that he wants. I guess time will tell.

In the meantime, it means that we have seen a number of Senate amendments to current legislation. Of course, at the end of the day, the Senate has backed down to the government's opinion every single time. It is quite interesting. While there is something generally reassuring about an elected House, even under the thumb of a majority government carrying the day, it has nonetheless meant that the House spends an extra two days or more on every government bill that gets bounced back from the Senate.

It is also a reflection of the government's lack of consultation with Canadians over many of its pieces of legislation. Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and Bill C-71 are all bills where, had the government just taken a little time to listen to Canadians, had it admitted that maybe it made some mistakes and had it made those adjustments, it might not be seeing the problems it is seeing with the current legislation in the Senate. However, that is what the government is getting.

The Prime Minister's mismanagement of the Senate has directly contributed to the mismanagement of the House of Commons, hence the need for government Motion No. 30. Here is the present scene: a scandal-ridden, disastrous Liberal government flailing about in the dying days of this Parliament in a rush to just do something, to get something done, something other than making pot legal. That is about the only thing the government has done, and it has actually done that pretty poorly. The legalization of cannabis is really the only notable accomplishment of the government to date. Even with that, it turned out to be a disaster.

What does the government have left to do, which it is in such a hurry to achieve? The government has horribly failed in meeting any of its lofty commitments to indigenous peoples. Now it is in a panic to rush through Bill C-91 and Bill C-92, the indigenous languages and indigenous family services legislation, so that it can say, “Look, we have done something.”

There is, of course, yet another omnibus budget bill that it is ramming through the House at this moment. The government will no doubt want to see that piece of legislation and all of its provisions to implement another promise-breaking, deficit budget through Parliament. Rumours have also started to fly that the government will seek to implement, before the election, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement, the new NAFTA, where the Liberals capitulated to the American administration on replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

On the NAFTA negotiations, the Prime Minister wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a better deal. However, Conservatives worked hard to get tariffs removed, and we recognize how important free trade with the United States is. We will be voting to ratify the deal in Parliament, but the Liberals cannot take this as a licence to abuse Parliament. We are already well into the 11th hour for this Parliament. I can confidently predict that the House will not be a happy place if the implementation legislation is brought forward at the very last minute and then we are called to rush through the bill with little or no scrutiny to make fundamental changes to the world's most important bilateral economic relationship.

Again, we need the government, at this very late hour, to show some responsibility and let Canadians know, let members know, what it is planning to do with this agreement and with the ratification.

Turning to other priorities the government will seek to advance this spring, we see other economic legislation that is really hurting our economy. The government is the proud owner of a $4.5-billion pipeline, which has not even started to be built. Government members are scrambling to shore up the support of environmental activists, whose votes they heavily courted in 2015 but clearly are losing. Today we are going to be seeing the welcoming of a new member of Parliament from the Green Party. I think when the Liberals talk about an emergency, that is an emergency they are very much seized with, the emergency of their losing their so-called environmentalist vote.

However, there is some legislation that is really problematic, such as Bill C-88, which is a bill that would restrict pipeline and resource development in Canada's north. Bill C-68 would make negative changes to fisheries laws, which would result in economic activity being hampered. Bill C-48, and it is quite interesting to see what is happening in the Senate with that one, is a symbolic gesture; well, it is more than a gesture, as this bill would ban tanker traffic from part of the B.C. coast, which is where many first nations are calling for greater pipeline development and economic opportunity. At the same time, there is no proposed tanker ban on the east coast, where Saudi Arabian and Venezuelan oil is coming to Canada.

Of course, there is Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, which would absolutely stop any energy infrastructure development in Canada. We have heard from experts, stakeholders, provinces and first nation groups that Bill C-69 is an absolute disaster for this country. We would not have any more pipelines built. They will be built in other countries. Canada will miss this window of opportunity. Again, the government does not seem to understand the consequences of its actions. However, I understand there have been many amendments by the Senate, up to 200 amendments, so it will be interesting to see if those are overturned by the Liberals, who are hoping to regain their environmentalist votes.

In Canada, majority government policies are usually assured of being put into place. Therefore, the shadow cast by these bills has, unfortunately, already done a huge amount of damage in our resource sector and in other parts of our country, putting a chill on investment and development long ahead of these bills becoming law.

Adding to that is the sad, sorry spectacle of the duelling climate emergency motions before the House this month, which is another interesting thing to watch. Before Victoria Day, the New Democrats put forward an opposition day motion declaring a climate emergency, and the Liberals defeated it. Lo and behold, the very next day, the Liberals brought forward their own climate emergency motion, which we debated for just a few hours. Then, the day after, they were on to something else, and the Prime Minister was flying somewhere in his jet. Can members imagine that there is a climate emergency and the Prime Minister gets on his jet and flies away? It is pretty unbelievable. I call that a high-carbon hypocrite.

Here we are this morning, back from our constituency break. Where is the emergency debate? I do not see it. The government's emergency is worrying about what is happening on its left flank, worrying about the senators and worrying about getting legislation through. However, this morning we have this debate, which is something different still. This afternoon, the Liberals are going to squeeze in another two or three hours on their climate emergency, hoping that some of their environmentalists are listening and they can fool them into thinking they care about the environment, when in fact the only plan the Liberals have for the environment is a tax plan. Who knows? The motion goes back into the parliamentary ether under the who-knows-when category.

I think this is just a political emergency. As I mentioned, the Green Party won a by-election on Vancouver Island, with the Liberal candidate running fourth, which is really quite something. I think the Liberals are very worried. They have to be worried about what is going on in B.C. The Prime Minister, as I said, scrambled and stuck something in the window to look like he was doing something. It is sort of fun to watch them do this.

I know what the Liberals are going to do. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change actually mentioned it on the weekend. Their approach, according to the minister, is that if they stand in the House and say it loud enough, as well as yell it in question period, Canadians will just believe it. Now we know why the Prime Minister and that minister stand and yell. It is sad to say, but they believe that if they say it loud enough and yell it enough times in this place that Canadians will believe it. That is horrible. It is cynical, disrespectful and shameful. I certainly hope that maybe at their next caucus meeting, some of those Liberals will have the courage to speak up to their boss, the Prime Minister, and maybe a few of their ministers, and tell them that it is about time they respect this place and respect Canadians.

Here we are debating government Motion No. 30, because the Liberals claim they are working hard to pass legislation. Then we will turn to a virtue signalling motion that will not change one law or do one thing. It is really interesting to see what the Liberal government is doing.

Let us go back to Motion No. 30. Those were my opening remarks, and now I am getting into the real substance of my speech. I appreciate the encouragement. Motion No. 30 before us today calls us to sit until midnight on four days a week, as well as for most votes to take place after question period. These are understandable. We were in government and understand it, but we did not have to do it in 2015. We were able to manage things so efficiently under Peter Van Loan and Stephen Harper that we did not extend into night sittings in the summer of 2015. However, for all the reasons I have pointed out, the Liberals had to.

Some of these measures can be understood by us, as Conservatives, as they are things we have asked the House to do. There is one addition to the motion that is truly a nice one, and I am going to compliment the government on it. There is a provision in this motion to have a couple of evenings that are dedicated to statements by retiring members from all sides. We will have the opportunity to set aside partisanship for a short period of time to hear the farewell speeches by our departing colleagues. That is something we do not always get to enjoy when we have one-off statements made in the midst of one political battle or another. I am really glad to see that provision. There are members on every side of the House who are retiring and not running again for various reasons. In the last Parliament, we set aside a couple of evenings for those members, who could invite their families, friends and staff members. It is a really good thing and I am grateful. I thank the government for putting that provision into this motion.

However, the motion is not perfect. This is where I am going to discuss the parts of the motion that we do not like and believe are a greedy approach on behalf of the Liberals. I have already talked about 2017 and 2018 when the government motion proposed reducing opposition days to opposition half days. We objected then, and we object again.

This year's motion is very aggressive in some other ways also. The rules normally require report stage votes and third reading debate to occur on separate days. Under government Motion No. 30, that waiting period would be eliminated. Again, this is another way that the government can rush through legislation.

With regard to the way that the previous motion on extended hours worked, there was a one-day delay between a vote on the previous question and a vote on the main motion. That would be eliminated under government Motion No. 30. In previous years, all dilatory motions were banned after 6:30 p.m., but now ministers would be allowed to propose them. The government wants us to sit late every night, yet wants to keep for itself the power to send us home early.

On the last opposition day in each supply period, we vote on the estimates. That is when we go through the government spending plan line by line and approve the items. Unfortunately for the current government, these have often fallen at times when the government was being particularly arrogant, like in March when the Liberals were insisting on preventing the members for Vancouver Granville and Markham—Stouffville from speaking. Therefore, we did have to hold the government's feet to the fire and we triggered marathon voting, which is one of the very few devices left for us to make our disagreements felt.

Now, government Motion No. 30 would create a backdoor procedural trick to group and apply these votes. That is in an effort to spare the Liberals from standing and voting for their spending proposals, and that is if a voting marathon even happens this spring. Again, this is one of the small tools we have to hold the government to account and draw attention to what the government is doing. The Liberals have taken that away as well. It is shameful. The takeaway from this is that while the Liberals are setting long hours, they want to make light work. Again, it is a lot of hope but very little hard work.

There is also one small curious difference between this motion and those from the previous years. Normally, when a concurrence debate is interrupted, the government has 10 sitting days to reschedule the conclusion of that debate. Under past motions for extended hours, whether Liberal or Conservative, that 10 days has been increased to 20 days to avoid further extending some House sittings from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. Instead, the government motion proposes 31 sitting sitting days, not 20. It is an interesting little change, nuance, in this motion. Since there are only 20 scheduled sittings days left, that tells me one thing: The Liberal government now recognizes it has mismanaged its agenda so badly that it could be preparing for the House to have a summer sitting. I am wondering if all the Liberal members were aware of that little nugget. Again, it is going to be a matter of our watching this space to see what happens.

Finally, something that is not in the motion also has us concerned. That is the prospect of amendments to the Standing Orders getting rammed through this spring under the cover of midnight sittings. On one hand, there is a private member's motion, Motion No. 231, sponsored by the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard. It did not come through this morning, but many of us have had a chance to look at that private member's motion and have to wonder if it is not under the direction or the support of the Liberals. The Liberal government did—

The Environment

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Senate transport committee is recommending that Bill C-48 be scrapped. After listening to provinces, industry, and environmental and indigenous groups, it realized that this bill is not in Canada's interest. Like the carbon tax, this bill is not about the environment, it is about ideology.

Will the Prime Minister agree to allow this bill to die and not whip his Liberal senators into reviving this flawed legislation?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think it is unhelpful and lacking in courage or ambition for the government to use the standard set by the previous government. Stephen Harper's targets and actions, or inactions, are not really much of a bar to set for a government that came in with a promise and such hopefulness regarding climate change. The member may argue whether it was proper for the government to continue with Stephen Harper's targets, but it is hurt by the fact that the government is not even going to meet those targets, according to the Auditor General.

The Harper government promised not to subsidize oil and gas. It made that promise to the OECD. The current government did the same thing, yet it continues the practice of subsidizing carbon.

Last night, the Senate, at the committee level, rejected Bill C-48, on the north coast tanker ban, which 67% of the members elected to the House voted to pass. This is a question of power between the Senate and the House. When democratically elected members of the House pass a bill like the one on the north coast tanker ban, what is the member willing to do, joining with us, to push back on the unelected house, the Senate, when its members describe a reality and preference that is different from the will expressed by the voters of this country?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

We know the Liberal government rolled back many of the responsible environmental programs we had to support responsible resource development. Navigable waters was one of them. There has not yet been one example put forward by any member in the House of damage done by the improvements we made in conjunction with municipalities and provinces to eliminate some of the red tape in the previous act.

With regard to the fate of Bill C-48 in the Senate, that bill has fallen off the legislative platform, as it well should. Bill C-48 was a discriminatory law aimed directly at Canada's responsible oil and gas industry.

[Bob McLeod]

In my mind, it will. Along with co-management of offshore negotiations, we have already done a study showing that it is both possible and feasible to go north. The Beaufort Sea used to be ice-free six weeks a year. Now it is ice-free 20 weeks or more a year. Bill C-48 only applies to the B.C. coast. We're concerned about Bill C-55. We understand that the Senate has passed an amendment so that the government has to consult before it imposes marine protected areas.

We think we're in a good position for that, going forward. We've had some discussions with other jurisdictions. We have a railway that goes to Hay River. We own a barging company now. We would have to look at some offshore off-loading and on-loading facility. We have a road to Tuk, so we have access to tidewater.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the member is retiring. I know he is going to spend more time with his family, which is a good decision to make. However, we will miss him in this place. This is probably the last time I will have the chance to publicly say that to him. I have appreciated his friendship. We have been working on one file together.

However, Bill C-48, the tanker ban, intends to shut down resource development in Canada, more particularly, the development of our oil and gas resources. That is the purpose of this ban. Our party wants to find the appropriate balance between the environment and the economy, something the NDP has never understood. The Liberals are having trouble understanding that, because they have a climate change plan that is failing because it is a tax plan.

I would encourage the member to re-evaluate what Bill C-48 actually represents. It is a smack in the face to Alberta and Saskatchewan, which are trying to get those cleaner products out to international markets. Somehow those members think it is a good thing to shut down that effort.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague, the member for Abbotsford. He has pointed out that the government is dramatically failing on meeting its Paris accord climate change targets, and we certainly agree. He mentioned environmental organizations, like the Pembina Institute, and he quoted Dr. David Suzuki.

Therefore, why are the hon. member and his Conservative senators blocking Bill C-48, the west coast tanker ban, from becoming law? Why are the Conservatives saying one thing but doing another? Could he explain that?

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Are you familiar with Bill C-48 at all?

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

First of all, I am from western Canada, so I have to acknowledge that many of the issues you face on a daily basis on the Atlantic coast are ones I'm not really that familiar with, so I will leave it to my colleagues across the way who are from Atlantic Canada to ask you about them.

I would like to get some perspective from someone who has dealt with the situation. We currently have before the Senate Bill C-48, and it's fortunately being stalled, which is good. It is a bill that's going to prohibit tanker traffic off British Columbia's, in the Prime Minister's words, “pristine” west coast.

I want to know if you have any experience with tanker traffic on what I consider to be a pristine east coast and whether that's been an issue relative to spills or any environmental damage.

Could you help us out in the western part of the world and tell us whether that's seen as a problem on your coastline?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are contradictions within this debate. The government talks about this being an emergency and a crisis, but it also went out and bought a $4.5-billion pipeline, and it plans to expand it by tripling it. It is a bit of a contradiction. I think the minister, in a quiet moment, could admit to do doing harm, while saying that they are doing a benefit, and that the targets will not be met.

I want to speak to her about something very specific, which is larger than even the issue of climate change, and that is our role as parliamentarians. Last night, the Senate committee voted to kill C-48, a government-sponsored bill on the north coast tanker ban, which I had sponsored in a previous Parliament. The government campaigned on this, as did four out of five parties in this House.

This is a democratic question I ask. I think this is the first time in Canadian history that a government-sponsored bill is threatened with defeat at the Senate, which this government reformed, perhaps creating a bad problem and maybe making it worse.

What will the minister do to join with us not only to protect the north coast from the threat of oil spills and to make sure that this bill becomes law but to push back on the unelected and unaccountable Senate that is looking to overturn the democratic will of this House, as expressed by Canadians in the past election? This does not just have an effect now; it will affect future parliaments and the expressed will of Canadian voters in those elections.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Minister and departmental officials.

Minister, one of the primary tasks of this bill, as you talked about, is to reverse changes made by the former Conservative government with the Northwest Territories Devolution Act back in 2014. As you mentioned, this included consolidating the four land and water boards in the Mackenzie Valley into one. The Liberal Party at that time supported it, including the current Prime Minister, and even your parliamentary secretary, MP Jones, who is with us here this morning.

I'm going to quote what she said at the time:

As Liberals, we want to see the Northwest Territories have the kind of independence it has sought. We want it to have the ability to make decisions regarding the environment, resource development, business management, growth, and opportunity, which arise within their own lands.

That is from 2014.

These comments actually stand in direct contradiction to Bill C-88, which extends powers to the cabinet to put moratoriums on energy development and to include the national interest, which, to be honest with you, has never really been clearly defined.

I will note that the Prime Minister of the day, when he did the moratorium, wasn't even in this country. He was in Washington, D.C., at the time he talked about the moratorium up north, and the elected northern officials at the time had less than half an hour to scramble to come up with the decision of the day.

I'm also going to talk, if you don't mind, about last night in the Senate, because it has major ramifications for northern Canada and moratoriums on northern development, allowing the north to make its own environmental and economic decisions. We have seen repeated paternalism coming from this government when it comes to energy development, not only in relation to northerners but as we saw last night first nations as well.

We saw it with Bill C-48 in the Senate last night: the B.C. oil tanker ban. As you know, Calvin Helin is the CEO of Eagle Spirit Energy Holdings, which is an indigenous-led group. He has been deeply critical of these types of moratoriums being directed by your government in Ottawa. He said, in response to these bans, “Is this what reconciliation is supposed to represent in Canada?”

That statement last night by Calvin speaks volumes, and we saw it last night in the Senate as they voted against Bill C-48. We'll see what happens when it comes back to the House.

We talk of an “Ottawa-down” approach. Can we let the north make the environmental and economic decisions instead of “Ottawa knows best”?

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Good afternoon, and thank you to all of you for being here.

First of all, I'd like to preface my comments by saying that I represent a riding in Calgary, Alberta, and so my in-depth knowledge of the east coast is quite limited.

Ironically enough, while we're sitting here, across town in front of the Senate, the Minister of Transport is before the Senate trying to defend Bill C-48. To those of you who are not familiar with Bill C-48, this is the bill the Prime Minister brought before the House of Commons with no scientific data to back up this tanker ban on the west coast. It was something the Prime Minister decided to do while he was flying over British Columbia. It landlocks provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan from using the transportation corridor of Canada to export our goods.

You've all had lots of experience dealing with tankers coming in and out of your ports on the east coast. What experience, if any, have you had with spillage or other incidents? What sort of view do you have whereby we have a government that allows tanker traffic on our east coast but won't allow it on the west coast, because, in the words of our Prime Minister, it is a pristine coast? That sort of tells me it is a little more pristine and important to preserve than the east coast.

Do any of you have any comments relative to how safe it is based on your experience of having tankers coming in and out of your ports?

Oceans Act

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on behalf of the fine people of Red Deer—Lacombe, in central Alberta, to talk again about this legislation, one which the Senate sent back to the House because it saw the same flaws in it that the opposition did.

The bill was passed at third reading by the Liberal majority government in an expeditious way as an attempt to fulfill its political objectives, without giving due consideration to the impacts the bill would have on the people of Canada, notwithstanding that it is about marine protected areas.

I do not think any reasonable Canadian would think that having marine protected areas is a bad idea. In fact, the previous Conservative government created many marine protected areas in fresh water and in our oceans. The current government has an ambitious plan to set aside 10% of our marine areas for protection by 2020.

The fisheries committee, of which I am a member, travelled across the country to talk to various stakeholders and groups about what that would actually look like. We heard loudly and clearly from aboriginal groups, particularly from those in coastal communities that rely on the ocean or the sea for their way of life, about their concern that marine protected areas would interfere with or infringe upon their lifestyles. The Inuit of the north want to have access to various estuaries for beluga harvesting or fishing. The coastal communities rely on shipping and marine traffic. The indigenous communities rely on salmon, halibut, clams and so on, not only for their personal use but also for the socio-economic interests that exist within their various bands.

In its wisdom, the Senate has basically found that Bill C-55 does not do a very good job of addressing the concerns of some of these communities. In fact, Senator Patterson, who is from the Nunavut territory, wanted to amend clause 5 of the bill to enhance consultation and co-operation measures. Even the government touts itself as one that wants to ensure the consultative process is done. However, the Senate, which is now dominated by members appointed by the Prime Minister, has sided with Senator Patterson, saying the bill needs to go back to have that clause reviewed.

Some people in my home province of Alberta may be asking why a guy from Alberta is so focused on fisheries, particularly on the west coast. They may wonder why a guy from central Alberta, who is also a farm boy, is always talking about fish and salmon. It just happens to be something I know a little bit about. I also understand that standing in between the economic prosperity of the people I represent in central Alberta and their future is the ability to ship energy products off Canada's Pacific coast.

Nobody back home in my riding actually believes that the current government has Alberta's best interests at heart. That is why traditionally, after the prime minister with the same last name as the current Prime Minister was elected, the Liberal brand, especially at the provincial level, is virtually a non-starter in Alberta. Why?

For people with a short memory or who have not learned their history very well, it is because people realized that brand and name just meant economic chaos. Whether through the National Energy Board program that was implemented some 40 years ago or the programs that are being implemented now, nobody back in Alberta believes that the marine protected area measures in Bill C-55 will not be used as a political sledgehammer to further restrict Alberta's ability to export its natural resource products off the coast, and this is why.

First and foremost, the current government, even though it tries to say otherwise, does not like fossil fuels. The Prime Minister has been very clear, through slips of the tongue, that the oil sands need to be phased out and stopped. He said as much. He said in response to questions about the carbon tax that the increasing cost of energy and the increasing cost of fuel for Canadians is what we want. When I say “we want”, I am using the Prime Minister's words. It is what the Prime Minister thinks Canadians actually want.

Right now we have a situation in British Columbia in which the Premier of British Columbia is basically threatening to block the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, yet at the same time threatening to sue the Government of Alberta if it chooses to shut off the existing Trans Mountain pipeline's delivery of oil. We find ourselves in this really bizarre world here in Canada, where nobody actually believes that anybody in the Liberal Party or the NDP wants to allow any more pipelines built to our west coast.

We have the carbon tax. We have had the regulatory changes. We have had the outright cancelling of the northern gateway pipeline by Enbridge and the changing of the regulatory process for energy east. The very first thing that the Liberal government published in November 2015 was changes that it made to the consultation process on pipelines, further delaying the Trans Mountain expansion and energy east and killing outright the northern gateway pipeline.

Everybody in the sector calls Bill C-69 the no-more-pipelines bill. This legislation is designed specifically and purposely to ensure that no more oil pipelines will be built in Canada, thereby trapping Alberta, Saskatchewan or all of Canada's energy in the North American marketplace. We sell that crude oil at a discount in the North American marketplace. Then it gets refined and shipped back to us at full price, and Canadians have to pick up the tab.

We have seen the proposed tanker ban legislation, Bill C-48, on the west coast. Interestingly enough, the government, which claims to care so much about the marine environment, did not put a tanker ban on the east coast to forbid tankers from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and elsewhere from bringing energy to the eastern shores of Canada, even though eastern Canadians would much prefer to buy oil that was taken from the ground here in Canada and refined here in Canada for the use of all Canadians and for the economic benefit of everybody.

It would not be a stretch in any way, shape or form to believe that the current sitting Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, or any version thereof that the Liberal government has had sitting in that seat, would use Bill C-55.

I have no reason as an Albertan to believe anything other than that marine protected areas will be specifically designated and set up in areas not based on science or not based on where the marine protected area could do the most good for the preservation of species or the preservation of unique habitat or ecosystems, but instead in specifically designated areas to block the kinds of industrial activity that the government does not favour, notwithstanding that there is a tanker ban already in place through Bill C-48.

People back home need to understand that in the creation of a national park, there is normally a long and arduous process. A consultative process takes place, as well as a gazetting process through the National Parks Act, usually in the form of a willing seller and willing buyer. When national parks are purchased or require land that is already privately held, going through that process would be a requirement. The annexation part did not work out too well for the previous prime minister of Liberal persuasion when he tried that in Atlantic Canada, so here we find ourselves using Crown land in the north, which is where most Crown land is. Anytime a new national park is created, it is created on Crown land, but oceans are owned by nobody. They are actually owned by Her Majesty the Queen. They are owned by the Crown in right of the people of Canada.

The minister, through Bill C-55 should it pass in its current form, will have the ability to designate a marine protected area wherever he or she sees fit. There is no legislative requirement at all for the minister to use best science. There is no legislative requirement at all for that process to be gazetted, not one.

This is the most powerful piece of legislation that I have seen that gives the minister the outright ability to take up to 10%—because the government is saying that is the target—of our oceans and close them down in full or part, however the minister sees fit. That means that he or she can designate a marine protected area that is completely closed from all activity, right from the sunlit zone at the top of the water, all the way through the pelagic zone to the littoral zone at the bottom, if there is enough sunlight there to create that, or even down into the benthos or the layer at the bottom of the ocean floor, and cease and desist all activity.

The minister could make any list of exemptions that he or she wants in order to accommodate whatever political agenda they have. They could deny fishing, trawling, tanker traffic or specific tanker traffic. They could simply say, just as Bill C-48 does, that ships will be allowed through as long as the ship does not contain products x, y or z. There is no ability in this legislation at all for any recourse whatsoever.

I would bet anybody with a crisp $10 bill who wants to take me up on it—maybe this is dangerous because I am not a gambler—that marine protected areas in the first tranche, once this legislation comes to pass, will be set up at the Dixon Entrance and the Hecate Strait, outside of Prince Rupert, to make darn sure that, if Bill C-48 fails, not a single tanker will be allowed out of that area—the Prince Rupert-Kitimat area—carrying any type of crude oil or any of its byproducts or any of its refined products.

Anybody who does not think that is going to happen is dreaming. We will have no justification or rationale printed in any Gazette for why the minister is choosing to do this, because they are not obligated to under the legislation. That is why the Senate has coughed this bill back up and sent it back to this place. I do not expect the government to actually take any of these amendments seriously. I expect we will probably get time allocation. I know that the government has already sent a note back to the Senate on this piece of legislation.

I actually do not expect the government to accept any of these recommendations. I do not expect the government to take any amendments on this legislation that would limit the heavy-handed unilateral ability of the minister to basically outline or delineate anywhere he or she sees fit to accomplish the Liberal political agenda. That is what I find most egregious and most frustrating with this piece of legislation.

The minister will have the ability, once Bill C-55 passes, to designate whether certain tanker traffic is allowed, or any products, or if any tanker traffic is allowed at all. The minister will be allowed to decide whether any commercial fishing would happen in that area. The minister would be allowed to determine whether any sport fishing or recreational fishing would be allowed to happen in that particular area, and set any terms and conditions for it. The minister already has that ability to regulate fisheries through the Fisheries Act, but this is something they are going to have the ability to do even further through the marine protected area legislation, which is what Bill C-55 is all about.

The government will also have the unilateral ability—and I am assuming this will get challenged almost immediately—to actually decide what the indigenous peoples of this country will be able to do in those marine protected areas. I do not expect the government to actually put too many restrictions on them, but it may. I would be curious to see how those actually stand up to a test.

It is very frustrating, because the talking points coming from the government will make it sound as though this is a great idea. Of course, Canadians, who think with their hearts—as many Canadians do, and it is okay to think with the heart from time time—are going to say that 10% of our marine area is going to be protected and that is fantastic. However, here is the rub. There is no actual scientific requirement or any requirement in the legislation at all that is going to require the minister of fisheries and oceans to follow any rules or obligations in the establishment of a marine protected area.

I will give an example of what happens on the terrestrial side of the equation. Years ago, when I was taking my zoology degree at the University of Alberta, the numbers floated and bandied around back then—and that was almost 30 years ago—were 12.5%, 75% and 12.5%, and I mentioned this in my earlier speech. It was that 12.5% of the terrestrial land mass should be set aside for complete preservation or in a national park-like structure, with very little use, very little activity.

This land is designated in a preservation classification type of area. Of course, that also needs to be representative of the various biozones that we have, in order to get the approval of the United Nations and all the other agencies that watch these things. It could not all be, for example, in the Arctic. We would have to represent things like grasslands, which is why we have the creation of Grasslands National Park, which is still ongoing. We would have to represent all of that area in order to protect a representative sample of all the various ecosystems and habitats in the country.

It was decided a long time ago that 75% of the land mass would be classified as common use, areas where conservation management practices actually come into play to manage the environmental considerations that we have. Another 12.5% was set aside as complete use, things that are paved over, under concrete, cities, roads, highways, industrial areas, things of that nature, where these kinds of human activities need to happen in order to benefit and improve the quality of life of all people, not only in Canada but around the world. It was 12.5%, 75% and 12.5%.

Now we see that shift on the terrestrial environment, moving forward, but here is the rub. Any time somebody wants to grow that 12.5% of the preserved land area, that person has to take that land from that particular area. We just saw how badly this backfired for Rachel Notley in Alberta, when she tried to take some of the land that is classified in the public land use zone, the 75% of conservation and well-managed land and terrestrial areas. To put that space in the preservation pot, a person has to take it from the 75%, which is everybody who lives and makes a living in small rural areas across our country. It is very seldom that anybody in an urban area has to pay a price or a consequence for the development of a preservation boundary inside his or her jurisdiction, very seldom.

The same thing is going to happen in these marine protected areas. It is not going to cost anything for people who do not venture out onto the ocean, because it is not going to impact their lives. However, all those who live in small, rural, coastal communities or make a living by going out onto the water will now have to contend with arbitrary delineations of marine protected areas and make sure they follow whatever rules and conditions the minister has made. The minister, according to this legislation, can make any rules he or she sees fit. It is limitless. It does not have to be gazetted and it does not need the approval of anybody, other than a ministerial order. It does not even need the approval of the Governor in Council. It does not even need the approval of his or her cabinet colleagues.

The minister can simply sign a ministerial order and declare an area as a marine protected area. That is unwieldy power, especially when we are talking about 10% of the surface area on down, right through the water column to the bottom of the sea, the ocean, the lake, the river or whatever it happens to be. That is under the care and control of just one decision-maker in this country. That is a lot of power. It is power that our friends in the Senate have said should be reconsidered, and that is why they sent this piece of legislation back here.

I truly hope that this House takes a serious look at this legislation. I know the government is running out of time in its legislative agenda, but I sure hope that common sense will prevail, that the right thing will be done and that these amendments from the Senate will be given due consideration and every opportunity to be re-examined and studied, and not only by this chamber. I would love to see this bill go back to the committee so it can look at some of the work the Senate committee did, so that we, as the elected representatives of the people of Canada, have a better understanding as to exactly what the impacts of the bill would be.

Indigenous Languages Act

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered the historic residential schools apology. He acknowledged the two primary objectives of the residential school system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures and to assimilate them into the dominate culture.

He said:

First nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools.... The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language.

That apology was the beginning of an earnest effort to start to heal the intergenerational harm and trauma caused to indigenous people by over a century of federal government-imposed policies. Stephen Harper's apology, which was the first by a prime minister in Canadian history, led to the final settlement on Indian residential schools and the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to ensure the full history of the residential schools and the experiences of survivors and families were made public and to provide recommendations on the path forward for reconciliation. The final report included 94 calls to action. This bill addresses calls 13, 14 and 15.

It is crucial to understand the complex shared history of the founding peoples within Canada, including when the power of the state was used to break families and to harm children in unspeakable ways in a systemic attempt to destroy traditions, beliefs and languages. The long and difficult journey of survivors and their families in speaking about those experiences and about the impacts that reverberate in real ways today can enable meaningful reconciliation in the future.

More than 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes as part of the residential schools program, a program that predated Confederation and continued well into the 1990s. More than 20,000 indigenous children were taken from their homes and placed with non-indigenous families, a wave of displacement that became known as the “sixties scoop”. Generations of children grew up without parental role models, without grandparents and elders, without the love and nurturing of family members to pass along foundational family and cultural values. They grew up away from their families and outside their communities, and the effects are readily obvious today.

In 2016, Statistics Canada reported that of the foster children in private homes who were under the age of 15, 14,970 were indigenous, which was over half of all foster children in Canada. The disproportionate socio-economic challenges among indigenous Canadians, such as violence, suicide and high-risk vulnerability, show that impact. There is a long and multipronged effort ahead to make right that immense and systemic trauma caused to indigenous people by a government-driven attempt to dismantle their cultural practices.

As Conservatives, we in particular believe deeply in families as the building blocks of society; in parents as first teachers; in limiting the scope of the state in intervening with families and individuals; in language as the cornerstone of generations being able to preserve traditions, values and cultural practices; and in the free and equal inherent dignity, sanctity and self-determination of every individual human being. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the Conservatives were the first to take this important step and that we support the aspiration and ambition of Bill C-91.

However, while Conservatives made historic investments and took action regarding indigenous culture, education, housing and water treatment under the previous government, the reality is that a total reliance on federal funding will never provide the future that first nations want for their children. That is why indigenous economic reconciliation and empowerment are also important to Conservatives. When indigenous communities have access to revenues independent of the government, they can invest in their own priorities without having to get approval from a civil servant in Ottawa or fit their plan into a federally prescribed program application. Empowering first nations economically provides the tools for indigenous communities to invest in their culture and to preserve and nurture their heritage and language for future generations.

In Lakeland, Joe Dion of the Frog Lake Energy Resources Corporation has been a champion of empowering indigenous people to generate sustainable wealth for communities, elders and future generations. I represent a region blessed with an abundance of natural resources and indigenous people and communities who participate as partners, owners, employers, contractors and workers in responsibly developing these resources. I am proud to represent all communities and people in Lakeland, including the Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement, the Fishing Lake Métis Settlement, the Kikino Métis Settlement, the Frog Lake First Nation, the Goodfish First Nation, the Kehewin Cree Nation, the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, the Onion Lake First Nation and the Elizabeth Métis Settlement.

For those communities and, unfortunately, other indigenous communities across Canada, the dream of economic self-sufficiency is being blocked by the current Liberal government. The Liberals' anti-resource agenda is sabotaging the best hope these communities have to become truly independent of the federal government.

Isaac Laboucan-Avirom, chief of the Woodland Cree First Nation, said, “It frustrates me, as a first nations individual, when I have to almost beg for monies when we're living in one of the most resource-rich countries in the world.”

When this Liberal Prime Minister vetoed the northern gateway pipeline, the equity partners said they were “deeply disappointed that a Prime Minister who campaigned on a promise of reconciliation with Indigenous communities would now blatantly choose to deny our 31 First Nations and Métis communities of our constitutionally protected right to economic development.”

When it comes to the Liberals' no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, Stephen Buffalo, president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council, on behalf of hundreds of indigenous-owned businesses, said:

Indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, one that finally allows Indigenous people to share in Canada's economic prosperity...[but] Bill C-69 will stop this progress in its tracks.

About the Liberals' oil export ban, Bill C-48, which was announced with no indigenous consultation 30 days after the Liberals formed government, Gary Alexcee, vice-chair of the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council, says, “With no consultation, the B.C. first nations groups have been cut off economically with no opportunity to even sit down with the government to further negotiate Bill C-48.”

He said:

If that's going to be passed, then I would say we might as well throw up our hands and let the government come and put blankets on us that are infected with smallpox so we can go away. That's what this bill means to us.

He went on:

Today, the way it sits, we have nothing but handouts that are not even enough to have the future growth of first nations in our communities of British Columbia.

Those are incredibly difficult words to read, but they reflect the deep-seated sense of betrayal that many first nations now feel toward the current Liberal government.

As the Conservative shadow minister for natural resources, I almost always talk about the multiple indigenous communities or organizations that want to develop mineral and energy projects in their territories because a majority of indigenous communities want resource development and want to partner with businesses to create opportunity for their communities and for future generations.

There are also many examples of initiatives that indigenous communities want to fund and have begun to establish across Canada to preserve their languages and culture. One of those examples, Blue Quills, is remarkable in how it has been transitioned from something used to attack and dismantle indigenous families and cultures to now champion the preservation and the future of indigenous languages, faith and cultural practices.

Blue Quills, located out of St. Paul in Lakeland, was a residential school, and now it is the largest language, cultural and sensitivity training centre in the area.

The history of the college dates back to 1865; the present campus was built in the early 1930s as a mission residential school. Blue Quills is one of the first indigenous-administered post-secondary education institutions serving first nations and other students from across Canada. It offers several courses that teach the Cree language, as well as anthropology and interdisciplinary courses on indigenous communication through art, dance and language.

Lakeland College in Vermilion, with a campus in Lloydminster, offers a specific program for indigenous educators. The college hosts an indigenous elders-in-residence program.

All of these programs are funded in part through the financial support of the local treaty first nations. Those first nations are also the very ones involved in responsible energy resource development, and they are concerned about their future and their future financial prosperity being threatened by the Liberal attacks on oil and gas in my region.

It is incumbent on all members of this House to work toward meaningful reconciliation. I want to quote Taleah Jackson, a young woman originally from Saddle Lake and a cultural guide with North Central Alberta Child and Family Services and Blue Quills University, a constituent who inspires me. She says:

My language is important to me as I am not a fluent speaker I see the value and the beauty of the language of my ancestors. But more importantly Language is the key to our ceremonies, stories, protocols, identities and our ways of life. It was told to me once that when we speak our language we are speaking from our hearts and the Creator hears our prayers. We must respect our fluent speakers and Elders for they have been instrumental to the preservation of Indigenous Languages and keep our sacred languages safe.

I agree with Taleah, because protecting Canada's indigenous languages is protecting our shared Canadian heritage.

It was on December 6, 2016, that the current Liberal Prime Minister promised to introduce this indigenous languages act, and over two years have gone by. I hope that the Liberals also will provide a concrete plan of how they will deliver on the aspiration of Bill C-91.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent work in this area and so many others in this place.

On the issue of the government listening to Canadians in general, and particularly in the context of listening to indigenous communities, I spoke about the issue of resource development and how the government does not want to listen to the voices of many indigenous leaders who have been sounding the alarm about, for instance, Bills C-48 and C-69. This is legislation that would make it virtually impossible for certain kinds of resource development projects to go forward in the future, which would undermine this incredible opportunity for prosperity for many indigenous nations.

Along with many on the far left, the government wants to elevate the voices of some people in the indigenous community while ignoring the voices of others. Our consultation approach needs to listen to everybody. We need to make sure those who maybe do not share my particular views on resource development are still very much heard and listened to as part of a meaningful consultation process in which the outcome is not predetermined.

However, I also think that process cannot give any one actor within it a veto over moving forward. It must listen to all of those voices, including those who are in favour of development. This is one of many areas, related in particular to the conversation around Crown-indigenous relations, where the government is unfortunately failing to listen.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-91 and, in that context as well, to make some broader comments about the federal government's relationship with indigenous peoples.

During his 1981 inaugural address, former United States president Ronald Reagan said the following: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Looking at the history of Crown-indigenous relations and the challenges indigenous peoples face in Canada today, it is quite clear that so many of the particular challenges faced by indigenous peoples in our time as well stem from government intervention, the intervention of government in their lives in a way that does not respect their rights as individuals and, by extension, does not respect their identity and culture.

These types of interventions, big government interventions that deny the primacy of culture, that reject parental authority and familial autonomy, and that believe that governments and special interests, as opposed to property owners and local people, should control resource development, have caused significant challenges for many indigenous communities.

While some would seek to construct a false antagonism between Conservatives and indigenous communities, we recognize that it is the fundamentally Conservative principle that families and communities are more important than the state that could have paved, and could still pave, the path to meaningful reconciliation.

On the terrible history of residential schools, these schools were rooted in the idea that government should control the education system and use it to impose values and practices that are contrary to the teachings of parents and communities. That idea was wrong. It was deeply wrong of various non-state actors to collaborate in the implementation of this policy, and all of those collaborators have apologized, along with the government.

However, we should not forget that the root of this evil policy was that the state thought that it should and could interfere in the familial lives of indigenous peoples to impose an education system that was contrary to their beliefs and values. Approaches that deny the necessary involvement of parents in the education of their children, advanced out of paternalistic notions that government functionaries can raise children better than parents, are always wrong and always deeply damaging. We should certainly endeavour never to repeat the mistake of cutting parents out of decision-making about their children's education.

Today, we are discussing, in particular, the issue of indigenous languages. As I said, I and the rest of our Conservative caucus are very much in support of this legislation. We are very supportive of the preservation and revitalization of indigenous languages, and we recognize the need for governments to play a constructive role to undo the damage, often damage done by governments in the past.

It should be clear to anyone who has learned a second language that language is more than a neutral medium for exchanging information. Languages have certain assumptions embedded in their structure about what is true and important, which makes certain ideas easier to convey in some languages than in others. People who speak a particular language also understand the cultural logic embedded in that language and can access different information and traditions through that language.

The preservation and revitalization of indigenous languages help indigenous people and all Canadians benefit from a deeper understanding and appreciation of the ideas, history, culture and values of different indigenous nations. The preservation and revitalization of indigenous languages help to preserve and revitalize indigenous traditional knowledge, knowledge that benefits indigenous people and all Canadians.

I want to make a few comments here about traditional knowledge, because it is a very important concept, frequently invoked but rarely explored. We can think of two distinct ways of knowing about things: empirical ways of knowing and traditional ways of knowing.

Empirical ways of knowing involve testing and comparison. For example, if people want to find out if eating a certain compound reduces the risk of cancer, they might conduct a study whereby they have a group of people consume the compound on a regular basis, and another, comparable group not eat the compound. They would eventually compare the outcomes for the groups and see if one group contracted cancer at a higher rate than the other.

This would be an empirical test, and it would provide good and clear information, as long as the comparative groups were large enough and the researchers were careful to control for other factors. Empirical tests are great, although they can be costly and time-consuming. Assessing impacts over time in an empirical way obviously takes a lot of time.

Traditional ways of knowing are also driven by data, but the data used is the experience of generations past. A particular culture might teach that certain practices are good for one's health. Perhaps this is because, over thousands of years of tradition, that culture has observed how people do much better or worse in certain circumstances. Traditional knowledge and wisdom generally come from observation over time and over generations, but without a clearly defined, or at least well-remembered, research design.

Of course, traditional knowledge can, in certain cases, be wrong if people develop that knowledge by drawing the wrong conclusions from their observations, but it is also the case that empirical researchers can err by drawing the wrong conclusions from their observations. Empirical research is sometimes contradicted by subsequent empirical research, just as traditional knowledge may in certain instances be contradicted by empirical research and traditional knowledge may be contradicted by other traditional knowledge.

However, it would be foolish, as some might propose, to discard or ignore traditional knowledge. It is valid and reasonable to draw at least tentative conclusions based on the experience and observation of others, including one's ancestors.

Indigenous communities in Canada have traditional knowledge about this land, about culture, about family and values, about life and dignity and about many other things. Language is often the mechanism by which that traditional knowledge is passed on.

It is also worth observing that it is not just indigenous communities here in Canada but all cultures and traditions that bring with them elements of traditional knowledge. The majority culture in the west has unfortunately become deeply skeptical of its own traditional knowledge.

Edmund Burke, the great English philosopher and politician, spoke of how we receive the goods of civilization from our parents and we pass them on to our progeny, and that we should thus be cautious in the innovations we undertake as a way to ensure that we are not unknowingly taking apart the substructure that holds together our prosperity and happiness. Burke talks, in different words, about the importance of our considering traditional knowledge in the decisions we make.

If a person buys a new house and sees that it has a pillar in a place that is not aesthetically pleasing, should this person immediately knock down the pillar or first ascertain whether the pillar is necessary for preserving the structure of the house? I would tell people not to knock down the pillar unless and until they can be certain that it is no longer needed. If they are certain it is not necessary, then it can be removed. However, if they are not certain, it is better to leave it in place, assuming that the pillar reflects the best intentions of the previous owner and knowledge the owner had about the house, knowledge the new buyer does not possess.

A person's empirical knowledge might eventually supersede deference to the status quo, but in the absence of clear, empirical evidence, a person would probably be wise to defer to the status quo in the meantime.

We see issues involving empirical knowledge and traditional knowledge in many different policy areas. One such area, for example, is the regulation of complementary or natural health products. Many are concerned that the government may seek to regulate these products in the same way that it regulates pharmaceutical products, even requiring the same types and levels of testing, but this policy ignores the possible benefit of traditional knowledge, the fact that people have been successful at using certain products for thousands of years to treat certain ailments and that this can be a valid basis for people to make choices themselves about the self-care products they choose to use.

People who do not like this approach are free to only consume things that have been demonstrated, through double-blind studies, to improve health. However, most Canadians would be open to trying complementary health products alongside conventional treatments if the benefits of those products had some traditional knowledge pointing in their favour. Trying such products is precisely a way in which more data can be gathered about the impacts of certain products, with traditional knowledge and science both developed through continuing experimentation and observation.

I have written to the chair of the health committee to ask the committee to undertake a study on the health impacts of uninsured self-care products and services because I think this is an area that requires greater engagement and study from Parliament. This is just one area among many where we should take the idea of traditional knowledge seriously and recognize that it is complementary to, not antagonistic to, empirical knowledge.

Coming back to the issue of Crown-indigenous relations, I note that the horror of Canada's experience with residential schools is precisely an example of traditional knowledge about the critical nature of the bond between parents and children being ignored in favour of radical and capricious schemes to remake the world in a different way.

The architects of the residential school experience, we should note, did not just ignore the value of indigenous traditional knowledge, but also ignored the traditional knowledge of our own society. This is traditional knowledge about the vital importance of the link between parents and children.

I wrote the following recently in a column for the Post Millennial:

The idea that parents are the primary educators of their children, that human dignity is universal and immutable, that good societies are characterized by ordered liberty rooted in a shared conception of the common good, that people ought to live in accordance with the cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, courage and temperance, that productive work is essential for well being, that human rights are universal and stem from natural law—all of these and much more are part of the traditional knowledge of our civilization.

Unlike traditional knowledge in the scientific domain, traditional knowledge in the domain of politics and morality cannot be put under a microscope—but perhaps that makes the contributions of traditional knowledge in these areas that much more important.

This legislation, Bill C-91, through its work on language, seeks to preserve, through language, indigenous traditional knowledge, so I hope we will also bring to our subsequent debates in this place a greater understanding and appreciation for traditional knowledge in general and for the need to include it and reference it in our conversations.

Also in the area of Crown-indigenous relations, I would like to make a few remarks about the impact of natural resource development on indigenous communities.

The ability of indigenous communities to preserve and revitalize their languages, their traditions and their communities in general requires some degree of opportunity. Natural resource development is not an end in and of itself, but it can provide the capital for indigenous communities to make greater investments into things that matter more, such as family, community, culture and language. For that reason, many indigenous communities believe in resource development because it allows them to get ahead and achieve the objectives they identify for themselves. It allows them to do so without leaving their communities and moving to the city.

Our legal frameworks are supposed to recognize the importance of affected indigenous communities having a meaningful say in decisions about resource development. Unfortunately, the government has a track record of imposing anti-development policies on indigenous communities, in clear contravention of its legal obligations. This hurts these communities economically and weakens their ability to preserve their culture and language. This is yet another example of how inappropriate government intervention in the lives of indigenous peoples undermines their ability to preserve their identity and culture.

I can show the House clearly how the Prime Minister is failing to meet his legal obligations to indigenous peoples in this respect.

The natural resource committee was conducting a study on best practices for indigenous consultation. On January 31 of this year, I had an opportunity to question public servants about our obligations and our actions when it comes to that consultation.

This is what I asked:

Is there a duty to consult indigenous communities when those communities have put time, resources and money into a project going forward and then a government policy stops that progress from being put forward? Is there a duty to consult if indigenous communities are trying to move forward the development of a project and the government puts in place policies to stop that progress? Is there a duty to consult in that case?

Terence Hubbard, the director general at NRCan, replied with the following:

...the Crown's duty to consult is triggered any time it's taking a decision that could impact on an aboriginal community's rights and interests.

I followed up with this:

Okay. It seems pretty obvious, then, that policies like the offshore drilling moratorium in the Arctic, like Bill C-69, like Bill C-48, like the tanker exclusion zone, would have a significant impact on indigenous communities and on their ability to provide for their own communities through economic development, which they may well have planned, and in many cases did plan, in advance of the introduction of those policies.

Let me drill down on a few of those examples.

What consultation happened by the government before the imposition of the tanker exclusion zone? I'm talking about before Bill C-48 was actually proposed, when the Prime Minister first came into office and introduced the tanker exclusion zone.

From the responses to my questions, it became clear that none of the departments represented in that hearing, none of the leading public servants who were involved in overseeing how the federal government consults with indigenous peoples, knew about anything to do with indigenous consultations around the tanker exclusion zone. Almost certainly those consultations did not happen.

While I was in the Arctic with the foreign affairs committee last fall, we spoke to many different indigenous communities about issues around cultural preservation, traditional knowledge and natural resource development. We were told on a number of occasions about concerns regarding anti-development policies coming from the government and their impact on the capacity of indigenous communities to prosper and use their resources to protect their culture in other ways they see fit. We were told in particular that the government's approach to consulting northern communities before imposing an offshore drilling ban in the Arctic was to phone local premiers 45 minutes before the announcement. There was no meaningful consultation on an offshore drilling ban. Instead, the announcement was made by the Prime Minister, along with Barrack Obama.

This showed flagrant disrespect for indigenous communities and for the way in which their ability to prosper and develop impacts their ability to preserve their culture.

These conversations we had in the Arctic and other places made it clear that the Prime Minister has absolutely no interest in consulting with indigenous communities before imposing anti-energy policies that affect their recognized right to pursue growth and opportunity within their communities.

Of course, some indigenous people, some indigenous leaders and some indigenous nations oppose certain resource development projects, and their perspectives should be incorporated into meaningful consultation processes that do not give any one community a veto over projects that impact multiple communities.

The Crown duty to consult does not just exist for pro-energy policy; it also exists for anti-energy policy, policies that deny indigenous communities the opportunity to proceed with plans to build up their own self-sufficiency and to fund projects that relate to cultural revitalization.

The government, it is clear, does not actually care about consulting indigenous communities, given its record. It simply wants to use consultation as an excuse to hold up resource development in certain cases, while completely ignoring indigenous communities when it wants to pursue an agenda that is different from what those communities want. For the government, consultation means deciding what it wants first and then finding people who agree with it to help legitimize a decision that has already been made. This is not in keeping with the spirit of reconciliation or even with the law around the duty to consult.

A Conservative government led by our leader would show real respect for indigenous people by ensuring meaningful engagement in communities, even in cases where there are differences of opinion. We will support the economic aspirations of indigenous communities, as well as their linguistic, cultural and social aspirations, because we understand that a culture is more important than politics. We will reflect our Conservative values in our approach to this critical area, recognizing that big, interfering government has held indigenous people back for too long.

The government must indeed be a constructive partner, but above all else, the government must always ensure that it is not getting in the way. Getting in the way has happened far too often in the past, and it continues, but it must come to an end.

We desire, in all of Canada, to see strong communities, strong families and strong, resilient individuals. I am very pleased to be supporting Bill C-91 and I look forward to the work that can be done to build on it in the future through the government working in partnership with indigenous communities, through the government getting out of the way of indigenous communities and supporting their own efforts to thrive, to preserve and revitalize their culture, and to strengthen their economies and their communities in so many other ways.

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

Okay, perfect.

This can be open for anybody.

On indigenous consultation, I'll mention a project that some of you are familiar with, the Eagle Spirit pipeline. I note that so far today we've talked about consultation with regard to projects, but what about the legislation that impacts these projects like the Eagle Spirit pipeline that some of you are familiar with? For example, 35 first nations want to build that indigenous-owned Eagle Spirit pipeline corridor from Fort McMurray, Alberta to the northwest B.C. coast near Prince Rupert. These first nations complained bitterly about the failure of consultation on Bill C-48, which will forever ban the export of crude oil off the northwest coast of B.C.

Now, with respect to Bill C-69, the proposed legislation on impact assessments, we are finding out that many of these Canadian companies, like TransCanada—which recently dropped “Canada” from its name—are focusing investments on other international jurisdictions like the U.S. As investment flees, projects are being cancelled and jobs are being lost, and particularly hard hit are those indigenous jobs.

Indian Oil and Gas Canada, which regulates oil production on first nations lands, has a policy of charging a higher royalty for oil produced on reserve lands than the royalties charged on crown land in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan.

As investment departs Canada, capital exits indigenous lands first. According to the IOGC itself, new first nations' leases are down 95% over the last four years.

In your opinion, do governments owe a duty to consult on legislation like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill, that directly affect indigenous interests, or is it only a physical shovels-in-the-ground type of project that requires consultation?

That was a very long preamble.

Opposition Motion—Natural Resources

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, 31 indigenous partners were counting on the northern gateway pipeline before the current Liberal Prime Minister outright rejected it, instead of redoing the consultations and getting it right. There are dozens of indigenous communities who were not consulted over the shipping ban, Bill C-48, robbing their communities of future opportunities. Hundreds of indigenous-owned businesses and dozens of indigenous communities oppose the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69. Indigenous, northern and Inuit communities were not consulted about the government's unilateral ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the north.

How can the member possibly ask anyone to believe a single word he says when he talks about consulting indigenous communities and people on major resource projects, given the Liberals' own record of running roughshod over indigenous communities that support it?

[Roy Haakonson]

Answering as a B.C. coast pilot, whatever the government decides on the moratorium, or Bill C-48, the pilots will only move the product if it can be done safely. It's not our role to have personal opinions on such matters. We can be trusted to carry out all of our commitments responsibly and with the utmost regard to safety.

I'll back up a bit. If the government decides to move ahead on Bill C-48—meaning that it would like us to look at moving the oil on the north coast—that responsibility goes to the B.C. coast pilots, and we become an independent, unbiased authority that cannot be influenced by political, economic or community pressures. We make our decisions based solely on safety.

With the amendments in the Pilotage Act, that independence will be enshrined, so we're comfortable with the decision either for or against the moratorium. We wait on the government's decision.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

They don't require pilotage.

Last week, we asked your colleagues at the national association, as well as the Atlantic Pilotage Authority, about the impact of Bill C-48. I'd like to ask you about the real and theoretical implications of Bill C-48, the proposed oil tanker moratorium act. How does this concept of a moratorium sit with your organization?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Bill C-48 makes 12,500 metric tons of crude oil the cut-off for loading and unloading on B.C.'s north coast. Do Canadian vessels of this size and smaller require pilotage services?

[Wendy Zatylny]

Well, Bill C-48, the ban, has been challenging to address. Certainly, the scope of the surface area was limited, such that two of the port authorities were not included. They're not caught up in that ban, other than in areas that we are flagging on the regulatory side: to be careful about issues, say, that you don't catch a bunkering, for example, or transportation of diesel.

I believe that in practical terms there is still the ability to continue to move oil. The signal that it sends internationally on its own would probably not have that much of an effect, because it aims to preserve the important space on our west coast, but any kind of reputational decision is made within a much broader context. The concern we have is that it, plus the current discussions around various pipelines, plus all of the other ranges of prohibitions or challenges to development, may end up negating Canada's positive reputation abroad.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Second, would a blanket moratorium such as Bill C-48, which imposes a ban on tanker traffic on B.C.'s northern coast, be good for our Canadian reputation and our economy?

Natural Resources

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise in Adjournment Proceedings to take up a question that I asked quite some time ago now, but it is still timely. Given the response to the question from the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, I am disappointed with what I have heard so far.

My question was to the Minister of Natural Resources. I asked him to apologize for remarks he made in December on Power and Politics, when he said, “Any intelligent person will tell you that Northern Gateway was overturned by the Federal Court of Appeal. ... Not moving forward on Energy East was a decision of the company.”

I renew my call to the minister to apologize for insulting the intelligence of Canadians, who see quite clearly what the government has done to ensure that pipelines do not get built, and the extreme lengths that it will go to.

On the question of northern gateway, it is as if that minister was not even aware of Order in Council 2016-1047. This was the order in council that terminated northern gateway. It was a minister's decision to terminate approval for that project.

It was also as if that minister was not aware that his own government had introduced Bill C-48, which is right now struggling its way through the Senate, where hopefully it will die, but this House had passed Bill C-48, a bill that would render the northern gateway project impossible.

For him to say that “any intelligent person will tell you” and that it was not the government that rendered this project unviable is insulting to Canadians, who can see very clearly how the government's policies have affected pipelines.

Let us look at where we were when the government took office. There were four very large pipeline projects, and two were already approved, the Keystone XL project and the northern gateway project. There were approvals in place on both of these projects. The energy east project was contemplated. It had not reached the stage of a formal application, and there was also the Trans Mountain expansion, again, which was at the pre-approval stage.

The Liberal government chased away all of these projects in its own way. It failed to champion Keystone XL and wasted time during the Obama administration, and that project is still not built.

As for the northern gateway, we know that the Liberal government deliberately killed it by order in council and by the shipping ban.

In the case of energy east, we know that the Liberal government moved the goalposts to render approval an impossibility and not even worth pursuing by the proponent.

In the case of Trans Mountain, time does not even allow me to get into the entire debacle of the Trans Mountain expansion. The Liberal government ignored all of the problems that were mounting on that project. It voted against opposition motions calling upon the government to take positive steps to ensure its approval. Then it bought it, paid $4.5 billion for it and promised construction would begin immediately, and still there are no shovels in the ground.

That makes four projects, but none built.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this past December, I asked the Liberal government an important and straightforward question: When will the Liberal government finally start standing up for the Canadian energy sector and kill Bill C-69, a bill which absolutely suffocates this critical sector with additional regulation burdens and uncertainty? I received the usual Liberal response of another non-answer.

Tonight, I know the Liberals have no intention of backing away from Bill C-69, even though this bill would have a very severe impact on many of the thousands of Canadians who are employed in the energy sector throughout this country. Instead of working to support Canadians, the Liberal government continues to stubbornly persist in working against Canadians.

We know the policies of the Liberal government when it comes to our energy sector, a sector which represented nearly 11% of our country's normal GDP in 2017. The Liberals, we should be reminded, killed the northern gateway pipeline. They stopped the energy east pipeline by piling on the red tape and additional regulations. They passed Bill C-48 in the House to place a moratorium on the traffic of oil tankers along B.C.'s northern coast. They failed to support the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline. As a result, they had to spend $4.5 billion of taxpayer money to buy the existing Trans Mountain pipeline just to keep the project from collapsing entirely.

It is clear that the Liberals have never had a plan to support the Canadian energy sector. It is clear, through their insistence on passing Bill C-69, that the Liberals do not intend to support our energy sector any time soon.

The Liberal government has a responsibility to look out for the hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers who are employed in the Canadian energy sector, and it is obvious that it is failing to do so. Through the dangerous and reckless policies of the Liberal government, investment in our resource and energy sectors is collapsing like never before. In 2018, Statistics Canada reported capital spending on oil and gas extraction fell for the fourth straight year, decreasing by 12% from the spending of 2017.

Why is the Liberal government doing nothing to protect the livelihoods of the many thousands of hard-working Canadians who actually work in Canada's energy sector? When will the Liberals finally scrap Bill C-69?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

I've testified about Bill C-48 at this committee before, and I think you know my feelings about it. Marine policy has to be based on evidence, and I had a concern about that. Having said that, since we're here to discuss pilotage, this is an evidence-based framework that has to support keeping Canada's coasts safe and moving trade. I think the changes in this bill can support that and, hopefully, that will prevail. That's why I remain optimistic, despite some of the comments I heard.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

You'll forgive our skepticism of the comments you made about the future energy projects, given Bill C-69, which is in the Senate right now, but this does open the door for me to ask you about how Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium, is viewed by the shipping industry as a whole.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today and accommodating the shortened period of time that we have to ask you questions, notwithstanding the fact that all of these substantive changes have been included in a budget implementation act that, in and of itself, shortens the kind of scrutiny that we would be able to give to the changes in this act.

Having said that, I know there have been lengthy consultations in regard to this pilotage review, as have been referred to. I'm sure none of us want to even believe that the 1970s was 50 years ago and that it's been that length of time since there have been any changes to this act.

I take your point that it was time, and I do hear that you are cautiously optimistic about the act as it stands today and supportive of the amendments, albeit you do have some recommendations.

I'm sure you're all aware that we can take up those recommendations, and certainly it will be up to the governing party whether or not they go forward. If they do go forward, they will go forward to the finance committee, where that committee will determine whether or not those recommended amendments will be made to the budget implementation act.

My first question will be for you, Mr. Pelletier.

Reflecting on the second last paragraph of your April 24 letter to our committee, Chair, perhaps for the rest of the witnesses, I'll just quote what was in your letter. You said:

What is perhaps most gratifying about the proposed amendments is that the changes to the Pilotage Act will contribute to further Canada’s economic prosperity by optimizing our capacity to trade competitively and responsibly. In particular, the amendments enhance the safety of marine transportation to facilitate the movement of such dangerous cargo as petroleum products, while reflecting the preoccupations of the Canadian public for environmentally-responsible practices.

I know that I'm going to have an opportunity to ask this question of your colleagues from British Columbia, but first I want to ask you about Bill C-48, the government's oil tanker moratorium act, of you specifically as the president of the national association. How does the marine pilot industry view the concept of a moratorium on shipping?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to address a different topic. The question is about trade.

Canada is a trading nation and has been a trading nation for hundreds of years. We have some challenges. In my riding, we have some legislation that is not only hampering trade but is divisive, particularly in western Canada.

Bill C-69, for example, is a piece of legislation this government has brought forward that we find very divisive. Trade is important, but we have lots of issues in western Canada. For example, the government has never fixed the problems with Italy. Durham wheat, which we grow in my riding, is the best in the world, and we can no longer send it to Italy.

Regarding India, we grow a tremendous amount of lentils and peas in western Canada and in my area. We had the situation in India after the Prime Minister's visit, and now, with the tariffs, that trade is not a possibility.

The highest quality barley in the world, as of a year ago, is no longer traded with Saudi Arabia.

We then get to China. The issues we have with China started with officially shutting down trade in canola seed. However, there are two other parts to canola: the meal and the oil. The Chinese are refusing to offload it. There are boats in harbours sitting in China paying the demurrage fees back to the producers because they will not even unload it. Now we are hearing of more agricultural products produced in the west. We feel a lot of divisiveness in the sense of trade issues and the challenges we have.

Then we get to Bill C-69 and the tanker ban, Bill C-48, which basically says that we are not going to build pipelines anymore. Was there consultation on Bill C-48? I do not remember that one. Bill C-69 is here. Martha Hall Findlay says that it will significantly increase political interference in the regulatory process. The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association states, “It is difficult to imagine that a new major pipeline could be built in Canada under the Impact Assessment Act”.

Stephen Buffalo, president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council says, “Indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, one that finally allows Indigenous people to share in Canada's economic prosperity. Bill C-69 will stop this progress in its tracks.”

We find that those two pieces of legislation, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, are very divisive in western Canada and very much against what we are as a trading country.

Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments and his humour. It is always funny watching Liberals stand up and try to explain all the great things they have done for western Canada, such as Bill C-69, the no new pipelines bill, and Bill C-48. It is amazing that we had four, now down to three, Liberal MPs from Alberta betray the people of Alberta by supporting the Liberal plan to destroy our energy industry.

As to the member's comment about infrastructure, again I have to laugh at this. The independent-controlled Senate, filled with Liberal senators and appointees, came out with a report that said there is no metric for success for the infrastructure spending by the government apart from money spent. Therefore, are we spending money so that people can get to work faster, improve productivity, which we are not, or improve the environment? No, the Liberal plan is not any of those. Its metric of success is spending.

We saw the spending for Alberta. The Prime Minister stood up and talked about it the other day. He bragged about putting ashtrays at bus stops in Alberta. We have 100,000 unemployed energy workers and the government is bragging about upgrading a bus stop with its infrastructure money. The current government has failed Alberta and this is another perfect example of it.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be sharing my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

Due to the precedents that have been set in this budget debate, I am going to ask whether I have a 20-minute time slot to share or a four-day time slot. It's 20-minutes. Okay, thank you.

I am proud to represent the fine people of central Alberta. My colleague from Red Deer—Mountain View is beside me. We have unfortunately seen over the last three a half years, since the last election, probably some of the hardest times for all of Alberta since Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the prime minister of Canada. If anyone in central Alberta is asked what the issue is, it is the lack or loss of confidence in the investment climate surrounding the energy sector.

I want to take Canadians back to what happened. One of the very first things the government did after it was elected was to change the goalposts on the two pipeline projects, the energy east project at the time, and, of course, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion. There was the absolutely devastating notion of cancelling the already approved pipeline. We had over 30 of the 40 indigenous groups along the route, and the National Energy Board had already approved the pipeline. Enbridge was seeking to fulfill all of its 206 obligations under the agreement.

The northern gateway pipeline was the only pipeline going to the west coast that would diversify Canada's market when it comes to its oil products. The Trans Mountain expansion pipeline, should it ever get built, and we will discuss that in my speech further, will add capacity, but it will not diversify the markets. All of the tankers that currently come into the port of Vancouver to pick up the oil that is moved from the current Trans Mountain pipeline end up along the American west coast to be processed at the crude refineries there.

Anyone from the Liberal Party or the NDP provincially who suggests to Albertans and to Canadians that this pipeline is going to close the gap on the market price between the North American price of crude oil and the international price of crude oil is not being honest with Canadians.

Alberta has been devastated by the job losses in the energy environment. It has been over 130,000 jobs directly. These are jobs where there were people with payroll taxes. They were counted amongst the people who were laid off from a business. This does not include the numerous people who have not found work, who are self-employed contractors in the energy sector. I am not sure that anyone across the row here understands what that means.

These people would never show up on an unemployment list, because they are self-employed. They are contractors. They are the folks who would be employed at the very high end of the energy sector to be out on site and doing all the consultations. These are consultants who are out on the drilling pads, out doing all of the work. These are the ones with the most expertise in the energy sector. They too have had to dig deep into their savings, and many of them have exhausted those savings a long time ago. It is also anyone with a small business. There are only a few service companies left, the long-standing service companies, that have been able to withstand the economic pressures. Numerous small business have all but closed up their shops and gone in a different direction. A lot of them are leaving Alberta.

With regard to those Albertans who remain and are trying to find work, about one in three have managed to keep their jobs and the others are finding employment in places like Texas. When I was first elected as a member of Parliament to this House, there were two flights a day to both Edmonton and Calgary direct from Ottawa. Those flights would source out of Halifax or Montreal, and they would stop in Ottawa and continue on to Edmonton and/or Calgary. Those airports would serve me and my colleague equally well, because they are equidistance from Red Deer, which is in the heart of central Alberta.

Those planes used to be full of workers. They would all be wearing their firebag project jackets or their Kearl project jackets, and they would be coming from Atlantic Canada or from Quebec. Many, many workers were coming from Quebec, starting in Montreal. They were getting on Air Canada flight 104 on its way back to Alberta. I remember that number, as I took that flight for over a decade. Those people are not on those planes anymore, and the reason is that there is no expansion of the energy sector in Alberta. There are continuing operations for those projects that were already completed, but the reality is that the pipeline capacity is already there.

The other projects that were on the books, and there is over $100 billion worth of these projects, have been cancelled or shelved. That money has been taken elsewhere to invest in other countries, basically to compete against our current energy sector here in Canada. Those employees are no longer coming and that investment is no longer there. The pipeline capacity is at max, and the current price of oil makes railing oil uneconomical, especially when we saw the devastating oil prices at around $11 a barrel just a few months ago. This is for a sector of our economy that traditionally provides Canada with billions of dollars in revenue, which is shared among all the provinces through social transfers, the education transfer and likely even a good portion of it in equalization payments to other provinces.

I am proud to say that under the tenure when I was here, until the change of government in the last election, my province had not had to receive an equalization payment for the better part of 40 years. We had been a have-province. As a matter of fact, there have been times, because of the energy sector, that Alberta has been the only have-province in this confederation. However, it did not take very long for Premier Rachel Notley and the current government in Ottawa to put Alberta in a position where we had to beg for an emergency assistance transfer under the equalization program. I think it was a couple of hundred thousand dollars. I do not think it really amounted to a whole lot of difference other than a kind gesture.

Here is a sector of our economy that is typically producing billions of dollars of revenue, and not only corporate revenue, but also from employees, tens of thousands of workers. There were over 130,000 direct jobs lost, and probably another 30,000 or 40,000 of those consultants I talked about, people who are self-employed in the sector. Those jobs are all gone. On April 8, a few days ago, the industry came out with another forecast that is expecting another 12,500 jobs lost in the sector, most likely in Alberta.

Alberta is taking it on the chin, so much so that before Christmas, the government announced $1.6 billion for the energy sector. Imagine that happening in three short years when the energy sector has rebounded everywhere else. Albertans are now going to Texas or other places on the planet to work in the energy sector. Energy is booming. The United States used to be a net importer of Canadian energy; now the United States, because of its domestic policies, is in a position to export to Canada of all things. Here we are in this situation. We know that it cannot be the international price of energy anymore. We know it cannot be, because the energy sector is booming in other parts of the world, notably right next door to us in the United States. Therefore, it can only be government policy here in Canada that is causing this problem.

These job losses are catastrophic. If we take a look in the budget document today, we will see that there are millions of dollars allocated for consultation. The Prime Minister got up on his high horse and said that the previous government had it all wrong with the CETA 2012 and everything else, and that the government was going to create a process that guaranteed that pipeline projects would go ahead. What do we have? We have a project to the east coast that is dead in the water because of the regulatory burden and the quagmire that nobody in their right mind would ever subject stakeholder investment to. We have a cancelled northern gateway project that is likely never going to be reinstated by Enbridge. We have a group of indigenous people who are putting together the Eagle Spirit pipeline, which would follow a similar path as northern gateway.

We have Bill C-48, the northern coast tanker ban, which is only a tanker ban if that tanker happens to have Alberta oil on it. It is not a tanker ban for anybody else. LNG Canada is building a wonderful facility in Kitimat right now for liquefied natural gas, and we wish it the best of luck. We think that is a fantastic opportunity for the people there as well.

However, we are left with the Trans Mountain expansion from Kinder Morgan. The government has botched that so much and so badly that it had to take $4.5 billion of Canadian taxpayers' money to buy a 65-year-old existing pipeline and the rights to continue to develop the Trans Mountain expansion itself. We know from the documents, which Kinder Morgan has publicly announced, that the Government of Canada likely paid $1 billion more for that pipeline project than it should have paid. All we have in the budget out of the $1.6 billion that was promised before Christmas are a few million dollars to continue on with consultations.

In the budget document that I have been able to look at and examine, not one dollar is allocated to putting a shovel in the ground to build the Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain expansion. Until we can change the mind of the current government on how it is approaching the energy sector, the only hope we have in Alberta is a change in the government.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

It was on the impact on first nations' ability to pursue their own economic development opportunities when a government imposes legislation requested specifically by foreign-funded activists, like the oil shipping tanker ban in Bill C-48.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks to all our witnesses for being here.

This last part of the conversation I think is also attached to similar concerns. We've all heard repeatedly about sufficient capacity and resourcing, even for participation in the regulatory review process. Certainly, indigenous communities engaging with companies and resource proponents for development is clearly a long-standing challenge, which obviously governments of all stripes will have to contend with. They are a key part in continuing to improve indigenous consultation on major resources projects, about which I know we are all concerned.

Mr. Ross, I have a couple of questions related to some of the comments you made in your presentation. You talked about the importance of empowering individual first nations through ensuring they have information to make informed decisions about resource proposals, and the priority to reduce poverty and increase jobs for indigenous communities.

You touched on something that I think Canadians are hearing more and more about, related to this potential disagreement between elected leaders of indigenous communities and other forms of leadership, such as hereditary leaders.

Mayor John Helin of the Lax Kw'alaams Band was here at committee on February 5. He talked about the other point you made, how the foreign-funded, anti-energy activists were undermining the economic ambitions of first nations who want to develop their own resources. In his case, they came into the community and sowed division among community members and band leadership. They were claiming and posing publicly as hereditary leaders, in opposition to proposed LNG developments that the elected leadership supported.

The chiefs' council of the Lax Kw'alaams put out a letter that said, they “[do] not sanction inviting professional protesters from non-governmental organizations, and non Lax Kw'alaams First Nations members into their traditional lands in breach of ancient tribal protocols. [...] The unauthorized action by this renegade group has created needless confusion, damages tribal unity, and is insulting to tribal members.”

In the context of best practices for indigenous engagement, I think there are many Canadians, and maybe even elected people, who question whether or not this is happening and is actually a thing. However, we've heard about it repeatedly from indigenous leaders.

Do you have any suggestions on how a government could effectively go about sorting out the various leadership structures and figure out who's actually speaking on the will of the communities?

Also, do you have any views on how it impacts first nations communities when governments impose policies and laws that were explicitly requested by foreign-funded activists, for example, the oil shipping tanker ban, Bill C-48, against the preferences of the locally impacted communities?

Second Reading

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-88, another Liberal anti-resource development policy that is driving investment and businesses out of Canada, costing Canadian workers their jobs, costing indigenous people jobs and undermining their aspirations, work and their hopes for self-sufficiency, and increasing poverty rates in the north and in rural and remote regions.

Like the Liberals' no more pipelines Bill C-69, their Arctic offshore drilling ban, and their oil shipping ban bills, Bill C-48 and Bill C-86, Bill C-88 would further politicize resource development by expanding the powers of the cabinet to unilaterally block economic development and would add to the mountain of red tape proponents must overcome before they can get shovels in the ground.

The bill is also a full rejection of calls from elected territorial leaders for increased control over the development of natural resources in their territories and would cede more power and control to the federal government. Bill C-88 would reverse Conservative measures to devolve power to the territories and puts new powers in the hands of the federal cabinet. The Liberals clearly believe that Ottawa knows best.

At the AME Roundup in Vancouver in January, I was in a room full of northerners who were unanimous in their opposition to the Liberal government's “one big park” agenda for the north. There were elected officials, Inuit business leaders and corporate executives with decades of experience working with first nations in resource development in the north.

In Canada, it can take 20 years to get from the discovery of a mineral deposit to a functioning mine. The challenge in the north is that most of the mines are in the final decade of production and no new mines are in the approvals process. Resource projects and communities and residents in the north have to overcome big challenges: geography, climate, distance, access to land and a lack of services and infrastructure in the many remote and rural regions in which these projects are located. The north will pay for the Liberals' mistakes with the loss of an entire generation's economic advancement as mining completely leaves the region.

The previous Conservative government rightly viewed the north as essential to Canada's sovereignty, as a key area at stake in global security and as a place of real potential for significant economic activities today and for decades to come. Conservatives know resource development is often the only source of jobs and business potential in remote and northern regions where they are already scarce.

The Liberals meanwhile are arbitrarily creating huge swaths of protected land with little consultation. The regulatory uncertainty caused by their many bills and policies is making capital harder to access. These actions are challenging meaningful engagement and relationships with first nations in the north, including the Inuit, indigenous people and Métis communities. The Liberals' top-down paternalistic actions rob northerners of opportunities and of decision-making authority and do nothing to reduce poverty in remote northern regions of Canada.

Conservatives, by contrast, have sought to devolve power over and ownership of natural resources to the territories, enabling and empowering their abilities and their authority to manage and benefit from their rich and diverse natural resource opportunities.

In 2007, Neil McCrank was commissioned to write a report on improving the regulatory and environmental assessment regimes in Canada's north. That report, “Road to Improvement”, found the regulatory process in the Northwest Territories at the time was complex, costly, unpredictable and time-consuming. The merging of the three boards into one was a key recommendation. The report said that this approach would address the complexity and the capacity issues inherent to the current model by making more efficient use of expenditures and administrative resources.

Importantly, the report also said that this was not meant to diminish or reduce the influence that aboriginal people have on resource management in the north; rather, it was meant as an attempt to allow for this influence in a practical way, while at the same time enabling responsible resource development.

The option to merge the three separate indigenous boards into the single unified board was also included as an available option in the three modern land claim agreements signed with the first nations in the Northwest Territories.

In 2013, the previous Conservative government introduced Bill C-15 to implement that approach. That bill received overwhelming support in the House. We would not know it from the heckling across the aisle, but including from the Liberal Party. The Liberals and the NDP voted for the bill at the final stage in the House of Commons, but now the Liberals have decided to reverse it, to return to the job-killing overly complex and disjointed “Ottawa knows best” approach, setting back the hopes and aspirations of northern communities that are desperate for natural resource jobs.

It is a myth that indigenous communities, particularly in the north, are opposed to natural resource development. This myth is perpetuated by the Liberal left and elected politicians even in this House of Commons. Indigenous leaders are speaking out against anti-resource activists and in favour of the many benefits and potential for their communities. Bob McLeod, premier of the Northwest Territories, said:

All too often...[indigenous people] are only valued as responsible stewards of their land if they choose not to touch it. This is eco-colonialism.

He went on to say:

...it is oppressive and irresponsible to assume that Indigenous northerners do not support resource development.

PJ Akeeagok of Qikiqtani Inuit Association said, “Absolutely we want to participate in these industries. There’s some real exciting benefits that are out there.” Lee Qammaniq, a heavy equipment operator at Baffinland's Mary River mine, says, “I'm doing it so [my son] can have a better life.”

That ideological and heavy-handed “one big park” agenda in the north is being implemented often without consulting northerners on the use of the land around them. It is threatening the way of life of many Inuit and indigenous communities.

A little farther south, Isaac Laboucan-Avirom, chief of the Woodland Cree First Nation, says:

It frustrates me, as a first nations individual, when I have to almost beg for monies when we're living in one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. Why should our people be living in third-class or second-class communities when we are surrounded by natural resources that go into paving our roads, putting in rec centres, and so on?

In northern Saskatchewan, English River chief Marie Black, speaks about mining for many across the country in her direct assessment, saying, “It is very, very important that we go ahead and work with industry. This is for jobs.”

So many indigenous leaders are speaking out. They are leading the fight, really, about the importance of resource development to their communities to meet their needs right now and for future generations. They are fighting against the layers of Liberal anti-resource development policies and laws that violate their abilities to make decisions about their resources on and around their lands and about which they were not consulted by the Liberals in the first place.

Indigenous communities support sustainable and responsible natural resources development in their territories because it offers a real path to self-sufficiency and a real opportunity for actual economic reconciliation. It damages reconciliation when politicians make promises they do not keep, set expectations and then do not deliver, or pass laws in the apparent best interests of indigenous Canadians without actually fully consulting them.

There is no stronger example of the patriarchal, patronizing and quite frankly colonial approach of the current Liberals than their treatment of first nations who want to develop, provide services, and supply and transport oil and gas. When this Liberal Prime Minister vetoed the northern gateway pipeline, he killed benefit agreements between the project and 31 first nations that were worth $2 billion. Those 31 first nations said:

We are deeply disappointed that a Prime Minister who campaigned on a promise of reconciliation with Indigenous communities would now blatantly choose to deny our 31 First Nations and Métis communities of our constitutionally protected right to economic development.

The Liberals' shipping ban, Bill C-48, is opposed by more than 30 first nations in B.C. and in Alberta because it would kill economic opportunities for their communities. Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom says, “What I don't understand about this tanker moratorium is that there's no other tanker moratorium on other coastlines in Canada. You have oil coming in from Saudi Arabia, up and down the St. Lawrence River right now.”

Gary Alexcee, deputy chief of Eagle Spirit Energy Holding Ltd., said:

With no consultation, the B.C. first nations groups have been cut off economically with no opportunity to even sit down with the government to further negotiate Bill C-48. If that's going to be passed, then I would say we might as well throw up our hands and let the government come and put blankets on us that are infected with smallpox so we can go away. That's what this bill means to us.

He went on to say:

Today, the way it sits, we have nothing but handouts that are not even enough to have the future growth of first nations in our communities of British Columbia.

Then, there is the targeted northern offshore drilling ban, incredibly announced in southern Canada by this Prime Minister without any real consultation with the most directly impacted indigenous communities, their elected leaders or indigenous-owned businesses.

Duane Smith, chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, says:

We are sitting on nine trillion cubic feet of gas and it doesn't make sense for the community to truck in its energy source from 2,000 kilometres away when we should be developing these.

Northwest Territories premier, Bob McLeod, said, “It feels like a step backward.” He went on:

We spent a lot of time negotiating a devolution agreement, and we thought the days were gone when we'd have unilateral decisions made about the North in some faraway place like Ottawa, and that northerners would be making the decisions about issues that affected northerners.

He confirmed that this Prime Minister only informed him about the decision two hours before he made the announcement.

Nunavut's former premier, Peter Taptuna, has said, “We have been promised by Ottawa that they would consult and make decisions based on meaningful discussion. So far that hasn't happened.”

Even Liberal Yukon Premier Sandy Silver, whose territory is not affected by the bans, sided with his northern counterparts, saying, “When you have unilateral decisions being made in any topic on considerations that affect the North, you need to have northerners in those conversations.”

There was also, of course, the announcement made in Washington, D.C. that a large portion of Canada's territories will be prohibited from development, again with minimal or no consultation with actual northerners.

The mayor of Tuktoyaktuk recently said at a House of Commons committee:

We're proud people who like to work for a living. We're not used to getting social assistance and that kind of stuff. Now we're getting tourists coming up, but that's small change compared to when you work in oil and gas and you're used to that kind of living. Our people are used to that. We're not used to selling trinkets and T-shirts and that kind of stuff.

He specifically took issue with matters addressed by the bill, saying, “the Liberals should be helping us. They shut down our offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole freaking Arctic without even consulting us. They never said a word to us.”

The Liberal approach to the north is not empowering first nations. It is trapping the Inuit and indigenous people of the north in poverty by blocking their best opportunities for jobs, for government revenues and for social services to deal with all the needs that colleagues here are raising in this debate, for healthy living and to help make life more affordable.

Northerners know that Bill C-88 would add another roadblock to resource development on top of the Liberals' “no more pipelines” Bill C-69.

While co-management of the assessment process limits some of the damage of Bill C-69, this legislation would still have a significant impact on resource development in the north. Whether it is changes to the navigable waters act, falling investment dollars in natural resource projects across Canada or limited essential services, equipment and expertise to develop projects in the north, this flawed legislation would damage the north.

Dozens of indigenous communities, along with the National Coalition of Chiefs, the Indian Resource Council, the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council, Alberta's Assembly of Treaty Chiefs and the majority of Treaty 7 first nations, as well as hundreds of indigenous companies, are joining premiers and industry leaders in opposing Bill C-69.

Experts in indigenous law and rights are clear. Bill C-69 does nothing concrete to improve indigenous consultation, either by expanding the scope of indigenous rights or by practically increasing the measures, expectations and standards for the Crown's duty to consult. In fact, it actually weakens indigenous voices in the assessment process by removing the standing test and opening up project reviews to literally anyone, anywhere, instead of focusing on input from locally impacted Canadian citizens, indigenous communities, and subject matter and technical experts.

Mark Wittrup, vice-president of environmental and regulatory affairs at Clifton Associates, has said, “The proposed [impact assessment] process will create significant delays, missed opportunities and likely impact those that need that economic development the most: northern and Indigenous communities.”

Indigenous leaders have also noticed. Roy Fox, chief of the Blood Tribe first nation and a former CEO of the Indian Resource Council, has said, “I don't have any confidence in Bill C-69. I am fearful, and I am confident, that it will keep my people in poverty.”

Stephen Buffalo, the president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council, which currently represents more than 100 indigenous oil and gas developers, has said, “Indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, one that finally allows Indigenous people to share in Canada's economic prosperity. Bill C-69 will stop this progress in its tracks.”

The more than 30 first nations in the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council say they will take the government to court over C-69, because the bill could make it “impossible to complete a project” and because the removal of the standing test could lead to foreign interests “overriding the interests of aboriginal title holders” in Canada.

Bill C-88 is yet another example of the Liberals' pattern of adding red tape and roadblocks to resource development, which is something a Conservative government will reverse to help northern indigenous communities, all northerners and all Canadians get ahead.

The future of mining in Canada is very much related to opening up the north. Conservatives know how crucial infrastructure is to this ambition, as it can cost up to six times more to explore, and two and a half times more to build mines in remote regions. The Liberal-imposed carbon tax will hike the already expensive cost of living and cost of operations in the north even higher.

The Conservative Party has long believed that this means giving northerners the autonomy to make decisions based on their priorities and to benefit from those decisions the same way the provinces do.

In natural resources, mining is one of the areas where first nations are the most active, having secured 455 agreements in the sector between 2000 and 2017, often including priority training, hiring and subcontracting commitments. In 2016, indigenous people working in the mining sector had a median income twice as high as workers in their communities overall and nearly twice as high as that of non-indigenous people as a whole.

The problem is that mines are currently in the later years of their productive life, and there are no new mines in the approvals process. By reverting to the old, convoluted impact assessment and approvals process, the Liberals are reintroducing a major barrier to proposing and then actually completing projects in the Northwest Territories. Therefore, as I said before, the north will pay for Liberal mistakes with the loss of an entire generation's economic advancement as mining completely leaves the north.

However, there is hope. Conservatives will work to cut unnecessary red tape to bring investment and jobs back to Canada, while maintaining, enhancing and protecting Canada's reputation. Our reputation is second to none as a global leader in environmental standards, performance, and community and indigenous consultation for responsible resource development.

Conservatives know the reality is that when a resource project gets shut down in Canada, the most regulated and environmentally responsible major resource producer in the world, all it means is that the money, the businesses and the jobs go to countries with lower environmental, civil and human rights protections and standards.

The world needs more Canadian resource development, not less of it. Canada can and must still protect the environment while getting to a “yes” on major projects. When approval is given, the projects must be able to get built. Instead of turning the north into one big park, the Liberals should listen to northern first nations and hear their call for empowerment to develop their natural resources in a responsible and sustainable way.

This bill represents a major regression in the ability of northerners to manage their own natural resources to the benefit of their communities and in the best interests of the entire country. This legislation is yet another example of the Liberal government believing it knows better than local communities, indigenous communities, regions and provinces, resource developers and private sector proponents.

Conservatives will work to reverse these damaging legislative changes, eliminate the roadblocks that the Liberals are putting in the path of northern resource projects and of indigenous communities, and help northern Canadians and all Canadians get ahead.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-88, an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

The bill would make two amendments to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act of 1998, and I will refer to this in my speech going forward as MVRMA. Part A reverses provisions that would have consolidated the Mackenzie Valley land and water boards into one. These provisions were introduced by the former Conservative government within Bill C-15, Northwest Territories Devolution Act of 2014.

Part B would amend the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to allow the Governor in Council to issue orders, when in the national interest, to prohibit oil and gas activities, and freezes the terms of existing licences to prevent them from expiring during a moratorium.

Bill C-88 is yet another Liberal anti-energy policy in a long list of policies from the government that are driving energy investments out of Canada, costing Canadian workers their jobs and increasing poverty rates in the north.

First, I will speak to part A of the bill, the section that reverses the previous government's initiative to consolidate for the devolution of governance of the Northwest Territories, wherein the federal government transferred control of the territories' land and resources to the Northwest Territories government.

Part of that plan sought to restructure the four Mackenzie Valley land and water boards into a single consolidated superboard, with the intent to streamline regulatory processes and enable responsible resource development. For the reasons why this was proposed under Bill C-15, we have to turn back the clock nearly seven years earlier when, in 2007, then-minister of Indian affairs and northern development, the hon. Chuck Strahl commissioned a report on improving regulatory and environmental assessment regimes in Canada's north.

The consolidation of the Mackenzie Valley land and water boards into one entity was a key recommendation, which would address the complexity and capacity issues by making more efficient use of expenditures and administrative resources, and allow for administrative practices to be understandable and consistent.

Furthermore, during debates in the House in 2013 and 2014, the then-minister of aboriginal affairs and northern development, Bernard Valcourt and the member for Chilliwack—Hope, or as it was known back then, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, pointed out that the restructured board was included in the final version of the modern land claim agreements.

The proposed changes were not acceptable to everyone, and two indigenous groups, the Tlicho Government and Sahtu Secretariat, filed for an injunction with the Northwest Territories' Supreme Court to suspend the related provisions.

They argued that the federal government did not have the authority to abolish the Mackenzie Valley regulatory regime without consultation with affected indigenous communities. I should point out that, at the time, Liberal members of Parliament voted in favour of Bill C-15 when it was debated in Parliament, including the Prime Minister.

The report commissioned by the then-minister of Indian affairs and northern development was never meant to diminish the influence that indigenous people have on resource management in the north. Rather, it was meant to allow for this influence in a practical way, while at the same time enabling responsible resource development through an effective regulatory system.

This brings us back to today and the bill currently before us. As previously mentioned Bill C-88 would repeal the restructuring of the four land and water boards but also reintroduce regulatory provisions that were included in the previous Conservative government's Bill C-15.

These provisions have been redrafted to function under the current four-board structure and provide for the following: an administrative monetary penalty scheme that will provide inspectors with additional tools to enforce compliance with permits and licences under the MVRMA; an enforceable development certificate scheme following environmental assessments and environmental impact reviews; the development of regulations respecting consultation, which are intended to help clarify the procedural roles and responsibilities respecting indigenous consultation; clarification of requirements for equal proportions of nominees from government and indigenous governments and organizations; a 10-day pause period between a board's preliminary screening decision and the issuance of an authorization to allow for other bodies under the MVRMA to refer a project to an environmental assessment; regional studies that provide the minister with the discretion to appoint committees or individuals to study the effects of existing and future development on a regional basis; the authority to develop cost-recovery regulations that would provide the federal government with the ability to recover costs associated with proceedings; and the extension of a board member's term during a proceeding to ensure board quorum is maintained until the conclusion of an application decision.

These are good regulations and I am glad to see that the current government is continuing on with that and did not throw away these provisions.

The Liberals will say that Bill C-88 is about consultation, however, under part 2 is where the real motivation for Bill C-88 becomes evident.

Part 2 is simply the Liberals' plan to further politicize the regulatory and environmental processes for resource extraction in Canada's north by giving cabinet sweeping powers to stop projects based on its so-called national interest. So much for the comments from the parliamentary secretary to the minister of indigenous and northern affairs, who, on speaking to the Conservatives' Bill C-15 on February 11, 2014, said:

As Liberals, we want to see the Northwest Territories have the kind of independence it has sought. We want it to have the ability to make decisions regarding the environment, resource development, business management, growth, and opportunity, which arise within their own lands.

I would agree with that.

Bill C-88 exposes the Liberals' full rejection of calls from elected territorial leaders for increased control of their natural resources. The Liberals have demonstrated disregard for those who speak truth to power, they have demonstrated contempt for indigenous peoples advocating for the health and welfare of their children and now they are adding indifference for northern Canadians' interests to their long litany of groups marginalized by the Liberal government.

The Conservatives strongly criticized the Liberals for a moratorium on offshore oil and gas development in the Beaufort Sea, an announcement made in December 2016, in Washington, D.C. by the prime minister, an announcement, I might add, where territorial leaders were given less than an hour's notice. The Liberal government's top-down maternalistic approach to northerners must end. It does nothing to reduce poverty in remote and northern regions of Canada.

Like Bill C-69, the no-more pipelines bill before it, Bill C-88 politicizes oil and gas extraction by expanding the powers of cabinet to block economic development and adds to the increasing levels of red tape proponents must face before they can get shovels into the ground. Like Bill C-68, the convoluted navigable waters bill before it, Bill C-88 adds ambiguity and massive uncertainty in an already turbulent investment climate. Like Bill C-48, the tanker ban bill before it, Bill C-88 aims to kill high-quality, high-paying jobs for Canadians and their families who work in the oil and gas-related industries.

We know the Prime Minister's real motivation. He spelled it out for us at a Peterborough, Ontario town hall in January 2017, when he clearly stated that he and his government needed to phase out the oil and gas industry in Canada. The Prime Minister's plan to phase out the energy industry has been carried out with surgical precision to date.

The Liberals' job-killing carbon tax is already costing Canadian jobs. Companies repeatedly mention that the carbon tax is the reason they are investing in jobs and projects in the United States over Canada. The Liberals new methane regulations could end refining in Canada by adding tens of billions of dollars of cost to an industry that is already in crisis.

The Liberals introduced their interim review process for oil and gas projects in January 2016, which killed energy east, the 15,000 middle-class jobs it would have created and the nearly $55 billion it would have injected into the New Brunswick and Canadian economies, a review process which delayed the Trans Mountain expansion reviews by six months and added upstream admissions to the review process.

The Liberal cabinet imposed a B.C. north shore tanker ban within months of forming government, with no consultation or scientific evidence to support it. The Liberals cancelled the oil and gas exploration drilling tax credits during a major downturn in the oil and gas sector, which caused the complete collapse of drilling in Canada. The Liberals' proposed fuel standard will equate to a carbon tax of $228 per tonne of fuel according to their own analysis.

When the Prime Minister vetoed the northern gateway pipeline, he killed benefit agreements between the project and 31 first nations, worth about $2 billion. The unprecedented policy will apply not to just transportation fuels but to all industries, including steel production, heating for commercial buildings and home heating fuels like natural gas.

All this is destroying energy jobs and investment from coast to coast to coast. Now, with Bill C-88, we add another coast, the northern coast.

The Liberals love to champion the Prime Minister's personal commitment to a new relationship with indigenous people through new disclosure and friendly policies. They will, no doubt, due so again with Bill C-88.

This is what some organizations and people have to say, with respect to the Prime Minister's so-called commitment:

Stephen Buffalo, the president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council, in the National Post, October 19, 2018 stated:

...the government of Canada appears to consult primarily with people and organizations that share its views...It pays much less attention to other Indigenous groups, equally concerned about environmental sustainability, who seek a more balanced approach to resource development.

Here is another quote from that article:

The policies of the [Prime Minister's] government are systematically constraining the freedom and economic opportunities of the oil- and gas-producing Indigenous peoples of Canada. We are not asking for more from government. We are actually asking for less government intervention

Roy Fox, chief of the Kainaiwa first nation, in The Globe and Mail, December 10, 2018 stated:

While the Kainaiwa [nation] continue to fight against high unemployment, as well as the social destructiveness and health challenges such as addiction and other issues that often accompany poverty, my band’s royalties have recently been cut by more than half. Furthermore, all drilling has been cancelled because of high price differentials – the enormous gap between what we get on a barrel of oil in comparison to the benchmark price – which has limited employment opportunities on our lands.

Chief Fox continued:

...it’d be an understatement to say the policies proposed within Bills C-69 and C-48 are damaging our position by restricting access and reducing our ability to survive as a community....I and the majority of Treaty 7 chiefs strongly oppose the bill for its likely devastating impact on our ability to support our community members, as it would make it virtually impossible for my nation to fully benefit from the development of our energy resources.

I can continue to read quotes. However, we here on this side of the aisle are deeply disappointed that the Prime Minister, who campaigned on a promise of reconciliation with indigenous communities, blatantly would allow and choose to deny our 31 first nations and Métis communities their constitutionally-protected right to economic development.

This is from the Aboriginal Equity Partners:

We see today's announcement as evidence of the government's unwillingness to follow through on the Prime Minister's promise.

The Government of Canada could have demonstrated its commitment by working with us as environmental stewards of the land and water to enhance marine safety. All 31 AEP plus the other affected communities should have been consulted directly and individually in order to meet the Federal Government's duty to consult.

I have said this many times in my speech. It is time to stop politicizing these projects. Bill C-88 politicizes oil and gas development in the far north by providing the cabinet in Ottawa the unilateral power to shut down oil and gas development without consulting the people it affects directly.

I want to point to a few “key facts” from NRCAN's website. It states that in 2017, Canada’s energy sector directly employed more than 276,000 people and indirectly supported over 624,000 jobs; Canada’s energy sector accounts for almost 11% of nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP); government revenues from energy were $10.3 billion in 2016; more than $650 million was spent on energy research, development, and deployment by governments in 2016-17; and Canada is the sixth largest energy producer, the fifth largest net exporter, and the eighth largest consumer

Just last week, in The Globe and Mail, David McKay, the president and CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, stated:

History has placed Canada at a crossroads. No other country of 37 million people has access to more natural resources – and the brainpower to convert those resources into sustainable growth for a stronger society.

And yet, Canada is at risk of taking the wrong turn at the crossroads because some believe there are only two paths: one for economic growth, and the other for environment.

We’re seeing this dilemma play out in Canada’s energy transition as we struggle to reconcile competing ideas.

We aspire to help the world meet its energy needs and move to ever-cleaner fuel sources. We aim to reduce our carbon footprint. We want Indigenous reconciliation and long-term partnership. And we hope to maintain the standard of living we have come to enjoy.

But without a balanced approach to harnessing our energy future, all of this is at risk.

We need to take a third path--one that will help us develop our natural resources, invest in clean technologies and ensure a prosperous Canada....

But we’re reaching a critical time in our country’s history.

As our resources sector copes with a growing crisis, we worry that Canada is not setting up our energy industry for growth and success in a changing world.

When I travel abroad, and proudly talk up our country, too many investors tell me they feel Canada's door is closed when it comes to energy. We need to change that impression immediately, because these investors are backing up their words with action.

According to a recent study from the C.D. Howe Institute, Canada has lost $100-billion in potential investment in oil and gas in the past two years.

We can’t forget that energy is not only part of the economic fabric of Canada, it also funds our social needs. The sector has contributed $90-billion to government revenues over the past five years, which covers about 10 per cent of what the country spends on health care, according to RBC Economics.

And if we squander our huge advantage and cede the dividends to other countries, we’ll also risk losing the opportunity to help combat the most daunting challenge of all – climate change.

The article ends with the following charge to government:

We can’t stay at a crossroads.

It’s time for Canada to pull together on a plan – one that re-energizes our place in the world.

The Conservatives have long viewed the north as a key driver of economic activity for Canada for decades to come. The Liberals, however, view the north as a place to create huge swaths of protected land and shut down economic activity.

Bill C-88 appears to be based in a desire to win votes in major urban centres rather than reduce poverty in remote regions of Canada. Northerners face the unique challenges of living in the north with resilience and fortitude. They want to create jobs and economic opportunities for their families. They deserve a government that has their backs.

We are at a crossroads and it is time for Canada to pull together a plan. The Conservatives are up to that challenge. We look forward to unveiling our plan and growing the economy in the next election for voters to decide for themselves who really has the best interests of Canadians.

Foreign Lobbyist Transparency Act

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-278, an act to amend the Lobbying Act, specifically with regard to reporting obligations.

Canadians have a right to know when foreign entities are trying to influence federally elected officials. The intent of this bill is to require the sources of any foreign funding received by lobbyists and grassroots organizations to be reported in the lobbyist registry to provide Canadians with greater transparency about who is actually lobbying their politicians.

This bill aims to make two changes to the current law.

The first amendment requires all corporations and organizations that lobby the government to disclose all funds received from foreign nationals, non-resident corporations and non-resident organizations. Lobbyists would then need to disclose the original foreign source of their funding, rather than hiding behind layers of shell companies or a chain of charities and foundations.

The second amendment expands the types of activities that lobbyists must report, specifically requiring reporting of any activities that appeal to the public directly or through mass media to try to persuade them to communicate directly with public office holders to influence their opinion. Reporting any grassroots communications—and I say “grassroots” loosely—funded by foreign actors that impacts the government's ability to consult the Canadian public on a specific course of action would allow the Canadian public to assess for themselves the motives of these actors.

The bill does not restrict or prohibit any groups from seeking foreign funding, nor does it restrict or prohibit their right to protest; it simply requires organizations that want to participate in our democracy to be honest and transparent. It provides transparency to Canadians and allows them to draw their own conclusions from that clarity.

My colleague from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke should be commended not only on a well-thought-out and important bill that strengthens democracy in this country, but also on her patience. Nearly three years ago, the foreign lobbyist transparency act was introduced and received first reading. In that time, the Liberal government bought a $4.5-billion pipeline nobody wanted to sell, and now we cannot even build it. The Liberal government killed energy east, a $12-billion pipeline that would have brought economic prosperity to New Brunswick and other provinces right across the country. The government killed northern gateway, an $8-billion project that would have seen Alberta oil get to lucrative markets in Asia to the benefit of all Canadians. The energy sector has lost $100 billion in potential investment, which is equivalent to 4.5% of Canada's gross domestic product. Capital investment in the mining sector has fallen every year that the current government has been in power. The value of total mining projects planned and under construction from 2018 to 2028 has been reduced by 55% since 2014, from $160 billion to $72 billion.

We have seen Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, and Bill C-48, the anti-tanker bill—which does not stop tankers, just Canadian tankers—pass in this House.

The polices of the Liberal government have doomed the Canadian natural resources sector.

While this bill has floundered in the House, a lot of time has passed for lobbyists to influence the government's policy decisions. We must have robust lobbyist regulations in place so that Canadians can have a clear picture of who is attempting to influence whom.

However, when it comes to the manipulation of domestic policy by foreign entities, the picture is not so clear. A CBC report in mid-February analyzed more than 21,000 tweets from so-called “troll accounts” that had been deleted by Twitter and that had set their sights on Canada, including on the pipeline debate. The report found 245 accounts re-tweeting messages about the pipeline and circulating media articles and re-tweets from the accounts of anti-oil activists.

According to the report, the foreign accounts are suspected of being based in Russia, Iran and Venezuela. It should come as no surprise that these three countries produce large amounts of oil. Russia and Iran are second and third respectively in global oil exports.

The hon. Minister of Natural Resources was questioned by the media about this foreign attack on Canada's oil and gas sector, and he had this to say:

Its always concerning when you have people from outside of your country trying to influence the decision-making. There is a legitimate way of doing that, and that's through diplomacy and other venues and avenues.... Misinformation and information that is not based on facts is never healthy for any democratic process to take place.

I could not agree more, and while this incident might not be caught up in this legislation, it is a symptom of the cold. By having in place a stronger, healthier act governing lobbying activity in this country, we can innoculate ourselves better against all forms of foreign influence in our political decision-making process.

We are all aware of the work of Vivian Krause, who has been researching the oil sands for nearly a decade and believes that there is a concerted push against Canadian oil, funded by U.S. interests, to keep Alberta oil chained to U.S. markets. Over the past 10 years, nearly $90 million in foreign funding, according to Krause, has gone into this endeavour.

Whether one believes that American philanthropists are behind the scheme to keep Canadian oil in the ground, whether one believes it is American industrialists ensuring low prices by restricting access to international markets, or whether one believes the whole thing is just a conspiracy theory, the fact remains that the amendments in the bill will illuminate the matter and provide a clear picture for Canadians to judge for themselves what is really going on.

That is what this bill is all about. It is about giving power to Canadians to judge for themselves. Almost two-thirds of Canadians have identified oil and gas as one of the most critical economic sectors in the entire country. Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians say that the country will face a considerable or significant economic impact if no new oil pipelines are built. Fifty-two per cent support constructing both the Trans Mountain and the now cancelled energy east projects, while 19% oppose both.

Are these opinions influenced by subversives, pro- or anti-oil, or are they based on clear economic, scientific and environmental facts? There are divisions, for sure, and alternate opinions are important in the policy-making process, but it is Canadians' opinions that need to shape Canadian policy, not foreign entities with their own political and economic agendas.

Earlier in the debate, on January 31, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands asked if there was any concern, I believe her word was "disturbed," that the Fraser Institute had received more foreign funding to defend pipelines than environmental groups had received from the U.S. to attack Canadian pipelines. Yes, everyone in the House should be concerned when anyone is receiving foreign funds to influence Canadian policy, but it is far more important, in fact it is our duty here in this place, to be influenced by the 69% of Canadians who are worried about the significant economic impact if no new oil pipelines are built or the 52% for and the 19% opposed to the construction of the Trans Mountain and energy east pipelines.

During the debate on Bill C-278, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra raised a concern that the lobbyist community might face an increased reporting burden and that any amendments must “respect the principles of the act, which seek to strike a balance between transparency and ensuring that the compliance burden imposed on lobbyists is reasonable and fair.” I believe, as do the vast majority of Canadians, it seems, that protecting our democracy from foreign influence might just be worth increasing the reporting burden for lobbyists.

Bill C-278, the foreign lobbyist transparency act, would achieve financial clarity and improved accountability through the public reporting of payments made by foreigners to lobbyists.This is a non-partisan piece of legislation that would support a healthy, transparent and accountable democracy for Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and I look forward to it undergoing full scrutiny at committee, returning and passing in the House.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yes I will, Mr. Speaker.

I will restart the quote and I will properly ascribe pronouns and titles in place of personal names. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip is the grand chief of, I believe, the union of first nations in British Columbia. He said of the Prime Minister:

Well it was deeply disappointing to know and understand at this late date in the game that the vision and the promises [of the Prime Minister] that [he] announced in October 2015 have not come to pass. All of the promises and the commitments that he made have simply been set aside and now that he’s under tremendous pressure from the [former attorney general in the] SNC-Lavalin issue, [the Prime Minister] is really revealing himself to be who he really is, which is a very self-centred, conceited, arrogant individual and I think that was demonstrated with his very smug, mean-spirited response to the Grassy Narrows demonstrator. That situation is tragic. Many, many people have died. Many people are handicapped and living with the legacy of mercury poisoning and, you know, he’s such an arrogant individual. It’s very disturbing and very disappointing.

That respected chief was referring to the Prime Minister's disgusting comment at a recent $1,500 a ticket fundraiser where he was speaking to a bunch of well-connected Liberal lobbyists and wealthy donors. A courageous whistle-blower stood up and warned him about an issue of mercury poisoning in an aboriginal community. He had the audacity to laugh about the incident and say, “Thank you for your donation.” Then he said again, “Thank you for your donation to the Liberal Party of Canada.” He actually said it twice.

Of course, the millionaire Liberals in the room burst into uproarious laughter, thinking it was just hilarious, as she was being dragged out by security. He made a joke at the expense of the people suffering from mercury poisoning on a first nations reserve, saying, “Thank you for your donation”.

Is it not nice that he and his wealthy friends can gather together and luxuriate at a beautiful reception. with fine wine and other delicious liqueurs they can enjoy in the comfort and safety of a place where the water is not poisoned by mercury? However, God forbid, someone should stand up and confront him when he thinks no one is looking, when he did not know he was on camera. The real Prime Minister reveals himself, when he is not the drama teacher we all see on television.

The interview continued. Mercedes Stephenson then said, “The prime minister did apologize for his tone and what he said in that video. I take it that that apology doesn’t mean much to you.”:

The response from the grand chief was, “No. You know, I think at this late stage in the game, again, we’re used to [the Prime Minister's] apologies and alligator tears. It’s not about apologies. It’s about getting it right.”

The grand chief made a very good point there, when he talked about the Prime Minister's alligator tears. The Prime Minister has substituted his ability to generate these phony tears on demand for real action on behalf of the first nations people. They were not looking for more water to pour out of his eyeballs. They were looking for fresh water and clean water that they could drink on reserve, and he did not provide any of that. Instead, he provided a disgusting display of mockery against those same people.

Mercedes Stephenson then asks, “How would you describe the relationship between the government and Indigenous communities under the [Prime Minister] compared to previous governments?”

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip replies:

Well, I think started off with a great sense of hope and anticipation that the [Prime Minister and his] government was going to...embrace a UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples and the TRC calls to action were going to be fully implemented, that there was going to be a seismic change with respect to our jurisdictional issues and the other issues around energy in this country. And as time has moved forward, all of those promises have been simply swept aside and have not come to pass. And here we are, six months out from the next...election and we’re faced with the [Prime Minister's] government totally unravelling, coming apart at the seams and without question, the sun is setting on [this Prime Minister].

Mercedes Stephenson continued the interview:

Do you think it’s that the government isn’t committed to reconciliation or that it’s simply much more difficult than they were anticipating and it’s taking more time and more effort to solve what are some very complex problems?

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip replied:

Well, quite honestly, I think that the clip that we witnessed, the most disturbing part of that clip, aside from the smugness and the mean-spirited remark on the part of the prime minister, was the spontaneous applause from the Liberal Party members who were attending, which to me is a reflection on the heart and soul of the Liberal Party, which for many, many decades has had this arrogant sense of entitlement, that they are a national party that is so accustomed to forming government and I think that’s the central issue here. [The] Prime Minister...paid a lot of lip service, you know, to this historic change but I don’t think the party itself was, you know, that much in support of those visionary statements made by [the] Prime Minister...in the early days of his tenure.

Then Ms. Stephenson asked the grand chief about the former attorney general, as follows:

Are you upset because of what happened there or is it also about the government not meeting the promises that you feel they put out there?

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip replied:

It’s both. But believe me, British Columbians, the Indigenous community in British Columbia, were so proud when [the former attorney general] was appointed as justice minister. We have had the privilege and the honour of working with her and we know her to be deeply committed, very conscientious and an absolute work horse. And she’s very meticulous in terms of preparation and keeping records of meetings and so on and so forth. And we knew immediately that the efforts to smear [the former attorney general] were politically motivated and needless to say, we were deeply angered by how terribly she was treated as an Indigenous woman, when the prime minister said there was nothing more dear to him than relationships with Indigenous peoples and in a very misleading way has always held himself out as a feminist.

Then Ms. Stephenson finished up the interview. I encourage everyone to watch the interview and listen to the grand chief's words, which they will find very revealing indeed about the Prime Minister's true motivations and his true character in respect of the issue of reconciliation.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Prime Minister's decision to trample all over the will of first nations peoples in the approval or rejection of pipelines. First nations people supported the northern gateway pipeline. It was a wonderful opportunity for northern British Columbian first nations communities to generate billions of dollars for schools and hospitals and thousands of jobs for young people bursting with potential but lacking opportunity to fulfill it.

The aboriginal population in the country is the youngest of any demographic. We have this spectacular opportunity for Canada to address its aging population and retiring workforce by expanding opportunity to young first nations people to take on excellent jobs of the future. Many of those good, high-paying jobs, will be in natural resource sectors: building pipelines, pipefitting, welding, operating heavy machinery to install those pipelines and, of course, rightfully collecting royalties from the resulting economic wealth these projects generate.

One thing a lot of people who oppose natural resource projects do not realize is their potential to pay royalties to the rightful owners of the land, in many cases first nations communities. That is why energy companies regularly sign agreements, not only to pay directly to first nations governments revenues that can be used to build schools, hospitals and clinics and provide other services, but also to employ a youthful workforce in those communities.

Let me start with the northern gateway pipeline, which the Prime Minister vetoed, even though it had already been approved and the majority of first nations communities on the pathway of the pipeline had supported it. Many of them had signed benefit agreements with the company Enbridge to share in the prosperity that would come from that project. It is a constitutional obligation to consult with first nations people when their interests are directly affected by a natural resources project in or around their lands. That happened in the case of northern gateway. The project was approved.

However, in the last election, the Prime Minister ran on killing the project, because he wanted to take advantage of a hard-core anti-development agenda that was popular with the far-left base of his party in certain parts of the country. He also wanted to take advantage of the copious foreign dollars that were pouring into Canada to influence the outcome of the last election against resource development.

We now know these foreign interests do not want Canadian resources to get to market, because they are profiting from keeping Canada landlocked in its oil and gas sector. Why? Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Venezuela and numerous other foreign producers of oil do not want to have to compete with Canada. One easy way to prevent that competition is to block the construction of pipelines to tidewater. As a result of the fact we cannot expand our pipeline network to the east and west coasts, we ultimately have to sell 99% of our oil exports to the United States of America, which is the other foreign interest.

The refineries south of the border profit from buying Canada's oil at 40% and 50% price discounts and selling it to the world market at full price. They buy from Canada at 20 bucks, sell to the world at 50 bucks and pocket the difference. No wonder these foreign interests do not want Canada to have pipelines. It has been documented that millions of dollars poured into Canada through various forms of Internet advertising to dissuade people from supporting pro-development politicians, ultimately resulting in the election of an anti-development government. However, the victims of that political agenda, which the Prime Minister deliberately played into, have been first nations people.

Let me read from an article in the Financial Post entitled, “‘We are very disappointed’: Loss of Northern Gateway devastating for many First Nations, chiefs say”.

The article from the April 10, 2017, edition states:

Most aboriginal communities in northern British Columbia impacted by the Northern Gateway pipeline supported the $7.9 billion project and are angry [the Prime Minister] rejected it, say representatives of three of the bands.

Elmer Ghostkeeper of the Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement, Chief Elmer Derrick of the Gitxsan Nation, and Dale Swampy of the Samson Cree Nation said on the sidelines of a private meeting in Calgary on Friday with oilpatch leaders they are disappointed in the “political decision,” which they say was made without their input.

Let us stop there for a second.

The Prime Minister claims to support the constitutional obligation to consult with first nations people on resource projects, but does that consultation only go ahead with those who oppose development? What about consulting the communities, of which the majority support the development? Do they not have the constitutional right to be consulted by their government?

In that case, I would challenge the Prime Minister to tell me: How many first nations communities that had benefit agreements in the northern gateway pipeline did he meet with and consult personally before he vetoed the project?

The article continues:

They are now looking for ways to generate new energy development.

Ghostkeeper said more than 30 of the 42 bands on the Alberta-to-West Coast pipeline's right-of-way were looking forward to sharing in the construction and long-term benefits.

“Their expectations were really raised with the promise of $2 billion set aside in business and employment opportunities,” Ghostkeeper said before addressing the Canadian Energy Executive Association at the Calgary Petroleum Club. “Equity was offered to aboriginal communities, and with the change in government that was all taken away. We are very disappointed in this young government.”

Ghostkeeper said he'd like to see an oil pipeline revived, but led by aboriginals. “We have to partner with the oil and gas industry and be treated as equals, not as token, because any natural resource project that is going to take place on traditional lands has to be given free, informed, prior consent now. The old ways of doing business doesn't cut it.”

I continue to quote from the story:

Derrick said his band was supportive from the outset, but the Prime Minister didn't want to hear from supportive communities. “The fact that the Prime Minister chose not to consult with people in northwestern B.C. disappointed us very much,” he said.

Swampy said some of the bands are discussing legal action against the federal government for rejecting the project without proper consultation.

“They understand that it was a political decision, and not a decision acting in the best interests of Canadians,” Swampy said. “They weren't asked about the financial effect, the lost employment. They are trying to get themselves out of poverty, the welfare system that they are stuck to, and every time they try to do something like that, it's destroyed.”

Let me repeat that for the self-righteous anti-development types such as the Prime Minister, who consistently block these resource projects. Let me quote again from this first nations leader. He says of the local indigenous communities that wanted this project:

They weren't asked about the financial effect, the lost employment. They are trying to get themselves out of poverty, the welfare system that they are stuck to, and every time they try to do something like that, it's destroyed.

That was the effect of the Prime Minister's personal decision to veto the northern gateway pipeline. I quote the article:

Saying “the Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline and the Douglas Channel is no place for oil tanker traffic,” [the Prime Minister] killed Northern Gateway last November. The Enbridge Inc. project had received regulatory approval, as well as approval from the previous Conservative government, after a decade of planning and more than half a billion in spending.

Think about that. First nations, entrepreneurs and the previous Harper government consulted, studied and examined the ecological and economic impacts for a decade. The company spend half a billion dollars on that process, yet after the independent Energy Board concluded it was in the public interest and it was environmentally safe, the Prime Minister politically interfered and overturned the decision without consulting with the communities on first nations that had supported it and counted on it as their best hope to escape poverty.

The article goes on:

[The Prime Minister] also imposed a ban on tanker traffic on the northern B.C. Coast, while approving Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain pipeline expansion and the upgrading of Enbridge’s Line 3.

I will stop quoting right here.

In the case of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain, the Prime Minister claims he has approved that. Not a single shovel is in the ground, all these years later. Not a single inch of steel has been added in pipeline to the Kinder Morgan project. It has been entangled in political obfuscation now for years, even though it must be the least controversial project in the history of pipelines. They are not even seeking a new right-of-way. The pipeline is already there, and they are simply looking to twin it so that its capacity can go from the existing 300,000 barrels to 900,000.

So far, the Prime Minister has bought the old pipeline but done nothing to build the new pipeline. The courts have found that once again he failed to properly consult first nations communities along the route of the Kinder Morgan project and as a result had to go back to the drawing board and start all over. In the process, he has moved as slowly as possible. Do nothing in a mile that could be done in a yard. Do nothing in a yard that can be done in a foot. Do nothing in a foot that can be done in an inch.

The process inches along, with the Prime Minister giving vague reassurances that some day, one day, steel will be in the ground and we will begin building this project, a project on which he has already spent $4.5 billion in exchange for nothing we did not already have.

We know his real agenda, though. He is going to get through the next election by trying to convince Canadians, who polls show support pipelines, that he does too. If he gets back in, there will be no pipeline built, just as there has not been for the last three and a half years, because he is ideologically opposed to energy development.

He said so. He said he wants to phase out the oil sands. Those were his words, and he is succeeding. By blocking the three pipelines that were ready to go when he took office—Trans Mountain, northern gateway and energy east—he has landlocked the industry, put 100,000 people out of work and, as I was just saying, has attacked the interests and the autonomy of the indigenous community.

I was earlier quoting from the Financial Post in April of 2017. Now similar groups are coming forward to demand an end to the Prime Minister's tanker ban. The Prime Minister claims he supports pipelines. How will he get the oil from the coast to Asia if tankers are banned? Does he have some magical petroleum-carrying unicorn that is capable of lifting up the oil and taking it to foreign markets? If there is a tanker ban, how could it possibly get where it is needs to go?

Now I am quoting right out of the National Post:

First Nations coalition calls for rejection of [Liberal] tanker ban; one group plans to file UN complaint

Now we have first nations that are considering going to the UN to fight against the Prime Minister's anti-development policies that keep them in poverty.

The National Post continues:

The coalition has sketched out plans to build a roughly $18-billion oil pipeline from northern Alberta to around Prince Rupert, B.C.

A coalition of First Nations groups is imploring Ottawa to rein in an oil tanker ban on the northern B.C. coast, with one organization planning to level a United Nations complaint against the government to protest the legislation.

The plea is a last-ditch effort to reverse Bill C-48 as it nears passage through the Senate. The coalition, composed of the National Coalition of Chiefs, the Indian Resource Council and the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council met with a number of senators Tuesday morning in Ottawa to oppose the moratorium.

Calvin Helin, who led the talks with senators, is CEO of Eagle Spirit Energy Holding, which has sketched out plans to build a roughly $18-billion oil pipeline from northern Alberta to around Prince Rupert, B.C.

Helin, a Lax Kw’alaams Band member, has long pitched the idea as Canada’s sole First Nations-led oil pipeline. Helin said C-48 is a matter of “enormous concern” for the roughly 200 First Nations communities represented by the coalition, and said [the Prime Minister's] tanker ban explicitly targets the project, effectively stripping Indigenous people of their economic self-determination.

“Is this what reconciliation is supposed to represent in Canada?” he said.

Is this what reconciliation looks like? When a group of ambitious, smart and industrious first nations people come forward with an $18-billion project that could lift whole communities out of the long-term poverty in which they have been trapped and give them full independence and control over their own destiny and the Prime Minister comes forward with a bill banning them from doing so, is that what he meant by reconciliation?

That is the question that this band member asks as he speaks out against the tanker ban, because the tanker ban is not just about blocking big oil companies from moving their product: It is about blocking these communities from their one chance to escape poverty. If the Prime Minister believed half as much in reconciliation as he does in his great dramatic and theatrical productions on the subject, then he would consult with and listen to these first nations people.

To members of the government, what did he say to Mr. Helin when he put forward Bill C-48, the tanker ban? Did he look him in the eye and tell him that generations of first nations people in western Canada will have to be held back because the government is blocking them from achieving economic independence through resource development, or did he even meet with him at all? My suspicion is that he could not be bothered. If there was no camera nearby and no photo opportunity to carry out, then he simply could not be bothered to show up for reconciliation.

The article continues:

His comments come amid intense angst in Alberta, which has failed for many years to build the necessary pipelines to carry away steadily increasing oilsands production.

The Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council said Tuesday it would file a complaint in “coming days” under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) against the federal government.

I will pause on this point. There is much legitimate debate about whether the declaration is the best way to achieve reconciliation with first nations people, but the Prime Minister gave plenty of lip service to that declaration before the last election. Now he appears to have violated it with his tanker ban, which prevents first nations from achieving the economic independence that they have worked so hard to achieve.

The National Post article goes on:

The chiefs said the ban unfairly restricts oil exports by the First Nations group, while allowing multinational corporations to ship their products from the southern portion of the B.C. coast.

So here we go again. Large multinational corporations will continue to ship their product, so this is not even about stopping the shipment of oil and gas; it is just about stopping Canadians from shipping their product.

The Prime Minister would never contemplate banning oil tankers from arriving at the east coast. All of those east coast tankers come right across the Atlantic, one tanker after another, to the eastern coast of our country, shipping foreign oil to Canadian markets. As that oil comes in, our money goes out, and we get poorer and poorer. No wonder our trade deficit is approaching record highs.

Let me quote further from that National Post article:

“All we're trying to do is take advantage of the resources available to us,” said former chief Wallace Fox, chairman of the Indian Resource Council, a part of the coalition.

The Eagle Spirit pipeline appears to present a conundrum on Indigenous rights. A handful of first nations communities—including the Yinka Dene Alliance, which opposed the other pipeline projects in B.C.—have opposed the project in the past due to environmental worries. Meanwhile, a host of Indigenous communities along the pipeline route support Eagle Spirit, saying it will give them more financial independence.

Helin said he is close to a consensus among First Nations on Eagle Spirit. He said much of the First Nations opposition to the pipeline comes from Indigenous people, backed by activist organizations, who claim to speak for whole communities but do not.

I continued to quote from the National Post there.

The story goes on and on. The Prime Minister—

[Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom]

Absolutely, it's not a best practice.

How I got involved in that situation is that the first nations from the coast, even from Haida Gwaii, got together. They were saying that they could see tankers going by their territories on a daily basis. This is from them; I'm just kind of restating what they stated. They said there was no actual consultation even with the Great Bear Rainforest. I know there might have been good intentions but those are ideological mindsets. The fishing is going away and they could literally see from their own houses all the benefits going into the States and into the Alaskan ports. Basically, they said, this is where we are in this day and age. The fishing industry is hurting. They just want to make a living. They want to create jobs. They want some income and prosperity to come from these opportunities, and Bill C-48 kind of limits that. That is not to say that we do not care. We absolutely care 110% about any waters—ocean waters, lake waters and river waters. We want to see those things survive and to protect them through our mechanisms.

I'm going to segue back into Alberta—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

In the international context, not only would Bill C-69 obviously put Canada at a disadvantage, but another bill—Bill C-48, which is the shipping ban on oil off B.C.'s north coast—is another example, in the context of discussing best practices for this study, where I understand there was a limited or complete lack of consultation on the bill with indigenous communities.

I know that you yourself have said, “This tanker ban is not just going to hurt us at the moment, which it's doing, but it's going to hurt future generations.”

I wonder if there is anything that you wanted to share about the process in that consultation on Bill C-48. Also, do you consider it to be a best practice of a government imposing anti-energy legislation on indigenous communities and all Canadians without consulting?

[Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom, Chief, Woodland Cree First Nation]

Tansi. Kinana'skomitina'wa'w.

It's a pleasure and an honour to be here. My name is Chief Isaac Ausinis Laboucan-Avirom. I'm from the Woodland Cree First Nation. I was grand chief of the Treaty No. 8 territory not too long ago, grand chief of my tribal council, but today I'm here just as chief of my first nation. I'd like to say that I know that this is a good effort to do, but this is not in consultation with other first nations. I don't want to be accountable....

As for Woodland Cree, we are surrounded by natural resource activity, from oil and gas development to forestry to green energy projects like Site C. There are always negative and positive impacts when doing resource development, but we're in a day and age in which there has to be more accountability to first nations communities and to the environment. We have to make sure we're making good decisions so that we can have sustainability and so that generations of our children can grow in a country that is not fully polluted and that still has healthy jobs for people to get to.

You have to forgive me; I'm supposed to be on spring break, and my executive assistant is on spring break, so I'll be jumping back and forth in some of my notes here.

Companies should be encouraged to develop some understanding of the legal and constitutional rights of first nations. In Canada, first nations were not defeated in war. We have treaties. These treaty rights are constitutionally protected. Many international companies do not understand this, and they come from different perspectives. From my understanding of this, sometimes it gets very difficult when we are dealing with this mindset. We have to re-educate them and tell them who we are and why we have our rights. A best practice would include an educational component for international companies to understand the landscape in Canada so that first nations don't have to consistently recreate this work.

You know, one of the biggest struggles for first nations is that we are always looking for better and better human capacity. As I look around this room, I know that some of the best mindsets in Canada are here. As a first nations chief, sometimes I'm obligated to work with some of the best on the other side of the table, where I'm going against people such.... They used to be Shell, CNRL...where they have some of the best minds money can buy.

In order to have meaningful consultation, first nations need to have the capacity to understand the technical aspects of the projects, communicate information to community members, and gather information from community members and knowledge-keepers. This takes much more funding than is currently offered by Canada. The nation spends a lot of time and energy building the case for capacity funding and negotiating capacity funding, etc. The time and energy would be better spent actually engaging in the consultation and the search for accommodation measures. Best practices should include a requirement to provide adequate funding, which could be expressed as a percentage of the amount the company expects to spend on environmental, geotechnical and other types of studies.

I have the example of Site C. I'll be jumping back and forth between oil and gas and other resource departments. I had lawyers come to my nation one time, saying that they wanted to build Site C. My nation does not have monies to spend on lawyers. We'd rather build houses and put money into education and the elders. One of the questions I asked the Site C legal team was around what environmental impacts would be caused. They said, oh, there won't be much. Well, they'd be extinguishing two species of fish in the reservoir, the Arctic grayling and the goldeye. It doesn't take a university individual to understand that this has a direct impact on other ecological systems. Those are feeder fish for bigger fish, etc. Woodland Cree at that time did not have a million dollars to spend in the courts, so it's something.... And then also through the consultation process, that the borders between Alberta and B.C....said that the consultation process was basically a no-go zone.

Indigenous knowledge and input from the community should be incorporated into all aspects of the environment and social investigations into the projects. A best practice would include encouraging companies to look at the inclusion of indigenous communities through project development, design and implementation. Ultimately, the goal of any best practice would be to actually arrive at a meaningful mitigation or accommodation of impacts. When I think of meaningful consultation, that means I know exactly what the other side of the table, the proponent producer, is talking about.

When I look at these bills such as Bill C-69, I see this is just an example of where, at one of my chiefs meetings in Alberta, we condoned it, and then just last week we rescinded it. That's a good example of how it was so complex and misunderstood, and then now we're sitting here today where it's already gone so far in the process. I don't believe there was proper and meaningful consultation on Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, and we're at a place where we shouldn't be at.

In most cases today, the parties have become much better at exchanging information, but there is still a resistance to making meaningful changes to the projects to lessen impacts on traditional land uses and resistance to involving indigenous communities in long-term economic development benefits.

Woodland is one nation that has been working hard to make strong and meaningful partnerships with business to develop business capacities, local employment, etc., but these have to be long-term opportunities not just brush-clearing and construction.

Woodland Cree needs to get into the business of developing and eventually owning resources such as the Eagle Spirit pipeline. I am on the chiefs' committee of that group. I can only talk so much to companies. Yes, they will nod their head and they will say yes, we tried, but if we were actually owners and operators of those companies, then our corporate values would follow that company.

For example, if I'm an owner of a company, I want to say I want to be the best in the world. I want to make that pipeline as indestructible as we can. I know there's technology and the abilities to do that. We're at this meeting today to be the best in the world, and I know we can do that.

It also goes into trading aspects of it. If we had ownership of these pipelines, then we could tell our customers that they need a better environmental standard on the products they develop from our resources.

Best practices would include encouraging companies to dig into business development with indigenous communities to share with them what types of businesses should also be pursued in order to support the project. Companies should also be willing to learn about capacities that different first nations have to offer. If both parties come to the table with a willingness to share information and work together to build first nations' capacity, then we will achieve meaningful accommodation.

Sometimes the feds are typically avoiding absolutely any language in the question that alludes to free, prior and informed consent. There are also quite a few articles written specifically about this within UNDRIP. We know this, especially if we're looking internationally.

There is no perfect international example of projects. However, projects in Bolivia entrenched the rights of nature—they actually used “mother earth” in Spanish—using indigenous law. New Zealand protected the rivers using Maori law. The Sami have a parliament and can pass laws in their territory. If a corporation has personhood, so then should the same things that make first nations....

Project approval currently only represents one culture's law and relations with the land. In order for a project to be truly collaborative and successful from a first nations' viewpoint, it should also respect our culture and our laws too.

That can seem almost impossible when our laws in Canada aren't respected or admitted into courts of regulatory.... If we want projects to go through, then consent is the only way.

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

Very good.

Minister, in the horizons items of the 2018-19 supplementary estimates, the funding for the reconsideration of the Trans Mountain expansion project, INAC received $312,000 for operation expenditures to support consultations with indigenous peoples. I'm sure you've heard from first nations across the country that have said that there have been no real consultations on Bill C-48 or Bill C-69. They say these bills are flawed because they've proceeded without their consent. Do you believe that the consultation process for Bill C-48, the tanker ban, and Bill C-69 was flawed, considering that's what the first nations are claiming?

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

Very clearly, then, your expectation would be to be consulted not just before a project moves forward but also before policies are put in place that will block projects. If I'm understanding correctly what you're saying, your view is that there is an absolute requirement to do that consultation not only before you say yes but also before you put in place those barriers like we're seeing in Bill C-48 and Bill C-69.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities support the committee's report, which was just tabled. Transportation corridors are integral to the safe and efficient flow of goods in and out of Canada. However, we have supplied a supplementary report, as we felt that the main report did not adequately address a number of important issues that were raised, which I will briefly outline.

Over the course of the many meetings held during this study, we heard from numerous stakeholders regarding the detrimental impact certain government actions and policies are having and will continue to have on Canada's transportation system, and more specifically, on our transportation corridors.

Specifically, the government policies we must highlight are Bill C-48, the Liberals' oil tanker moratorium act; Bill C-69, the Liberals' attempt to rewrite the law and regulations to make it even harder for pipelines to get built; and the Liberal government's carbon tax. From being unnecessarily restrictive, to creating investment uncertainty, to increasing costs for transportation companies and shippers alike, the actions of the Liberal government need to be reversed.

To that end, we have included three simple recommendations in our supplementary report: to withdraw Bill C-48, to withdraw Bill C-69 and to eliminate the carbon tax.

I encourage the government members to read our supplementary report, but if they do not have time for that, I hope they will simply adopt our recommendations. We believe that doing this would greatly support Canada's transportation systems and our vitally important trade corridors.

Natural Resources

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is in chaos, which means it is not spending any time fixing the energy sector crisis it created.

Today, the United We Roll convoy arrived in Ottawa. Its purpose is principled and worthy as it creates awareness for the oil and gas industry and raises concerns about the carbon tax and repealing the “no more pipelines” Bill C-69, and Bill C-48.

Its members are concerned, like millions of Canadians, that the current Liberal government has not, and is not, supporting them, their families, their communities or the energy sector. They feel they have lost their voice to a government that no longer works for them and they will not be ignored any more.

Our Conservative leader said:

The #UnitedWeRoll convoy is a testament to the importance of Canada's energy sector and the crisis it's facing. Canadian energy workers deserve a government that supports their industry and champions it worldwide. Conservatives will fix the Liberal mess & get people back to work.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Maybe we can talk about that. There is a member of your community, Calvin Helin. He said:

...what the chiefs are starting to see a lot now is that there is a lot of underhanded tactics where certain people are paid in communities and they're used as...spokespersons—essentially puppets and props—...to kill resource development.

He goes on to say:

It's outrageous. People should be upset about that, and the chiefs are [upset].

There are linkages of millions of dollars in foreign funding going into anti-energy campaigns in B.C., including for the explicit purpose of imposing Bill C-48 on B.C.'s north coast. I think most Canadians probably find that a little bit unbelievable. They don't know and they can't imagine that this could actually be happening.

Since you did mention it, could you expand on the experience of your community?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Yes, and whether or not there was consultation on the development of Bill C-48.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for being here.

As a member of Parliament from northeast Alberta, a big rural area, I certainly always enjoy the times when we can celebrate the ways in which indigenous communities are partners and owners in resource development. There are so many examples in the communities that I represent in Lakeland and that neighbour my riding to the north in Alberta.

I regret that we have limited time here. We have so many witnesses and such complex issues that our time is going to be limited.

Mayor Helin, I thank you for being here. Could you shed a little bit more light for the committee on your experience in terms of the development of Bill C-48, which you cited at the closing of your comments?

I'm just trying to get some clarity on a discrepancy of claims here. Last week, my office received a reply to an Order Paper question, and it said:

The Minister of Transport engaged directly with Indigenous groups.... The government held 20 meetings with Indigenous groups, including the Lax Kw'alaams....

However, a department official from Indigenous Services Canada said at this committee last week that he wasn't aware of or involved in any consultations with indigenous people before the Prime Minister imposed that initial ban after he was elected.

Can you just help me figure out what this discrepancy is? Maybe they met with your community on other issues not related to Bill C-48?

[Garnett Genuis]

Okay. It seems pretty obvious, then, that policies like the offshore drilling moratorium in the Arctic, like Bill C-69, like Bill C-48, like the tanker exclusion zone, would have a significant impact on indigenous communities and on their ability to provide for their own communities through economic development, which they may well have planned, and in many cases did plan, in advance of the introduction of those policies.

Let me drill down on a few of those examples.

What consultation happened by the government before the imposition of the tanker exclusion zone? I'm talking about before Bill C-48 was actually proposed, when the Prime Minister first came into office and introduced the tanker exclusion zone.

Carbon Pricing

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is the Liberals who are making pollution free again by mass exemptions to industrial emitters and dumping sewage into the ocean.

The Prime Minister has no concept of managing money because he inherited, in his words, a great “family fortune”. According to his own government's documents, the Liberal carbon tax is expected to cost a family of four up to $5,000 a year. He has already introduced Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. He cannot build a pipeline. How does he now expect that struggling families are going to pay for this?

When will the Prime Minister stop making Canadians pay for his mistakes?

Federal Sustainable Development Act

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

It was Disraeli. Maybe Margaret Thatcher said it afterward, while quoting Disraeli. I think it was Winston Churchill who said that he thought of all these things too, but somebody else got there before him and said it first.

As well, part of sustainable policy is not painting ourselves into a corner, not making decisions that limit our options and restrict our ability to move forward in a way that we would see as constructive and making a difference in the way we would like them to.

If we look at the record of the government with respect to sustainability, we see it failing on every front. The Prime Minister has failed to deliver effective, sustainable policy, and unfortunately, those failures are imposing major costs on Canadians.

Canadians realize that they are paying for the failures of the Prime Minister. He is failing to deliver sustainable policy, and the result of this failure is going to have negative impacts on the present and the future. There are going to be future tax increases. The government's failure to budget and plan for the challenges of the future will necessarily mean, as night follows day, higher taxes and higher costs in the future, especially if the government is re-elected. Canadians cannot afford the tax increases the government is planning on so many different fronts.

The government is failing us on the issue of environmental sustainability. It is failing on energy sustainability. It is failing on fiscal sustainability. It is failing to take the steps necessary to develop a sustainable economy. It is failing to put in place strong policies for the sustainability and strength of our immigration system. It is failing to develop a foreign policy that reflects the values of sustainability and strength I talked about. It is failing to treat our democratic institutions in a way that preserves them in good health for the future. It is failing to approach the treatment of social institutions in civil society in a way that effectively supports their sustainability.

I believe that this is one of the most, if not the most, capricious governments we have ever seen in the country. It is characterized by reckless experiment, by a lack of a plan and no regard for the future. Canadians are seeing the effects of that series of failures. They are seeing the ways in which the failures of the government impose real, concrete costs on them. The government's failures are costing all of us money and are leading to higher taxes.

Let us talk about some of the particular ways the government has failed to support the development of sustainable policy across a series of different domains. The first area is environmental sustainability. I spoke to this bill previously. I identified a series of environmental accomplishments by the previous Conservative government. From 2006, the previous government invested over $17 billion to support the environment. There were many different initiatives, and I read them before, so I will not go through all of them. Suffice it to say, we know that there were various polices, such as the green infrastructure fund, the eco-energy retrofit, clean air regulations and significant work in the area of tax relief for green energy generation. There was supporting conservation, supporting national parks, expanding snowmobile and recreation trails to improve access to the environment across the country, encouraging donations of ecologically sensitive lands, supporting family-oriented conservation by providing $3 million to allow the Earth Rangers foundation to expand its ongoing work and investing almost $2 billion in the federal contaminated sites action plan. These are just a brief sampling of the many contributions made in the area of the environment.

However, so often when we talk about the environment, we focus on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. I am proud to note that under the previous Conservative government, greenhouse gas emissions went down. I wish the Liberals were applauding. They are not. Maybe they wish it were not true. My friend from Spadina—Fort York clearly has not learned anything, because he has said that it was only because of the recession. The reality is that emissions went down while the economy grew in Canada. Meanwhile, compared to the rest of the world, other parts of the world were more severely hit by the recession, yet global emissions went up during the same period. Therefore, it is hard to use the recession to explain the reduction in emissions when in fact what was happening in Canada was that emissions were going down while the economy was growing.

The member for Spadina—Fort York and other Liberals seem to think the only way we can reduce emissions is by having a recession. It follows that they, through their carbon tax, are trying to engineer a situation in which they think emissions will go down, and they are hurting the economy in the process.

Conservatives believe that we can actually have economic growth and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Why do we believe that? It is because we have looked at our own record in this country. We have seen how it happens.

Another thing my friend from Spadina—Fort York likes to do when we have these conversations is to say that it was only because of the wisdom and foresight of Gerald Butts and Kathleen Wynne in the Ontario provincial government, but the reality is, first of all, that those policies of the Kathleen Wynne government were not that popular, as we saw in the last provincial election. Particularly when it comes to environmental policy, we see that in Canada over the period of the previous Conservative government, emissions went down, or they went up by less, in every single jurisdiction. Meanwhile, we had economic growth. It is hard to say that it was only because of the policies of provincial governments if we saw improvement with respect to greenhouse gas emissions in every single jurisdiction. These are facts that make members of the government uncomfortable, but they are facts that are easily verifiable nonetheless.

We have seen the accomplishments of the approach we took. How did we achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions? We chose not to take the punitive approach of the Liberal government, its failed punitive approach, which is to use the environment as an excuse to impose new taxes on Canadians as a way of raising revenue for the government. That was not the road we went down. Instead, we went down a road that we thought was more effective and more sustainable, which was to provide incentives and opportunities along with the appropriate mix of regulations, which were not designed to bring about more revenue for government or engorge the size of the state. Rather, they gave people the opportunity to make environmental improvements. It was a positive, constructive approach, not a punitive approach. It was an approach genuinely focused on the environment and sustainability, not an approach like that of the government, which is to use the environment as an excuse to do what it has really wanted to do all along, which is to raise taxes.

When it comes this area, it is very clear that the Liberals intend to raise taxes further. They have been unwilling to rule out significant increases in carbon taxes after the next election. It is very telling that they do not want to talk about that now, yet they have created a big fiscal hole in the budget. They have positioned themselves for substantial increases in the carbon tax to come.

Canadians are already paying for the failures of the government when it comes to environmental and fiscal policies, but we know that they will pay substantially more. If the Liberals are re-elected, they will significantly increase the carbon tax and other taxes to pay for their failures when it comes to our fiscal policy, but also, they will use their environmental failures as an excuse. When a carbon tax fails to reduce emissions, because we know the carbon tax will not succeed in reducing emissions, they will simply say that they will have to raise the carbon tax further, and that will be their excuse.

On this side of the House, we say no. We say look at the past. Look at other countries that have removed their carbon tax. We can achieve real, concrete progress on the environment in a way that is environmentally and economically sustainable. We can do what we have done in the past, which is reduce emissions, and we can reduce them further in a way that does not use this issue as an excuse to impose punitive taxes on Canadians who are getting by. We want Canadians to not just get by. We want Canadians to be able to get ahead, and to do that, it is important to be reducing their taxes and giving them opportunities to make environmental improvements with things like we had in the past, such as eco-energy home retrofits, not the punitive approach of the government.

We can achieve technological progress. We can do it in a sustainable way instead of in a way that cuts off growth. The Liberals will tell us that the way to improve in terms of the environment is to hold back growth. We think that growth and environmental improvements can happen at the same time.

Let us talk then about why the carbon tax, in particular, will not work. There are a few fairly obvious reasons for this. One of them is elasticity. The theory of the carbon tax is that if a tax is imposed on a particular thing, people who are making economic decisions at the margins will choose less of it. However, that is highly dependent on the elasticity of the particular good we are talking about, or, in other words, how responsive people are to the price of it.

Something like a vacation on a private Caribbean island might be considered a highly elastic good. People tend to be responsive to a price signal, because they can always take a different vacation. They have a choice among different options, so it is a highly elastic good. Of course, a vacation on a private island is only an elastic good if people are paying for it themselves. If people are not paying for it themselves, they are not going to be responsive to a price signal with respect to that. This is just a hypothetical example of something that we might consider to be an elastic good.

An example of an inelastic good would be home heating. People who could afford it would never say that they would not heat their homes anymore, although maybe people in very dire situations would say that, because of the cost of home heating fuel. The only people who would make that decision would be people who could not afford to heat their homes. However, people who could afford it, regardless of the cost, would see it as necessary to heat their homes in the wintertime. People do not stop eating because the price of food has gone up.

When the government imposes a tax, as the government is doing through its carbon tax, on inelastic goods, on things that are necessities of life, the effect is not a reduction in their use. The effect is simply greater cost and greater pain for the taxpayer. The failure of the Prime Minister to see this means not a change in terms of the environment. Rather, it means the imposition of higher costs on Canadians.

What is the alternative? The alternative is trying to improve the productivity and effectiveness of the tools we are using through support for renovations, improvements in productivity, policies that encourage research and development in this area and appropriate targeted regulations.

For example, one can still drive to the grocery store but be able to do it in a more fuel-efficient way. One can have renovations to one's house so that there is less leakage. One can still heat one's home but do it in a way that is costing less and benefiting one's own pocketbook as well as the environment. We can get there, but only if people have the ability to make these renovations and if these technological improvements are happening.

The approach of the government, though, is not to facilitate the kinds of transitions that can actually bring about a change. Rather, it is to impose a punitive tax. That approach ignores the fact that without the change in technology or supports for renovations and other changes, such as the kinds of policies pursued by the former Conservative government, for many people this is simply a tax imposed on something inelastic, something they need and have to pay for regardless.

If the member for Spadina—Fort York wants to heckle, I encourage him to come a little closer so that I can hear what he is saying and respond.

Another issue with the carbon tax that we should think about is the regulatory complexity involved. The advocates of a carbon tax initially talked about it as an opportunity to reduce the regulatory burden. In fact, what we see with the government is the piling on of new regulations, in addition to the carbon tax. It is not proceeding with the tax in a way that even those who support the concept would recommend. The government is imposing a variety of other additional taxes and costs in the process.

I wanted to make another comment, when it comes to the carbon tax, about the whole area of a punitive approach. There is an interesting study that was done. It is classically called the Haifa daycare example. I have referred to it in the House before. This is an experiment that was done. Basically, a daycare centre was frustrated that parents were coming a bit late to pick up their kids.

The daycare decided to do what a traditional first year microeconomics student would recommend, and that was to impose a small fine or a tax on those who came late. What the daycare found was interesting, and that was that the rate of truancy increased after it imposed the fee. Why was that the case? When a punitive approach is imposed, people may sometimes be frustrated by it, but they also may not have a choice in a particular situation. People said that, if they were already late, they might as well be later. This shows the effect of failing to work collaboratively with people in response to a situation and preserve the kind of social incentives around changing behaviour. When a punitive tax is imposed, it reduces one's ability to build a co-operative consent.

The government has really so little credibility on this issue that people are not responding well to it. That is why voters in provincial elections across this country, in New Brunswick, in Ontario and soon in Alberta, are rejecting the carbon tax and calling instead for a more genuinely sustainable, genuinely effective policy.

What is particularly galling about the government's imposition of the carbon tax and why so many everyday Canadians in my constituency are frustrated by it is that it is not applying the carbon tax in nearly the same way or to the same degree to many of Canada's largest emitters. The Liberals do not say they want to have a tax on carbon, but they have other ways of saying it that do not involve the word tax. However, Canadians know the government is imposing a tax on everything that involves the use of carbon emissions—the food we eat, driving, home heating fuel and those sorts of things.

However, at the same time the Liberals are telling Canada's largest emitters that they do not want to impose this tax on them because they realize that having the tax imposed on them will have a negative impact on their bottom line and might hurt their ability to grow and create jobs here in Canada.

If the Liberals recognize that the carbon tax will have a negative impact on their friends, the largest emitters, the people who can afford to hire lobbyists, how is that they fail to recognize the negative impact that the carbon tax has on everybody else? I am speaking of those families in my constituency and other constituencies who are just getting by, who are struggling to get ahead, who want to have more opportunities, who want to have more money at the end of the month left over for themselves and their kids.

If the Liberals understand that the carbon tax is not helping Canada's largest emitters and therefore they want to give them a break, why do they not understand the same thing about those families who are trying to get ahead? Why do they not give those families the same break that they have given to the largest emitters?

We in this caucus want to give all of those people a complete break. We want to make sure that those families who are struggling do have that greater amount that they are looking for left over at the end of the month, so that they can use it for whatever they want, whatever their dreams and aspirations are for their families—to put a little more in the kids' education fund, to be able to take that extra vacation, not necessarily to a private island but maybe just a road trip to visit some members of the family.

If Canadians did not have to pay the carbon tax, they would be so much better off and we could achieve those environmental objectives at the same time. The government perversely understands the negative impact that the carbon tax has on some people, but it is unwilling to do what is right and necessary to help those families who would like to have a bit more in their pockets at the end of the year.

I want to read a number of quotes that highlight the problems with the carbon tax.

The first is from Massimo Bergamini, president of the National Airlines Council of Canada. He said, “A carbon tax is probably the worst tool that you can envisage for aviation if you want to reduce emissions.”

Philip Cross, a Munk senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said our society's shift to new energy sources “will be enabled by radical technological innovations not government tinkering with the tax system. Thinking otherwise reflects a refusal to learn the lessons of how foundational change occurs in our society.”

This is such an important point. The change requires technological change, and it requires the capacity for businesses to innovate. However, we have a government that calls our small businesses tax cheats and imposes punitive taxes on those who are struggling to get ahead, and at the same time gives a holiday to the largest emitters. This is not what is going to bring about a truly sustainable economy.

Dennis Darby, the CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, says, “Canada already has a significant problem attracting investment from both foreign and domestic sources”. The carbon tax “weakens our investment position”.

Jeff Carr, who I am not sure is a relative of the minister of the same name, although probably not, is the environment minister in New Brunswick, and he says the Liberals are bullying New Brunswick over the carbon tax.

We see this kind of effort to impose federal policy on provinces in so many different areas. Make no mistake: the federal government is trying to raise revenue from this. It claims otherwise and yet refuses to take the GST off the carbon tax, so with any provincial carbon tax that is imposed, whether willingly or not, the federal government will be collecting more on top of that. The least the Liberals could have done, if they wanted to help families who are struggling to get ahead, was not impose the GST on top of the carbon tax. Instead, this is a tax on tax for struggling families.

We know why the government is doing this. It is because of its out-of-control deficits. We are already paying in so many different ways for the mistakes of the Prime Minister, and this will continue.

I want to read a quote from Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph. “[T]he federal plan involves adding even more regulations to the mix”. I talked about this before. The promise of a carbon tax allegedly was about removing regulations at the same time. The Liberals are imposing new regulations while increasing the carbon tax, with plans after the next election, as we know, for further dramatic increases to the carbon tax to plug their deficit hole. The quote reads:

[T]he federal plan involves adding even more regulations to the mix—then sticking a carbon tax on top. This looks nothing like what economists have recommended.

In fact the economics literature provides no evidence this would be an efficient approach, and some evidence it would be worse than regulations alone.

There are many other different quotes I could read. I want to read from this article that I found, which I think is quite revealing. It is by Michael Binnion, who is the president of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association. The article is called “I believe in global warming—and even I think carbon taxes are idiotic”. “Idiotic” is a quotation. It says:

Let me preface by saying that I believe the greenhouse effect is real. Therefore, I am for sensible policies that reduce global emissions. Sadly, carbon taxes aren’t sensible if our goal is to reduce global emissions. They cost too much and do too little. So how did we go so wrong on carbon taxes?

Carbon taxation was originally based on a right-wing, free-market theory. The simple idea, to paraphrase Milton Friedman, is that if you tax something, you get less of it. It could elegantly allow the markets to find the most efficient ways to reduce carbon without the need for government regulations. Many respectable conservative-minded people bought into this theory. Let’s look at the reality in practice.

Theoretically, carbon prices are supposed to reduce regulation. However, in every jurisdiction where carbon pricing has been implemented, it doesn’t reduce regulation—it increases it. Carbon-pricing schemes in Europe, California and Canada are all very complicated. The Canadian government just recently introduced 500 new pages of legislation and regulation. Another example, the Alberta Climate Leadership Plan, has a carbon-tax-credit program, but acknowledges the cost of regulatory compliance is likely too high for all but the largest companies.

Let me say parenthetically that this is an area in which we see the failures of this government, which should be sensitive to the needs of small business.

With respect to the Alberta plan imposed by the NDP government there as well, when we talk about a credit program, we see that if the costs of compliance are too high for all but the biggest companies, then we are negatively impacting small business and creating a particular disadvantage and burden for those small businesses. It is not surprising, when we have a government that has called small business owners tax cheats, that when it tried to increase taxes on small business, until it was caught, it had to pull back to some extent from that, although we still saw many policies that had a negative impact on small business through that whole situation.

The article continues:

Another problem is carbon leakage, which occurs when production and investment simply move to jurisdictions without a carbon tax. In this case, emissions are simply displaced in whole or in part.

Carbon leakage is worse than you think, as it can actually increase global emissions. Take the case of Canadian aluminum, which produces only two tonnes of carbon per tonne, versus American aluminum at 11 tonnes of carbon per tonne. In practice, no one should have to explain to an aluminum worker that they lost their job because “after all, we all need to do our part,” only to have global emissions increase 550 per cent as a result. (To generalize this example, Canada’s economy is 70 per cent reliant on trade, and 80 per cent of our trade is with the United States, which has not imposed a carbon tax.)

To try and mitigate carbon leakage, every carbon-pricing scheme uses output-based allocations (OBAs). Industries that are energy intensive and trade exposed (EITE) are given free permits to emit or a carbon-tax rebate to allow them to compete. For example, we would give the aluminum industry a tax exemption for carbon taxes based on its output.

However, as carbon-tax enthusiasts like to point out, people like to avoid taxes, so everyone will lobby for a tax rebate based on complicated formulas and models. Since government determines who will receive these massive subsidies, and how much they will receive, the process is inevitably politicized.

Here is one more point in the article: “The other problem we find in practice: Demand for hydrocarbons is very inelastic.” I did not just make that up.

It continues:

People will pay what it takes to heat their homes and get to work. The Conference Board of Canada found that even a $200/tonne carbon tax would only reduce 12 megatonnes of Canadian emissions before carbon leakage. Global carbon would likely only be reduced by 70 per cent of this amount. Meanwhile, just one large LNG plant could achieve more than that by replacing coal in China with natural gas.

Canada has a global comparative advantage in carbon in many industries because of our high environmental standards. A global approach to capitalizing on Canada’s environmental advantage would yield a double dividend of a stronger economy and a cleaner global environment. Carbon pricing, on the other hand, may create a green paradox—policies meant to reduce emissions that not only eliminate some people’s jobs, but [actually] increase global emissions.

The article concludes:

So why do our left-wing friends love carbon taxes, when they say reducing emissions is their concern? The answer is the epitome of Reagan’s description of government, all wrapped up in one simple, marketable policy: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And, if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

I think the article lays out the arguments very well that, because of the inelasticity of many of the goods that would be implicated in a carbon tax, we can see the government is still not going to get there. However, it is setting the stage for being able to significantly increase the carbon tax. Canadians do not want to see that happen. They do not want the government to impose a carbon tax at all. They do not want to see the big increases in the carbon tax that the government is planning. It is not economically sustainable. It does not move us toward environmental sustainability.

The article talks about new production in areas like LNG displacing the less clean energy production happening in other countries. This would present a great opportunity for reducing global emissions. If we can expand our energy sector in Canada in a way that is clean and involves respecting the human rights of workers—something that happens here in Canada and does not happen in other oil-producing jurisdictions around the world—then we will have done a great deal for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

That is what a sustainable environmental policy would look like. Let us think about building things that are sustainable, about building and growing for sustainability, not cutting our economy off at the knees, not taking a punitive approach and not imposing new taxes on those who cannot afford it while giving breaks to those who have high-priced lobbyists and connections, those who, like the Prime Minister, do not have to worry about money too much.

There is more we can do when it comes to improving our environment. Our leader just made an announcement about how a Conservative government under his leadership would work to end the practice of raw sewage being dumped into Canadian waterways. That seems, intuitively, like a pretty obvious thing we should be working toward. I know it is deeply frustrating to people in my province who believe in the environment and sustainability to see the government allow its friends at the local level to dump raw sewage, with all its associated negative impacts on the environment.

It was quite striking how the environment minister allowed former Liberal MP, former mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre, while he was the mayor, to dump raw sewage into the St. Lawrence Seaway. At the same time the mayor was saying all kinds of terrible things about Alberta's energy sector. He was concerned that if there was a pipeline it might involve some accidental leakage of products of our energy resources. Meanwhile, he was petitioning the government to allow him to intentionally dump raw sewage. We are not talking about an accidental leak. We are talking about the intentional pouring of raw sewage from Montreal into the St. Lawrence Seaway.

That is something a Conservative government, led by our leader, would confront. That is real environmental policy. That is an effective way of moving us toward sustainability. It is so galling when people see the hypocrisy that somehow a single mom driving her kids to soccer or buying groceries has to pay more because it is apparently her part for the environment, whereas Liberal politicians dumping raw sewage into our waterways is totally fine.

Canadians object to that hypocrisy. We need a proper understanding of sustainability, of sustainable policy, and that is what we will deliver, not an excuse for raising taxes. We see how the government is failing when it comes to developing environmentally sustainable policies. It is using this area as an excuse to simply raise taxes.

Having spoken about environmental sustainability, I would like to talk a bit about building a sustainable energy system for our country.

As the member of Parliament for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta but also as a grandson of an engineer who worked for Syncrude in the oil and gas sector, I am very proud of Alberta's and Canada's energy sector. There are some politicians who seem embarrassed about it. They should not be. They should be proud of the technological, environmental and human accomplishments of that sector. I am proud of the legacy of my grandfather, of my province and of the country.

This is not just something that matters for Albertans. Our energy sector matters for all Canadians. All Canadians benefit from it. Albertans are happy to pay their fair share of taxes and see that money go toward helping encourage economic development and opportunity across the country.

Many Canadians who may not even know it benefit from the energy sector. People are working building pallets in Ontario, pallets that are then used to move material in our energy sector. Then there are the many people who commute. Think about the young man from Montreal who earned enough money to start a business back home, who worked in Alberta, came home and used the money to start a business employing people in Montreal. Think about the young woman from the Maritimes who was the first in her family to get an education, who had the financial security to do so because she was able to spend a few years working in the oil and gas sector. These are people from across the country who benefited from our energy sector, who were then able to build on that to create more jobs and opportunities in their regions of the country.

This is exactly what Canadians could and should be proud of, yet we have a Prime Minister who talks negatively about the impact of male construction workers who are working hard to provide for their families. Canadians found the Prime Minister's comments about male construction workers offensive. After all, these are not guys who get to sit in a heated building all day, getting paid to give their opinions. These are people who work outside in the cold, day in and day out, who are building this country. They are men and women, but in the particular example the Prime Minister used he was talking derisively about male construction workers.

The contributions to our economy and our communities that are made by working men and women should not be dismissed by a Prime Minister who had the benefit of a trust fund. These are people whose economic reality is totally different from his. The Prime Minister does not worry about their economic well-being because he never had to worry about his own, but these are people who understand what it means to pay the price for their government's failure. When new and higher taxes are imposed on them, they understand.

People in Alberta are seeing the impact of bad policies at the provincial and federal levels, but especially at the federal level, that impose new taxes on them and seek to hold them back. At every turn, the government seems embarrassed about our national success when it comes to our energy sector.

We need a Prime Minister who is not embarrassed about our energy sector. We need a Prime Minister who believes in promoting the energy sector, recognizing and promoting its successes, and who understands that a strong and sustainable energy sector is good for Canada, good for every region of Canada, good for the economy and good for the environment. The technology we develop in the oil sands can be employed around the world and the greatest possible engine for a reduction in emissions is the technological change that comes through the innovation that is happening and will continue to happen.

Unfortunately, we have a government that in many respects has a colonial mentality toward Alberta. Liberals do not take the concerns of Alberta seriously and feel they can simply govern Alberta without considering the priorities and needs of the people in my province. Our province deserves recognition and respect. Unfortunately, we have seen so little from members of the government caucus who come from Alberta. Bizarrely, we see them voting with the government against pipeline projects.

There was an opposition day supporting a major pipeline project and every single member of the government caucus, including members from Alberta, voted against that. These are people who told their constituents that they would come to Ottawa and stand up for Alberta, but they have done the exact opposite. Instead, they happily parrot the government lines with respect to our energy sector and they do not stand up for their province.

Again, it is not just Alberta that benefits from a strong energy sector. There are opportunities that spread to all regions of this country that come from having a strong energy sector. There is the benefit of people working in Alberta and bringing resources, know-how and experience back home. There are the people who work in manufacturing and value-added processes and who produce components for the energy sector or work in the area of value-added that happens afterwards.

It is interesting how the government talks about my province. It says it can give a little money here and a little money there, and very often its efforts of so-called financial support are paltry in terms of the sums. I think it was maybe budget 2017 that gave $30 million to Alberta, which is about as much as the executives at Bombardier were paid in bonuses at the same time they received a massive subsidy from the Liberal government. The sums are a pretty clear demonstration of the lack of priority that the energy sector receives from the government.

The other issue is that Albertans and people in the energy sector across the country are not looking for a little extra cash. They are looking for the opportunity to work in the energy sector. They are looking for the kinds of policies that allow the private sector-driven energy development that we have benefited from for so long to continue.

A lot of the discussion of how we build and strengthen our energy sector has recently come around the issue of pipelines. Let us review the record, often misstated in the House, when it comes to pipelines. Under the previous Conservative government, four pipelines were approved and built, and a fifth was approved with conditions but not yet built. The four pipelines built were Enbridge's Alberta Clipper, Kinder Morgan's Anchor Loop, Enbridge's Line 9 reversal and TransCanada's Keystone pipeline, which is different from Keystone XL. Northern gateway was approved, and Keystone XL was pushed hard but rejected by the American administration throughout that period.

Significant achievements were made by the Conservatives when it comes to pipelines, yet the Liberal government, bizarrely, tries to talk out of both sides of its mouth on this pipeline issue. It will sometimes oppose pipelines in its communications and other times it will suggest that the Conservatives did not build enough pipelines. Let us be clear, though, that the Conservatives approved pipeline projects that were proposed. Our friends across the way would like us to stop pipeline projects that are proposed while approving pipeline projects that have not been proposed, which I think quite clearly shows a lack of understanding of the process.

What did Liberals do on pipelines? Right out of the gate, they made sure northern gateway could not proceed. They killed northern gateway and then brought forward legislation, Bill C-48, that created a tanker exclusion zone, effectively saying that Canada's energy resources could not be exported from the Alaskan border in the north to the northern tip of Vancouver Island. The effect of this exclusion zone would be, as long as it stays in place, to prevent any kind of pipeline project, regardless of who proposes it. New ideas have come forward since for new pipeline projects. For instance, indigenous communities have been actively engaged in saying they want a pipeline and want to be involved in building a pipeline, yet this is something, because of Bill C-48, that until we see a new government could not proceed.

In one letter that I read in the previous sitting of Parliament, these policies were called eco-colonialist by members of a Canadian first nation community. The government is using the environment as an excuse to impose on them policies that they do not want, to prevent them from developing their energy resources and benefiting from the prosperity associated with it.

The Liberal government used Bill C-48 and other tools to shut off the northern gateway pipeline and then imposed many new conditions to try to prevent the progress of any east-west pipeline in this country. However, after all of this, it actually wanted to look like it was playing the other side too.

The government is so disingenuous on pipelines. It is always trying to pretend to be on both sides of the question at the same time. At least with the NDP, people know what they are getting on pipelines. With the Green Party, people know what they are getting on pipelines. With the Liberals, by now, people also know what they are getting on pipelines. However, the government is not prepared to acknowledge that.

The government said that in the case of the Trans Mountain pipeline, it was not going to take the steps to allow the pipeline to proceed, but it was going to buy it. It was going to buy it without building it. People in my constituency would rather that we built it without buying it. That would have been better for the economy and less expensive for the taxpayer.

This is another example of the Prime Minister's failures. There is $4.5 billion going to a Texas-based company, which will use that money to invest in energy infrastructure in other places, not here in Canada, and to create jobs in other places, not here in Canada. Meanwhile, that company is enjoying the benefit of Canadian taxpayer dollars, and our government owns a pipeline that it does not have a plan to build.

Canadians are paying for the Prime Minister's failures. That $4.5 billion was not his money. I know he has a large trust fund, but the pipeline did not come from the trust fund. The purchase of that pipeline came from the increasing taxes that are being paid by Canadians at home who are struggling to get ahead.

The failures of the Prime Minister and the cost those failures impose on Canadians make it harder for people at home who are struggling to get ahead. This failure, in terms of the pipeline purchase with no plan to actually get it built, is yet another example of the clear, ongoing, significant failures of the government when it comes to developing sustainable energy policy.

What would a sustainable energy policy look like for this country? I would say it would look like strong transportation networks that allow us to get our resources to market and allow us to get our resources to market in the most environmentally friendly way. Pipeline transportation, of the available methods for transportation, imposes the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in the process. Why would those who claim to be concerned about emissions not actually support the development of pipelines?

There is also an opportunity in terms of the sustainability of global security when it comes to our energy resource. It was interesting to read the CBC talking about the prospective ambassador to Canada from Japan, noting how there is a real opportunity for Canada to focus more on its relationship with Japan. Hopefully we do not send John McCallum there as an ambassador, but there is an opportunity to deepen our relationship with Japan.

Japan is a country that imports the vast majority of its energy resources, and most of that is coming from the Middle East through the South China Sea. The opportunity is there for an alternative, a greater export of Canadian energy resources to Japan. I think I mentioned that I spent some time over the break in Taiwan; there is a similar opportunity for partnership in Taiwan.

If Canada can be an agent for helping to facilitate greater energy security for our like-minded democratic partners in the Indo-Pacific region, it is a great opportunity for us economically and it is a great opportunity environmentally, given how clean our energy production is, but it is also an opportunity from a global security perspective, so that these countries, these partners of ours, are not potentially vulnerable to intervention in their energy supply, which is something they obviously have to consider when it comes to their security.

One of the things that particularly frustrates my constituents when it comes to our energy resources is this area of foreign interference. The debate around how Canada develops its energy resources, how we transport our energy resources, how we use them and how we preserve the natural environment that we have been given are decisions that should be made by Canadians for Canadians, and we have every ability to make those evaluations in a responsible way. However, we continually see efforts by interest groups and entities outside of Canada to interfere with the development of our energy resources and to inappropriately influence the direction of our debates.

By the way, recognizing the problem of foreign interference in our democratic process is seen other areas. It is something that, strikingly enough, the foreign affairs minister has talked about in the past in recognizing the problem of foreign interference.

We have called for strong legislative action around things like foreign interference in elections, for example, but the government in its election bill, Bill C-76, failed to put in place any effective mechanisms to prevent foreign interference in our elections. While facially trying to block that from happening, the bill would actually allow a Canadian entity to receive money from abroad and then, as long as it receives some money from Canada, to mix that money together and use all of it in the context of a Canadian election.

If there is a hypothetical association in Canada that receives $10 million from an energy competitor and a Canadian donates $5 and that association then uses that $10 million plus $5 to be involved in the Canadian election, that is totally legal under Bill C-76 as long as the money came from abroad before the election period.

It is not hard to see what is going on here. It is not hard to see that the system that was put in place by Bill C-76 allows foreign money to come into this country and oppose the development of our energy resources, against the interests and wishes of most Canadians.

The Liberal government's failure in Bill C-76 to actually address the issue of foreign interference has significant negative impact on our economy. It tilts the discussion in our election debate when millions of dollars coming in from abroad are negatively impacting the discussion. Again, these are decisions that should be made by Canadians for Canadians. We have all of the tools here in Canada to make these decisions.

Another issue to consider in terms of foreign interference is the way in which consultations proceed for the development of our natural resource projects. Consultation is important in the development of any natural resource project. That consultation should hear from those who would be affected by the project, and we should certainly also hear from those who have expertise on the project. The approach that the government is taking with respect to consultation would effectively allow anyone and everyone—foreign interests without any direct expertise—to be able to slow down the process.

Let us have these debates here in Canada and let us make sure that we do not have this foreign interference any longer. It is deeply frustrating to my constituents and to many Canadians that our energy debates can be manipulated by foreign interests whose own economic interests are very different from ours, and yet the government is not doing anything to address that very serious problem.

What does it take to build a strong, sustainable energy sector, an energy sector that allows us to pass a strong environment and economy on to the next generation? We need to be proud of our energy sector. We need to build on those successes. We need to facilitate development of the energy sector while taking further steps by creating the right incentives for further improvement.

That does not mean imposing a punitive tax. That does not mean criticizing the energy sector. That does not mean being embarrassed by it. It means standing up for the jobs and the opportunities that are associated with that sector. I am proud to be part of a party that does that, a party that believes that Canadians want to get ahead. That means having opportunities in a variety of different sectors, and one of the key sectors is certainly the energy sector.

The clearest way in which we see the failures of the Liberal government when it comes to sustainable policies is in its failures around fiscal sustainability. This is a very clear-cut issue. We need to have a budget, a budget plan, that is sustainable in the long term, which means recognizing that whatever we spend today, we will have to pay for either today or tomorrow, and if we do not have to pay for it, then our children will have to pay for it.

Fiscal sustainability means recognizing that reality. It means balancing the budget or having a long-term plan that may involve deficits in some years, surpluses in others, but in aggregate is balanced over the medium and long term. Yes, it involves the occasional deficit in cases of severe global recession, perhaps armed conflict or natural disasters, but it does not, as a matter of course, mean just running deficits all the time. That is clearly unsustainable public policy. However, the Liberals do not understand this. They are imposing significant costs on Canadians through their out-of-control deficits, and make no mistake, we will have to pay for these deficits. If we do not pay for them now, we will have to pay for them later.

If the Liberals receive another mandate, we know they will increase taxes. They will increase the carbon tax. They will increase other taxes. They will increase taxes because they have to, as they have no fiscal plan and no capacity—no interest, even—in balancing the budget.

We have to balance the budget. We have to ensure that we have a fiscal sustainability plan.

I will make a few points clear about the government with respect to fiscal sustainability.

First, the Liberals promised during the last election that they would balance the budget this year. We are in the final year of their four-year mandate. They very clearly promised that they would balance the budget. They have no excuse for making one promise before the election and doing the opposite afterward. All the figures were public, all the information was there, and there has not been the sort of global recession that we have seen in the past. In the absence of dramatic, unforeseeable changes in the economy, and recognizing that all of the figures and information were public, they should have known and been able to act according to the plan they made. If they did not think it was good policy or that it was realistic to balance the budget in four years—even though it was already balanced at the time they took office—then they could have said so. However, they promised no more than $10-billion deficits for the first three years and a balanced budget in the fourth year. They failed to deliver on that, and now Canadians realize that since higher deficits lead to higher taxes, people who are struggling to get ahead will have to pay for the failures of the Prime Minister when it comes to delivering on the promises he made in the last election. That was a promise made by the government that it failed to deliver on.

When we do not balance budgets, it means that money that could have been going to social programs to help the vulnerable, to fighting poverty, to increasing opportunity, to cutting taxes for Canadians. Instead, that money has to be used to pay interest on debt that was accumulated previously.

The government talks about investing in Canadians and programs, but we could invest a lot more if we do not have to pay interest on debt. If we did not have the debt in this country, which was begun in a significant way during peacetime under the Prime Minister's father and which has accumulated and grown dramatically under the current government, then we could invest much more in a balanced budget framework. We could invest much more in my preferred tool, tax reduction, and give Canadians more of their money back so that they would have more left over at the end of the month. However, when we run deficits in perpetuity, when we run up massive debt and have to pay interest on it, it means that in the long term we can invest less and cut taxes less. In fact, as we have seen from the government, it means steady tax increases. When we do not have a fiscally sustainable plan and we know that voters do not want taxes increased, what we see from the government is its attempt to stealthily add tax increases everywhere by removing any kind of reasonable deductions and by adding taxes on the things that previously were not taxed.

The government had been exploring imposing taxes on the kinds of benefits employees receive. For example, if someone worked at a restaurant and received a lunch, he or she would have to pay tax on it. If some one was one of the Prime Minister's favourite male construction workers and received some kind of benefit as part of his time on the job, perhaps a meal, he would have to pay tax on it. Maybe those who had parking and had to commute long distances for work would suddenly have to pay tax on the parking spot.

We were able to push-back against the government. However, it is telling that in this area and in so many others it is trying to impose new taxes on Canadians. That is the product of not having fiscal sustainability. When the government has no plan to balance the budget, it desperately tries to increase taxes in ways it hopes people will not notice. Thankfully, we were able to call it out on that.

I asked an Order Paper question around that time about whether the Prime Minister's free nanny services he received from the taxpayers was considered a taxable benefit. Most Canadians do not receive two free nannies from their employer as a benefit of their work. I have never heard of that happening before. The Prime Minister thinks choice in child care means getting to choose which of the two nannies.

The Liberals, though, are always trying to impose new taxes on Canadians, people who are struggling to get ahead, even while not wanting those same taxes to apply to them. We can look at the approach they took to calling small businesses tax cheats and trying to increase taxes on small businesses. We saw that they were protecting their own fortunes through that process. They were not imposing new taxes on inherited trust funds, for example, but were imposing them on small businesses.

As an opposition over the last three years, we have been able to catch the government in the act on a few of these attempts to raise taxes. We have been able to work together with civil society organizations and the public to ensure the public is aware, working to put that pressure on the government. However, the public has not failed to notice how in every case, because of the lack of fiscal sustainability, because the government has no plan to balance the budget, the consequence of that is to try to impose new taxes at every turn. It is particularly instructive what the Liberals did with the small business tax rate.

The Conservatives were reducing the small business tax rate. We had a reduction to 9% booked in. Actually, in the last election, all three of the major parties, Conservatives, Liberal and NDP, agreed. In their platforms, they said that they would go to that 9% small business tax rate. The government reversed course. When it took power, it said that it would not reduce the small business tax rate, given that those plans had been booked in, effectively increasing the tax rate on small businesses.

Then the Liberals called small businesses tax cheats, attacked them and tried to propose all kinds of new ways to attack them. In response to the overwhelming response from small businesses, these great job creators, entrepreneurs who are driving the economic success of the country, in response to the objections from this community, they said that they would bring back the 9% plan. It is interesting that the government is as indecisive about the small business tax rate as some of its members are about their resignation dates.

This should not hide the general failures of the government when it comes to small business. At every turn, whether on individuals, families, people who use public transit, take their kids to sports or buy groceries, the government is increasing taxes in every way it can, at every opportunity it can, through all the means it can, and will stop at nothing because it has a massive hole in the side of its fiscal plan. We need to give Canadians an alternative to that, one which is actually fiscally sustainable. If we do not get the budget under control, this splurge of tax increases will continue. Canadians are paying for the failure of the government when it comes to the basic fiscal health of the country. Canadians know that higher deficits always mean higher taxes in the long run.

I have one more thing about balancing the budget. The government likes to invoke, directly or indirectly, the economic philosophy of John Maynard Keynes, who talked about stimulative spending in periods of economic challenge. Certainly, there is logic behind the idea of putting money aside during the good years and then stimulating the economy by spending more during challenging times. It ensures that the down periods in the economy are not associated with further cuts to the government. If we are in a healthy fiscal position, then we can have that kind of balance. If we are thinking ahead during the good years, then we are going to have more resources during the challenging years.

However, Canadians and others who advocated that philosophy never said that we could run deficits all the time. No economist thinks that constant never-ending deficits is the way to go. Eventually when we hit hard times, in that scenario, we may be at a point where we just cannot stimulate the economy and in fact we are forced to cut because there is just nowhere else to go.

We cannot run deficits forever. We cannot always spend more than we have. Eventually, we have to pay it back. The longer we leave it, the less we plan, the more we have to pay back in cost and interest at that point. What the government is advancing is not any kind of recognizable doctrine of economic stimulus. It is simply fiscal incontinence and there is a need for actual fiscal control when it comes to this situation. We know what the consequence of this will be. A lack of fiscal control means higher taxes tomorrow. It means Canadians paying for what the government has done.

Often when we have these discussions about debt and deficits, the government will talk about the debt-to-GDP ratio, saying that it is lower than other countries and so we are fine. However, what the government misses in those calculations is looking at the total debt-to-GDP ratio. It generally only looks at the federal debt-to-GDP ratio. Canada, as members know, is a country where many services are delivered at the subnational level. That is different from some other countries where a greater proportion of public services are delivered at the national level.

It is not at all an apples-to-apples comparison when comparing the federal debt-to-GDP ratio in Canada with the federal debt-to-GDP ratio in other jurisdictions. It makes more sense to compare our total government debt-to-GDP ratio to the total government debt-to-GDP ratio in other countries. If we make that comparison, we can see that Canadian debt is a real problem, that we have a total government debt-to-GDP ratio that is higher. It is at a level that is quite concerning. We are in a situation where what goes up must come down. What we pay in must be paid off at some point.

The Prime Minister and the finance minister are not at all what worried about this. They say that it is totally fine. Why is that? The Prime Minister has never had to worry about money himself, so he is not worried about ours. We see that. The Prime Minister is not thinking in a pragmatic, practical way about balancing the budget because that has never been part of his reality.

The people who I talk to in my constituency understand why the government has to balance the budget. Why? Because they have to balance theirs. Sure, they understand that during hard times maybe we will have to run a deficit and pay it off during good times. We save so we are prepared for a rainy day. There is some ebb and flow. This means that during a global financial crisis maybe we run a deficit, but we get back to a balanced budget and we pay off debt. People understand that. They also understand that we cannot just keep running up the credit card bill. We cannot just keep getting more and more credit cards and all will be fine in the end. That is not how it works. Canadians understand because they are already paying for the failures of the government. They understand that we cannot run up the credit card bill in perpetuity.

The Prime Minister does not understand that though. That has never been part of his reality. Therefore, when it comes to his approach to governing the country, there is no limit to what he is prepared to spend, especially on himself, on breaks for insiders and those who are well connected. He does not understand the need for balance. He does not understand the experience, which is real to most of my constituents and to everyday Canadians, which is needing to pay for the things they want and realizing they just cannot spend more than they have.

To summarize this point, we have a government that is pursuing a policy of unsustainable spending, and that will have consequences. The failure of the government to have a sustainable balance sheet will mean more costs and more taxes. It will mean the Prime Minister, if he is re-elected, will try and make life more difficult by imposing those taxes on Canadians, by increasing the carbon tax and other taxes. He will do it in the future because he has done it in the past. Perhaps he will say not to worry, that he will not increase taxes. In the last election, we heard there would be a balanced budget and that did not happen. He refuses even now to rule out significant increases to the carbon tax. This is the consequence of an unsustainable fiscal policy.

On a more broad level, we have seen a failure by the government to pursue an economic policy, a policy for productivity and growth that is sustainable. What are the characteristics of a sustainable economic policy? There are many, but what we would look for is a positive investment climate. We would look for a situation where companies from around the world say that Canada is a place they want to invest. We had that previously. Under the previous Conservative government, Canada had the best economic growth, the lowest business tax rate and the lowest unemployment in the G7. Despite the global financial crisis we saw the success of those policies, making Canada a positive investment climate.

This is not just some abstraction. This has real consequences for those Canadians who are trying to get ahead. When we have a positive investment climate in Canada, it means Canadians can be employed, because companies are bringing money here from abroad, starting businesses and offering jobs to Canadians. People who were previously unemployed are able to work and people who are working are able to get higher paying employment. They are able to have a little more money left at the end of the month. Therefore, a positive investment climate has concrete consequences.

On this side of the House, we want Canadians to get ahead. On the other side of the House, we see policies that are making Canadians pay more and more. A positive investment climate is important for a strong and sustainable economy.

Growing productivity, the growing capacity of workers, through technological improvements and investments, to be able to produce more in the time they spend at work is key for a strong economy. Economic sustainability also invites us to consider how well everyone is doing, not just a few but everyone. That is why we should look at tax reductions, especially targeted tax relief to those who need it the most.

Under the Prime Minister, Canadians are paying more. Canadians in the middle and at the bottom are paying more. They are paying more because of the carbon tax, because of things like the elimination of the transit tax credit and the tax credit on kids' sports. The increases in taxes we are seeing from the government are forcing Canadians to pay more, especially because we see the government willing to give breaks to large emitters, breaks to their friends at the top and subsidies through things like superclusters to those who are well connected. That exacerbates inequality.

Our approach is targeted tax relief to those who need it the most. We lowered the GST, a tax that all Canadians pay. We lowered the lowest marginal tax rate. We raised the base personal exemption. We targeted income and consumption tax reductions to those who needed it the most. We worked hard to ensure that those who were working to get ahead had a little more in their pockets. Under the Liberal government, that cannot happen because those same people have to pay more as a result of the failures of the government.

We need to take steps around economic equality, growing productivity and creating a positive investment climate to build a strong and sustainable economy. A big part of that means rewards for risk-taking. It means facilitating strong small businesses.

When it comes to supporting businesses, the government's approach is to give corporate welfare to well-connected insiders and friends of the government. Our approach was to try to create an environment where anyone, regardless of his or her connections, could start and grow a business, recognizing the power of small business as the engine of growth in this country.

Last summer, we had a very unfortunate situation. I think the tone and the policy from the current government put a real chill on those looking to start investing in this country. During the most focused attack on small business by the government, I talked to business owners in my riding. They were so frustrated. These are people who had given their lives to working in the small business sector. They said they were not encouraging their kids to go down the same road, or they were having a hard time encouraging their kids to go down the same road. They said that, although they love what they are doing, the piling on of new taxes, regulations and all the different tips and tricks by the government is making it harder for them to build and create jobs. The consequence is that they are not sure if they would recommend it to one of their children or to somebody else if asked. That is the effect of the approach of the current government.

When small businesses are not as able to make investments and grow the economy, when they are called tax cheats by the current government, then they choose not to make those investments or perhaps choose to make them elsewhere. That hurts the productivity of our economy. That reduces the jobs and the opportunities that are available. When we are looking for the tools that allow Canadians who are struggling to be able to get ahead, that requires more entrepreneurs creating jobs, more opportunities for employment and more competition among employers for workers.

When the Alberta economy was booming, there was real competition among employers, who were paying workers more and more as a result of how energetic the economy was. That obviously created some challenges for employers, but it created a lot of opportunities for people across the country who wanted to come and work in Alberta. However, when the government is continually making life more difficult for small business, it hurts its ability to get ahead and hurts the ability of its workers to get ahead.

We recognize that the government itself does not create jobs but creates the climate in which job creation could happen or in which job creation cannot happen. Right now, we have a government that, through its failure, is creating a climate in which it is that much harder for small business. That has real consequences for Canadians in terms of what they have to pay.

The government's approach is to support business through corporate welfare. It has superclusters, specials deals and government subsidies. It even gave government money to a company that said it did not really need it but it would be a great boost of confidence and it would love to have it. I am sure a lot of Canadians at home were thinking they would love to have a bit of extra money also. It is money that could have gone to tax reductions for Canadians, not just to boost the pockets of some of these well-connected companies. The top job creators in this country, the largest companies, are not big recipients of corporate welfare, for the most part. However, the current government does not understand that.

I say this. Instead of giving corporate welfare cheques to companies taking jobs and opportunity out of Canada, let us build an investment climate where people want to invest in Canada. We have seen this as well under the current government. We have seen the current government give big corporate welfare cheques to companies. Then we see those companies moving jobs outside of the country. Therefore, instead of giving money to companies that are moving jobs out of the country, let us create a climate in which taxes are low, regulation is streamlined and companies want to make investments in Canada. That has positive consequences for Canadians getting ahead, unlike the failures of the current government, which are imposing greater costs on those Canadians who are trying to get ahead.

On this side of the House, we believe that a sustainable economy is one with strong fundamentals. That, of course, requires the fiscal health of our economy to be strong. Investors can also look at the high deficits being run by the government, and they can see that the government intends to increase their taxes. Any potential international investor knows what all of us should know—even those who do not want to admit it—which is that higher deficits lead to higher taxes.

Investors can see that if they invest in Canada today and the government does not have a plan to balance the budget, inevitably they and all of us will have to bear the impact of eventual tax increases. Our economy simply cannot afford the Prime Minister for much longer. Our economy cannot afford to pay for the mistakes being made by the Prime Minister.

Having spoken about the sustainability of our economy, our fiscal situation, our energy sector and our environment, I would like to discuss the criteria for building a sustainable immigration system, a system that has the confidence of Canadians, that can build, grow and work for a long time into the future.

Historically, we have had a very successful immigration system here in Canada. We have had a system that was orderly, was compassionate and emphasized legal immigration. I am very proud to be part of a party that, while in government, had the highest sustained immigration levels in Canada's history up to that point. I am also proud to be part of a family that has benefited from Canada's immigration system. My wife's parents came to Canada from Pakistan. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, a refugee who ended up in Canada by way of South America.

Many of us, in our families, have benefited from the opportunities that come from Canada's immigration system, whether that be the humanitarian aspect, refugees, or the economic opportunities that are available to those who simply came here seeking a better life economically.

We benefit from a pro-immigration consensus in this country, and Canadians want us to get it right. They want us to get the details right, so that the immigration system works, is sustainable, everybody can benefit, and so that it works for those who are coming and for those who are already here.

We see how Liberals are, frankly, desperate to divide people on this issue, but the fact is that honest debate and discussion about how we get it right, how we ensure our immigration system is sustainable, by being orderly, compassionate and legal, is particularly important.

The government has not appropriately recognized the need to deal with the growing problem under its watch of illegal immigration, of people not going through the channels that are in place for application but are instead coming across the border from the United States, claiming asylum, even though the United States is well established and recognized by the UN to already be a safe country.

How did this happen? It happened, initially, in large part, because the Prime Minister put out a tweet that created misinformation around our immigration system. It implied that anyone and everyone could just show up here, and everything would be fine. Instead, the Prime Minister should be communicating in a clear tone about the importance of going through proper channels.

What we want is a sustainable immigration system that can work and that will work over the long term. A sustainable immigration system is one in which the channels that exist are working and functioning well, and in which people are using those channels. However, people lose confidence in our immigration system when they see people being able to come into the country and not follow the process.

How frustrating it must be for those many Canadians who are hoping to bring a family member from abroad, and that person does not happen to be in the United States and so cannot just walk across the border. People cannot just walk across the border if they are in India or China or the Philippines or anywhere else besides the United States.

Natural Resources

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, our natural resource sector is an important source of good middle-class jobs for all Canadians. We remain committed to a renewed relationship with indigenous peoples based on recognition, respect, co-operation and partnership.

I am delighted to report that many chiefs and leaders of B.C. coastal first nations were in Ottawa last week to express support for Bill C-48 and to express concerns about efforts by “people claiming to represent a unified voice in the northwest whose intentions are to undermine the implementation of the moratorium.”

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are not listening to all indigenous people and they do not speak for all of them, just like when they killed northern gateway and the 31 indigenous partnership. That is why 15 leaders from the National Coalition of Chiefs, the Indian Resource Council and the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council, which represents hundreds of first nations and Métis who want to build their own pipeline, are here today.

The Liberals' oil export ban, Bill C-48, and their no more pipelines, Bill C-69, blocked their way. If the Liberals keep ignoring provinces, economists and industry, will they at least listen to those leaders and to most Treaty 7 chiefs and will they kill their no more pipelines Bill C-69, yes or no?

Federal Sustainable Development Act

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to continue with this important discussion of policies around environmental sustainability. My colleagues in the other parties are saying it is their pleasure. I hope so, because there may be things that they do not hear in the talking points that are sent from the PMO about the accomplishments of the previous government in respect of the environment. It is an opportunity for them to take these things on board and benefit from them as they consider the policies that they are going to pursue. It is a good time for them to consider the contradictions in their discussion of pipelines as it relates to the issue of sustainability.

What did the Liberals do when it came to pipelines? One of their first acts, and their first act with respect to pipelines, was to shut down the northern gateway pipeline project. This is a project that had been approved under the previous government. It would have allowed energy from my province, from very near my riding, to get to the port of Kitimat in northern B.C., access a deep-water port there, and give Canada access to international markets.

This is so important as countries in Asia and other parts of the world think about how to increase their energy security. It is a Canadian economic question, a sustainability question, and it is also a geostrategic question. There are countries in East Asia, for example, Japan, that import most of their energy resources. They get them from the Middle East and they have to travel through the South China Sea.

The opportunities for energy security, for Japan and other countries in East Asia, to benefit from Canadian energy exports are significant. The opportunities for us economically, and the opportunities for them in terms of economic benefit as well as security of that supply are very significant.

The northern gateway project would have allowed us to have access to international markets. For these pipeline projects, from initial filing to being built, we are talking about a time period of three years. Had the Liberal government actually listened to Albertans, listened to Canadians when it came to the benefit of the northern gateway project, we might already be up and running. We might not have to have these challenges that Alberta faces, in terms of the big gap that exists between the oil price in the global market and the price that we are achieving here in North America.

The government has this talking point that is worth responding to in this context, where it will say that most of Canada's oil was being sold to the United States when the previous government took power, and when it left power, most of the oil was still being sold to the United States. The Liberals conveniently forget that the critical steps to reduce our dependency on the United States were in place and that the Liberal government cut those critical steps out at the knees. That was maybe an unhelpful mixing of metaphors, the steps were cut out at the knees.

In any event, the Liberal government cut off that progress that was being made that would have brought us to a point today where we would not have to be dealing with this massive spread in price that is killing jobs in Alberta. The decision to kill the northern gateway pipeline was a policy choice of the Liberal government that weakened our sustainability on so many fronts, and it was one that it must be accountable for.

To add insult to injury, the Liberals decided to pass Bill C-48 which formalized in law a tanker traffic exclusion zone that prohibits the export of our energy resources from anywhere in that zone on the Pacific coast between the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Alaskan border. There are tankers in that area as a result of activity coming off Alaska, but from the Liberal government's perspective, we cannot have it; the Canadians are benefiting from that economic activity, so we have to shut off even the possibility of a future project by bringing in Bill C-48.

Again, the government cannot deny that these were policy choices. It was not good enough just to kill the project, it had to add on another bill designed to make sure no new project could be put forward in place of the northern gateway project. That was the Liberals' intended direct action in the case of the northern gateway pipeline.

What did the government do with the energy east pipeline? In geostrategic terms, this is an idea we should view favourably, to create pipeline linkages to a greater extent between western and eastern Canada to reduce the need for foreign oil to be imported. I would ask environmental activists who are against the construction of pipelines what they are doing about the terrible record of countries like Saudi Arabia when it comes to things like human rights. What are they doing to try to allow Canadian sustainable, well-managed energy resources to displace foreign oil?

As we delve deeper into the need for the government to be articulating plans around sustainability, I hope that with the requirements in Bill C-57 for the government to provide information and government departments to be more engaged on sustainability, we think about the contrast between Canadian sustainability practices of our energy sector and what is happening in other countries, as well as the value of the global impact vis-à-vis sustainability associated with displacing the unsustainable and anti-human rights practices we see in some other countries.

Energy east was an economic project. It was about this country prospering. It was also about saying that we can have nation-building infrastructure which allows the country to prosper together and reduce our dependence on actors which do not share our values and interests.

In the 19th century, it was a Conservative prime minister, John A. Macdonald, who had the vision of a railroad that would make our union sustainable, that would unite our country from coast to coast and allow us to do commerce with each other. Today, pipelines are the nation-building infrastructure of our generation. As we think about the legacy of those who came before us who understood the importance of nation-building infrastructure for our political and economic unity and our prosperity, we need to consider whether or not we are up for the challenge. Can we do the same kinds of things they did? Do we have the vision and the willingness to make nation-building infrastructure happen?

In particular, I know many members of the government caucus elected from the Maritimes are hearing from voters in their ridings about the benefits of nation-building infrastructure that connects western Canada with eastern Canada. Even though the government clearly has an anti-development, anti-pipeline agenda, that is why the government did not want to do as directly with an east-west pipeline what it did with the northern gateway pipeline. Therefore, the government simply piled on conditions in a way that made the project harder and harder to sustain from an economic perspective.

See, it was not that the project itself could not have succeeded economically. Rather, it was that the government sought the opportunity to impose new conditions that would make it impossible to proceed. One can never know with certainty the intentions of the government in this respect, but sometimes past statements are revealing enough.

A tweet I referred to before, which was put out by the Minister of Democratic Institutions before she was elected, talked about land-locking the tar sands. This is obviously deeply offensive language to many Albertans and many across the country. When we see government policy with respect to different pipeline projects that has as its effect the land-locking of our energy resources, the significant expansion of the spread between the world price and the local price and economic devastation for our province being the results of government policy, it is worth comparing that to past statements of a cabinet minister who said that this was something she thought was desirable.

There is an agenda among some to squeeze the Alberta economy and the energy sector in a way that forces a significant reduction in investments in our energy sector and that accepts the job losses. We in the opposition stand against that. We will stand up for our energy sector, which benefits not just one region of the country but benefits the whole country.

The government directly killed the northern gateway pipeline project and it added Bill C-48, to add insult to injury. The Liberals found a way of indirectly killing the northern gateway project, and now they have been pushing forward Bill C-69. Bill C-69 quite clearly is the “no new pipelines” bill. The Liberals are trying to establish the conditions which will make it impossible for us to build the nation-building infrastructure of the 21st century. They have an anti-development agenda which is out of step with the vision of our founders and is out of step with the vision that Canadians want, which is a country that can benefit from commerce done together, where people in eastern Canada can buy energy resources coming from western Canada and they can benefit from the value-added opportunities that are associated with that. In Bill C-69, we see specific policies that will make it harder for Canada to make pipelines. It will make it virtually impossible to see pipelines go forward in the future. That is the record with respect to the pipelines.

I have to add a few comments on the Trans Mountain project. As part of the Liberals' discussion on sustainability, they thought they would try this bait and switch strategy because they know Canadians want to see development of pipelines. On the one hand, the Liberals are killing many projects, but on the other hand, without doing anything to establish conditions for the success of the Trans Mountain pipeline, they decided to buy it. They pretended that buying the existing pipeline would somehow increase its chances of success.

Whether the federal government or the private sector is the owner of the project does not change the fundamental issues, which are the government's refusal to assert federal jurisdiction, the lack of a plan to get it built and the failure of the government to appeal a court decision. There would have been nothing wrong with appealing a court decision that blocked construction from beginning on this project, yet we see, despite spending $4.5 billion of taxpayer money and despite sending money to an oil company that will now use that money to invest in energy infrastructure outside of Canada, the Liberals still have absolutely no plan. They refuse to appeal a court decision with respect to this decision and they are piling on policies that make it difficult for this to happen in the future.

There is this deeply dishonest set of policies, in the sense that the Liberals are selling a particular policy approach as achieving a result that they do not want to achieve and that they are in fact choosing not to do the things that would much more obviously and directly help us move toward the goal.

When it comes to the government's anti-pipeline agenda, I want to read a few different quotations that underline the problems with Bill C-69, the government's “no more pipelines” bill.

Let us start with someone who is known to many members of Parliament, Martha Hall Findlay, president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. My notes say she is a former Liberal, but she may well still be a Liberal. She was a Liberal leadership contestant twice. What she had to say about Bill C-69 was:

If passed in its current, even amended form, it could set Canada back for many years in terms of attracting investment and overall prosperity – at exactly the time when our competitiveness, particularly vis-a-vis our huge neighbour to the south, is in peril.

We might be in a much better position if she had won that leadership race, because I think Martha Hall Findlay hits the point on the head here. Again, she said with regard to Bill C-69 the following:

If passed in its current, even amended form, it could set Canada back for many years in terms of attracting investment and overall prosperity—at exactly the time when our competitiveness, particularly vis-a-vis our huge neighbour to the south, is in peril.

I worry that the policies of the government are actually designed precisely to achieve that objective. They are designed to make our energy sector less competitive overall. Therefore, the government is achieving its objective, but it is an objective it is not willing to acknowledge. Again, the Liberals persist in wanting to speak on both sides of these questions, but we see concretely in their policy agenda, recognized in that quotation by the Liberal leadership candidate Martha Hall Findlay, that what they would do through Bill C-69 is to undermine Canada's competitiveness. They have already done many different things that undermine our competitiveness, but this is yet another example of that happening.

I will also read what Gordon Christie, University of British Columbia law professor specializing in indigenous law, said about Bill C-69:

But the courts have said for 15 years that you need to have meaningful dialogue [with first nations and] there is nothing in this legislation that seems to do that.

Moreover, with regard to Canada's activity in the north, the government feels that, somehow, without consultation, it can impose its anti-development agenda on Canadians and in particular on indigenous people there.

I will read what Stephen Buffalo, president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council and a member of the Samson Cree Nation said on Bill C-69:

Indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, one that finally allows Indigenous people to share in Canada’s economic prosperity...Bill C-69 will stop this progress in its tracks.

That is a powerful quote from an indigenous leader that, while indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, that would be stopped in its tracks by the no-more-pipelines Bill C-69. That is not a plan that reflects an understanding of sustainability in terms of our national economy. It is not a plan that reflects the need of indigenous communities to be economically sustainable. I think indigenous Canadians want us to support their opportunities for economic development and ensure that they are engaged in the process, as well as ensure that we are working with all communities, including indigenous communities, in respecting environmental stewardship and the importance of environmental sustainability. However, that is not happening under the government. It is persisting with a unilateral and anti-development mentality that holds back our prosperity and that hurts the prosperity of communities all across this country, especially communities in Canada's north that especially benefit from natural resource development.

Mr. Buffalo continued:

Left as it is, Bill C-69 will harm Indigenous economic development, create barriers to decision-making, and make Canada unattractive for resource investment. This legislation must be stopped immediately.

Mr. Buffalo also said:

We find it ironic and upsetting that the prime minister who has repeatedly said that the federal relationship with Indigenous peoples will be the defining characteristic of his government will be the one snatching opportunity and prosperity from our grasp.

He went to call on the government to “pull Bill C-69 from its legislative calendar”.

We see this recognition of the negative impacts associated with Bill C-69 from even the NDP premier of Alberta, Rachel Notley, someone I do not quote often. She said that “Bill C-69 in its current form stands to hurt that competitive position”.

Wow, it must be an election year or maybe there is a sincere conversion going on.

Moreover, the Quebec Mining Association says, “The time limits introduced by the bill will be enough to discourage mining companies and weaken Quebec and Canada in relation to other more attractive jurisdictions.”

We are hearing so much opposition to this bill, not just from energy companies, energy workers and Conservative politicians, but also from Liberals, New Democrats, indigenous leaders and people in every region of this country. The approach in Bill C-69 is not one that recognizes the appropriate balance required for sustainable environmental and economic policy. It is not one that recognizes the benefits that can be achieved by facilitating economic growth in a way that advances our environmental situation as well.

What is the justification for the government's ill-considered environmental policy? It speaks often about the importance of responding to climate change, and I think all of us in the House agree on that. I have spoken today about the real concrete achievements that were advanced under the previous government with respect to environmental change and greenhouse gas emission reductions. When it comes to assessing our sustainability obligations, we need to look at real results and outcomes, not just at the rhetoric.

Part of why the Conservative opposition supported Bill C-57 was that it would provide an opportunity for greater reporting across a greater number of departments and more mechanisms for holding the government accountable for what are demonstrable failures in the area of sustainability. With the kind of reporting mechanism called for in a committee report and that is now moving forward in Bill C-57, people will see more clearly the failures of the Liberal government in achieving our objectives.

When we think about the government's rhetoric around greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability, there is actually a real dissonance between the realities of what it talks about in terms of our international targets and the mechanisms it is putting forward. In that context, I want to make a few comments on the Paris accord.

The Paris Accord establishes a framework that comes out of the Copenhagen, which of course was one that the previous Conservative government was a part of and played a very constructive role in supporting. That process was to recognize the need for all countries to be involved, and the value of having nationally determined targets and clear and transparent reporting around those nationally determined targets. The second section of the Paris Accord speaks specifically of the issue of intended nationally determined targets and creates a mechanism whereby nations would provide reporting internationally on that.

It has been good to have an opportunity to have discussions with constituents on the Paris accord. From time to time, I meet people who are very skeptical about the Paris Accord, but my party recognizes the value of the framework and the differences between the framework we saw in the Paris Accord, for example, and the framework in the Kyoto Accord.

The Kyoto Accord, which was signed by a previous Liberal government that then failed to take any meaningful action toward realizing the goals set under that process, would have involved Canada sending money overseas to buy credits, effectively not reducing our emissions but simply buying credits overseas. That was the policy of the previous Liberal government, which was to do nothing on the environment, but to give money to other countries to buy credits, as if that somehow were a solution.

I do not think that is a sustainable solution by any metric. It is one that is very clearly in the framework of the transparent reporting that is moving forward in Bill C-57. I think that people would be very disappointed about seeing that.

The framework that was put in place was nationally-determined targets, which contrast favourably with what was put in place under the Kyoto protocol. The Copenhagen process, of which the previous government was a part, and the targets we set were targets that involved us taking real action at home, not simply musing about buying credits from other countries overseas.

It is very interesting to see the government come into power, championing the Paris accord, yet going into the Paris accord process with the same kinds of targets that were in place under the previous government. I know it has been criticized in some quarters for that by people who said there was there supposed to be real change. We have seen in so many areas a failure of real change in different ways.

Frankly, when it comes to the environment, it would have been better if we had seen more learning from the constructive action and experience of the previous government. So much was achieved at that time in the way of real, meaningful progress when it came to the issue of sustainability. I have read off some of those accomplishments.

I wanted to jump back for a moment to my discussion of Bill C-69. I want to read a letter that was sent to senators dealing with Bill C-69. In particular, it comes from those supporting the Eagle Spirit energy corridor. This is a proposal that would help to strengthen our indigenous communities economically, create linkages that would benefit them in energy development and export, and provide economic benefits in terms of energy across the whole country.

This is a letter that was signed by Helen Johnson, chair, ESE Chief's Council; Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom, Woodland Cree First Nation; and Chief Gary Alexcee, co-chair of the Chief's Council of B.C. They write the following:

“Dear Senators, we represent the 35 indigenous communities supporting the Eagle Spirit energy corridor from Fort McMurray, Alberta to Grassy Point on British Columbia's north coast. We have been working on this nation-building multi-pipeline project for the past six years and it is vital to the health of our communities and the future of our collective development. In this time, we have created the greenest project on the planet and developed a new model for indigenous engagement, real ownership and oversight that will lead to self-reliance and prosperity.”

“We are acutely aware that the Senate is currently debating Bill C-69, legislation that will change resource and other major project review in Canada. The objectives of this bill are vital to our communities and we believe the country as a whole. We trust that it should create a project review process involving substantial engagement with indigenous peoples and one in which all Canadians can have confidence.”

“While the bill includes many elements that are constructive, including early planning and engagement and a shift to broader impact benefit analysis, we have some serious concerns. In its current form, Bill C-69 has fundamental problems that increase the complexity and uncertainty of the project review and environmental assessment review process and must be addressed before it can be adopted.”

“Our chiefs have emphasized that the environment is at the top of their list of concerns and we have developed an energy corridor that will be the greenest on the planet and will set a precedent for all nations on how to engage with the impacted indigenous population. We do, however, have to holistically balance environmental concerns against other priorities such as building a strong local economy.”

I will pause to re-read that, because I think it is critical, and it is great wisdom coming from our indigenous leaders:

“We do, however, have to holistically balance environmental concerns against other priorities, such as building a strong local economy. There are simply no other opportunities than natural resource development in the remote locations where our communities are located, where 90% unemployment rates are common.

“ For some, the economic opportunities from oil and gas projects have allowed investment in local priorities and the future. It is critical that we develop our own resource revenues rather than continue in debt slavery to the federal government. The best social program is the jobs and business opportunities that come from our own efforts. If reconciliation and UNDRIP mean anything, it should be that indigenous communities have the ability to help themselves rather than continuing the past colonial litany of failed government-led initiatives.

“We agree that the current project review system should require strong engagement with indigenous communities affected by the project as well as responsible and timely development of natural resources. It should avoid litigation of projects in the courts. Investor confidence needs to be restored, and a clear and predictable process has to be set out for indigenous and proponents to follow.

“We are particularly concerned that Bill C-69 allows any stakeholder, indigenous or non-indigenous, to have equal standing in the review process. It is an absurd situation that the only people who have fought long and hard for constitutionally protected rights would have no stronger role in the process than a special interest group that is in no way directly affected by the project. This is a serious and fundamental flaw in Bill C-69 that could undermine the rights of all indigenous people in Canada, and it needs to be addressed.

“We are particularly concerned about the interference in our traditional territories of environmental NGOs financed by American foundations seeking to dictate development and government policy and law in ways that limit our ability to help our own people. What interests could such eco-colonialists have when parachuting in from big cities? They have no experience with our culture, people, history or knowledge of our traditional land. Input from such elitists in this process, who are secure in their economic futures and intent on making parks in our backyard, is not welcome while our people suffer the worst social and economic conditions in the country.

“We have been stewards of our traditional territories from time immemorial, and we believe that such parties should have absolutely no say in projects on our traditional territories.

“At the recent meeting of all communities of the chiefs council we unanimously voted in favour of the attached resolution to take whatever legal and political action is necessary to enforce our rights in relation to Bill C-69. In this spirit, we urge you to protect our rights and support badly required amendments to Bill C-69.”

I want to read as well the resolution signed by many indigenous leaders. It reflects unanimous support of the chiefs council that was referenced:

“Therefore, be it resolved that we oppose an act to enact the impact assessment act and the Canadian energy regulator act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, legally and politically, as it will have an enormous and devastating impact on the ability of first nations to cultivate or develop economic development opportunities in their traditional territory, since it is being imposed without any consultation whatsoever and against the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the purported reconciliation agenda of the federal government.

“Furthermore, we agree that we will collectively file a civil writ seeking to quash an act to enact the impact assessment act and the Canadian energy regulator act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendment to other acts, should it become law.”

These are powerful words from indigenous leaders in Canada. This is the first time I have heard the word eco-colonialists.

That is an interesting term to use. These indigenous leaders speak about people who do not have the same history or connection to their land and who enjoy much greater prosperity than indigenous people in these cases might, yet they are coming in and claiming to speak on behalf of indigenous people while taking action that really has the effect of limiting their opportunity to pursue development.

They are thinking about sustainability. I talked at the beginning about what the principle of sustainability means. Sustainability is the idea that we receive the goods of society, of the Earth, from previous generations. We hold them in trust for the benefit of future generations. This idea is particularly well understood by our indigenous leaders. They have the longest history, by far, in this country. Their understanding of their history, of the need to proceed in this fashion, is particularly acute and is referenced in this case.

They are speaking in this letter very much about the importance of preserving our environment but also about striking a balance that builds opportunity for indigenous people, opportunity economically that would allow them to enjoy a similar standard of living as those who live in other parts of this country. It is rooted in an understanding of equity. That is what they are speaking about in this letter.

For once, the government should actually listen to what they are saying and pursue a change in course that supports the development of pipelines that are good for the environment. It should take steps that are actually going to move us forward, economically and environmentally. That means building pipelines, having a strong sustainability framework and having meaningful consultation when proceeding with a project but also when trying to kill a project. That is what we are talking about when we talk about the principle of sustainability.

At this point in my remarks, I want to dig a little deeper into the philosophy behind the principle of sustainability. When we talk about sustainability, it should not just be with reference to environmental issues. We can think across the board about our economic policies and our social policies. Are the decisions we are making decisions we could sustain and continue in future generations? Are they decisions that could only be operationalized in the short term, or are they things we could maintain in the long term?

When we look across the board at the government, the clearest example of its lack of sensitivity to the importance of sustainability is its approach to fiscal policy. This has implications for our environmental stability as well, because if we do not have a sustainable fiscal or economic policy, then cuts will have to be made, especially in critical areas, at times when we may not want those cuts.

That is why Conservative governments have pursued a responsible middle course. My friend from Spadina—Fort York thinks this is a reference to Tony Blair, but it is actually a reference to Aristotle, who said that virtue is the mean between extremes. We have pursued a middle course between the extreme of needing to make dramatic cuts when there is a fiscal situation that forces it on us, such as the situation of the previous Liberal government in the 1990s, and avoiding the other extreme of spending out of control and having no conception of the fact that what goes up must come down.

The history of Liberal governments we have seen in this country is a succession of extremes. We have the case with the government, and with the previous Trudeau government, of dramatic out-of-control deficit spending, unprecedented in peacetime in Canada. We had a reality in 1990 when, eventually, the Liberals' out-of-control spending caught up with them. Fortunately, we had opposition parties, as well, that were calling for some measure of restraint. Really, at the time, their way of responding was to make cuts in transfers to the provinces, which passed on the application of that to other levels of government.

Compare that with the approach of the previous Conservative government, which brought us back to balanced budgets, while continually increasing the level of transfers to the provinces.

My friend from Spadina—Fort York is shaking his head, but he needs to review the reality, because transfers were significantly increased to the provinces in every successive year of the previous government, and they were cut by the Liberals in 1990. I look forward to his intervention.

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act

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

Madam Speaker, I am glad the member opposite recognizes the fact that we had four major pipeline projects built. The thing that he failed to mention was the fact that northern gateway was approved and ready to be built until the Liberals brought in the tanker moratorium with Bill C-48. That would have definitely brought our oil to foreign markets.

Another thing he failed to mention was energy east, for which the government moved the goal posts and demanded an upstream and downstream calculation of the CO2 emissions the pipeline project would have produced. That deemed the project uneconomical. The company basically said that if the government continued to put up hurdles or hoops for it to jump through, it would take its ball and go home, particularly when other jurisdictions around the world were reducing red tape and making it more exciting to do business there.

I am glad the member recognizes the four pipelines we built. I am upset that he forgot to mention energy east and the northern gateway.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin this debate by quoting the premier of the Northwest Territories when the Prime Minister, in 2016, as part of a Joint Arctic leaders' statement, declared that the Beaufort Sea would be a national park essentially and that there would be no more drilling. This meant that any infrastructure there would now be landlocked and any infrastructure that had been invested in would now be stopped and be held up from being developed.

The premier of the Northwest Territories said that they would end up “living in a park.” That is precisely what the Prime Minister and his principal secretary Gerald Butts would like to see, that all of Canada become a national park, with no economy happening whatsoever.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.

Bill C-88 lays out the legal framework for the drilling moratorium. It is part of an ongoing trend we see from the government. Canadians are welcome to live in Canada provided they do not do anything to touch the environment. Again, in the Northwest Territories, this is a record. However, we are seeing a trend.

The Prime Minister has pounded his fists on the table, saying that he will get the Trans Mountain pipeline built. However, when it comes to every other energy project in the country, he has done everything in his power to undermine it. It all started with Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium on the west coast. This effectively killed the northern gateway pipeline. It is part of a larger trend.

In Bill C-68, we see the reversal of the changes we made to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, making it easier for municipalities to develop their regions by putting culverts in and pipelines across streams. Those kinds of things were important changes we had made to make life easier for the people who live beyond Ottawa and Toronto, yet we see the government of today definitely reversing that.

There is also Bill C-69, what we are calling the no more pipelines bill that overhauls the regulatory process for pipelines.

We had a great regulatory framework to build pipelines. Under the Conservative government, we built four pipelines, approved northern gateway and other pipelines. What is really frustrating is that the Liberals went around saying that the public had no confidence in the process, which was completely false. It had been tested significantly by the court. Now that they are in power, they feel the need to overhaul it entirely so it will have to be tested by the court again.

We see that again with Bill C-69, putting the livelihoods of many workers in the oil patch at risk. It is putting the livelihoods of many people who live north of the 55th parallel at risk. We would like to see the government change its ways regarding this.

Bill C-88 is part of a strategy to keep oil in the ground. Therefore, we would definitely like to see it pull this bill back and Bill C-69 in particular.

Over the weekend, there was much to be said about the back-to-work legislation the House imposed on the Canada Post workers. Just yesterday I saw a carton on Facebook about two oil field workers. One of the workers said, “I wish Ottawa would legislate us back to work.” This bill would legislate them out of work.

The Beaufort Sea has vast oil reserves that have been explored. There are millions of dollars in infrastructure sitting up there, which has been basically been abandoned because of the drilling moratorium.

We need to ensure that Canada can work and be prosperous again. We have to ensure that our natural resources, whether oil in the Beaufort Sea, diamond mines in the Northwest Territories, or gold mines in the Yukon, can be developed and can bring prosperity for all of Canada.

One of the major things we know about in northern Canada is the carbon tax and how that will affect northerners in particular. We hear the Liberals talking all the time about Canada being a carbon intensive economy. If we looked outside this morning, we would see that it was snowing, and we typically have snow for six to nine months out of the year, depending on where one lives in Canada. That means the temperature is below freezing for that length of time in the year, so we need to warm things up. We need to make sure our houses stay warm. I enjoy a warm shower every morning. Those things require energy. Not only does Canada require energy, but the world requires energy as well. What better place to get our energy than right here in Canada? However, when we bring in a drilling moratorium in the Beaufort Sea or introduce a carbon tax or table Bill C-69, we limit the development of our natural resources and we then import the energy we need from other jurisdictions that do not have the environmental regulatory framework we have. We do not allow our economy to flourish so it can bring prosperity to some parts of the country that could really use it.

It is important that we develop our resources, including resources in the Beaufort Sea. We know that a large amount of money has been invested in developing that part of the world, and to just bar its development, through government regulation into the future, seems shortsighted and pandering on the world stage to forces outside of Canada.

The announcement in 2016 shows to some degree that the joint Arctic leaders' statement did not take into account the Canadian perspective whatsoever. It was pandering to an international audience. The Prime Minister only had the decency to phone the premier 20 minutes before he made the announcement. That left the territories scrambling. When I was up in the Northwest Territories, one of the things they often said was to let them keep their own royalty revenues. Allowing them to keep the royalty revenues now, when they are unable to develop anything, will not help the situation whatsoever.

With that, I ask the Liberals to reconsider the bill, to reconsider the drilling moratorium in the Beaufort Sea, to reconsider Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and ensure that we can get development of our natural resources back on the table, bringing prosperity to all Canadians and all Albertans.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member and I have had many discussions. I do not think we are too far off on our feelings of the north. I have a fondness for the people of the north and I do not believe that we should be plundering any part of northern Canada for its wealth. It should be left to the people of the north to look after themselves and be the stewards of the land

I object to this bill because its overtones are so similar to Bill C-48, Bill C-86 and others. As well, it takes the control away from the people. That is where my concerns come in. It takes the control away from the people and local government officials like the hon. member's brother who is a very well-known and respected person in the Northwest Territories. I feel they are a bit concerned about this bill, as I am.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, here we are again with another anti-energy policy from the current Liberal government that is driving energy investment out of Canada, costing Canadian workers their jobs and significantly increasing poverty in certain regions, especially in the north.

I am speaking to Bill C-88, because I am concerned that the changes it would make would politicize oil and gas extraction by expanding the powers of this Liberal government to block economic development. It would take local control and environmental stewardship away from the aboriginal people of the region and would inhibit local, territorial governments from doing what is best for the people of the area. I am speaking of the Mackenzie Delta.

I see that my friend across the way is smiling, because he is very proud of the region he has grown up in.

Bill C-88 is not just another Liberal anti-energy bill, like Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and Bill C-86. These bills could block all future pipelines, giving the government the authority to unilaterally shut down natural resource development. It is now systematically going after the Northwest Territories, as it has done with our western provinces.

Only a few people get to visit the Mackenzie Delta or travel the pristine waters of the Mackenzie River. Those who do find it breathtaking, due to its vast biological and ecological formations.

When Sir Alexander Mackenzie travelled the Mackenzie River in 1789, he was astonished by its sparse population and the pristine beauty of the region. As members may know, the river was named after him. That is for a few of my Liberal colleagues across the way, except for the member for the Northwest Territories.

I count myself fortunate, no, I should say I count myself blessed and lucky, to have been able to travel from the start of the Peace and Athabasca rivers, which are the headwaters of the Mackenzie River, and I have followed it as it flows, leading to the Beaufort Sea in the north. This pristine area, rich in ecological wealth, covers an area of just under two million square kilometres, and its drainage basin encompasses one-fifth of Canada. This is the second-largest river in North America, next to the Mississippi River.

Oil and gas have been part of this region since 1921. There are also mines of uranium, gold, diamond, lead and zinc in the area. During World War II, a pipeline was built from Norman Wells to Whitehorse, in Yukon. It carried crucial petroleum products needed during World War II and helped Canada and the United States build the Alaska Highway, which significantly helped Canada during the war. It is called the Canol Pipeline, and it still exists today.

At a very young age, I personally met and was inspired by one of Canada's great leaders. That was Mr. John Diefenbaker, whose statue sits at the rear of this building. He was a leader of great wisdom and vision who led our country to where it is today. I remember he once said, “I see a new Canada—a Canada of the North.” This is what he thought of and envisioned. He spoke of giving the people of northern Canada the right to develop their resources, protect their environment and maintain and develop strong economies in the region. Diefenbaker saw the need for the people of the north to do this, not the Government of Canada.

One of Canada's leading novelists of the same era, Hugh MacLennan, a Liberal visionary, noted at the time that by 2061, the Mackenzie Delta would have three million people living along the banks and shores of the river and that people's pockets would be full of money from the wealth of the region. He said there would be at least two universities built in the Mackenzie Delta area.

That Liberal's prediction was wrong, and the actions of my Liberal friends across the way from me are also wrong.

There are roughly 10,000 people living along the Mackenzie River Delta, in places like Wrigley, Tulita, Norman Wells, Fort Good Hope, Fort McPherson, Inuvik, Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk. I have been to those communities and I know the people.

There are 68 aboriginal groups that also live in this region. I have had the pleasure and honour of gathering and socializing with them to discuss their issues. We used to gather at the Petitot River. I have been there a number of times. To me, they are the real stewards of the land, not organizations like CPAWS, the David Suzuki Foundation or others that have the ear of the environment minister. The aboriginal groups are the real Canadian environmentalists and the real stewards of the land.

Recently, Merven Gruben, the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, testified at the committee on indigenous and northern affairs. He said that the Liberal government should be helping northern communities. Instead, it shut down the offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole Arctic without even consulting communities. He also said that people in his town like to work for a living and are not used to getting social assistance. Now, all they are getting are the few tourists coming up the new highway. That makes for small change compared to when they worked in the oil and gas sector.

They are the people of the Mackenzie River Delta. Our Conservative government gave them the power to manage their resources in a true, healthy and respectful manner that only the people of the region can do. This was done through Bill C-15, which created the Northwest Territories Devolution Act of 2014.

Our former Conservative government viewed the north as a key driver of economic activity for decades to come, but this Liberal government is arbitrarily creating huge swaths of protected land with little or no consultation with aboriginal communities, while other Arctic nations are exploring possibilities within their respective areas.

Bill C-88 reveals a full rejection of calls from elected territorial leaders for the increased control of their natural resources. It consists of two parts. Part A would amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act of 1998. Part B would amend the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to allow the Governor in Council to issue orders. That scares me.

What about the provisions that were introduced by the former Conservative government within Bill C-15's Northwest Territories Devolution Act? Bill C-88 would reverse these changes, even though Liberal MPs voted in favour of Bill C-15 when it was debated in Parliament, including the Prime Minister.

Now the Liberals want to reverse the former government's proposal to consolidate the four land and water boards in the Mackenzie Valley into one. I believe this is so that they can take control. The creation of a single board was a key recommendation that would address “complexity and capacity issues by making more efficient use of expenditures and administrative resources” and would allow for administrative practices to be “understandable and consistent”. When Bill C-15 was debated in the House of Commons in 2013 and 2014, the restructured board was included in the final version of the modern land claim agreements.

The Liberals would further politicize the regulatory and environmental processes for resource extraction in Canada's north by giving cabinet sweeping powers to stop projects on the basis of “national interest”. This reveals a rejection of calls from northerners for increased control of their national resources.

The Liberal government should leave the people of northern Canada with their resources and let them be their own environmentalists and stewards of the land. They know it the best.

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

Madam Speaker, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in this House, that somehow the government is trying to move forward to export our oil. That member and his party proposed and voted in favour of Bill C-48, which would explicitly not allow the export of Canada's energy resources through northern British Columbia. If the Liberals wanted to help get our oil to other markets, the least they could have done was not pass a law that was explicitly designed to make it impossible to get our oil to other markets.

It is very simple. The previous Conservative government was working hard facilitating moving forward the northern gateway project, which would have opened all kinds of new markets and opportunities for those resources. If the member wants to see results in this area, I would tell him to repeal Bill C-48 and stop Bill C-69 as well. However, in particular, when it comes to pipelines and export, it is Bill C-48.

Let us move forward with projects that began under the previous government that would have gotten us to the results the member claims to want but very clearly does not want, from the substance of what he is voting on and saying in the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to continue a discussion I began before question period about the government's approach to the energy sector. It is a pleasure for me to participate in the debate, but it is no particular pleasure to review the great damage the government is doing to our energy sector. This bill is one of a number of bills which contain provisions that really weaken the situation for those who consider getting involved in resource development, whether it is as a worker, an employee, an investor or one of the many who benefit from spinoff jobs and opportunities associated with the development of our energy sector.

I would observe that part 2, for example, of this legislation would amend the Canada Petroleum Resources Act. In effect, it would allow the Governor in Council, in other words, the government, to issue orders prohibiting oil and gas activities, freezing the terms of existing licences and preventing them from expiring during a moratorium. This would essentially empower the government to take extreme steps whenever it wants to, whenever it deems it in its evaluation of the way things should go, to put an abrupt stop to natural resource development. Conservatives see this as part of a larger pattern.

Bill C-69, the government's “no more pipelines” bill, piles on all sorts of conditions and challenges that are clearly designed to achieve the result of not allowing pipelines to proceed in the future. There is Bill C-48 that would create a tanker exclusion zone, which is designed to say that we can never export Canada's energy resources from the northern coast of British Columbia. It is so interesting to observe government members talking out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to oil and gas development, especially some of my Liberal colleagues from Alberta. They talk about feeling the pain and they talk about supporting pipelines on occasion, but then we look at their legislative and voting record.

There have been multiple opposition day motions which call for the recognition of particular pipelines as being in the national interest. There has been legislation from the government, such as this bill today and others I have mentioned, that are designed to create a very difficult environment for any natural resource project to proceed. The Liberals put forward these bills that make it more and more difficult for investment projects to succeed and at the same time they vote against opposition day motions and proposals which recognize that these projects are indeed in the national interest. In terms of the Liberals' record, in terms of their votes and their actions, we see a real, practical, concrete, tangible opposition to the success of the energy sector, an energy sector which is not just for one region or one part of the country but is one which benefits the whole country.

I am a member of Parliament from Alberta and represent a resource rich area of the country. Many people in my constituency are part of the energy sector and are frustrated with the approach of the government. I would like to speak briefly about another region of the country, the north of Canada.

I had the pleasure of joining the foreign affairs committee recently on a trip to the territories. It was interesting to talk to people about the decision of the Prime Minister, while overseas, to unilaterally declare a moratorium on offshore development in a way that flew in the face of what many people in the north were hoping for in terms of opportunities that could come to them through new investment, new jobs and new development in Canada's north, development that would really open up opportunity and ensure greater access to services for people in the north.

A real opportunity did exist and yet the Prime Minister, while overseas and without consultation, did exactly the sort of thing that is envisioned in this legislation. He made a declaration that prohibits activity in the area of oil and gas development.

When we look at the proposed legislation, the government would be taking for itself more tools to be able to step forward at any point to say that it did not a want a project to proceed or did not want to allow development, even if there was an expectation, even if there was planning by indigenous leaders and by municipal, provincial and territorial leaders, or if there were investments made and workers making their plans to seek those opportunities. All of a sudden, the Prime Minister could put a stop to it.

So much is said by the government about consultation with indigenous people and how it is such a critical relationship for any government. However, while talking that talk, government members do not seem to recognize at all that many indigenous people in Canada want to see the development of our energy resources. They want to have the opportunities that flow from these developments. However, their voices are totally ignored if they are on the side of the discussion that is seeking more development, more opportunity, more employment and more of the kind of development that would allow them to significantly prosper and benefit from the wealth that would come into their communities as a result of oil and gas and other natural resources.

To put it as clearly and directly as possible, when it comes to our natural resource sectors, the government has an anti-development agenda. It is not an anti-development agenda it is perhaps willing to openly acknowledge or recognize. It covers it up in various ways, including by pumping billions of taxpayers' dollars into a pipeline it still has no plan to see move forward. However, in the concrete legislative initiatives it is putting forward, we see what its agenda is, and we see it walked out in practice.

A couple of years before the last election, the current Minister of Democratic Institutions put out a tweet talking about landlocking the “tar sands”. Now we do not hear that kind of language from the front bench. The Liberals try to modulate their tone, because they know that most Canadians do not want their anti-development agenda.

If we look at the history of the people involved in the government, if we look at the statements they have made in the past, if we look at the past statements and involvement of senior staff in the Prime Minister's Office, and as I mentioned, the comments from the Minister of Democratic Institutions, I think we can see what we are observing in the concrete detail of legislation that has come forward, which is, yes, the anti-development agenda of the government. It is disappointing. It is hurting jobs and opportunities in my province and across the country. We need Canadians to wake up to this, respond and stop legislative measures like this.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to begin my remarks on Bill C-88.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague for Yellowhead.

Bill C-88 speaks to the general context in which we think about oil and gas development in Canada. It speaks to the framework that the government has put in place that allows or does not allow important projects to go forward. I will speak in more general terms about some of those issues during the five minutes I have before question period. After question period, I will continue and speak more specifically about some of the issues that are dealt with directly in Bill C-88.

I am pleased to represent an oil and gas riding. We have something called the “industrial heartland”. We benefit, in particular, from the downstream refining and upgrading component to the energy sector. However, we have many people from our riding who are involved in the direct extraction of our energy resources as well.

Sometimes we hear points made in the House that somehow we should choose between the issue of getting pipelines developed or getting value-added processing done in Canada. People in my community, which is a hub of value-added processing, are very supportive of pipeline development as well. It is not an either/or. In fact, we can do both at the same time. Indeed, we need infrastructure to get our resources to market. At the same time, we are very supportive of policy proposals that facilitate greater energy-related manufacturing and otherwise taking place within Canada.

Under the previous government, we saw four pipelines get built and a number of other projects were in process at the time when there was a change in government. What was the current government's approach when it came to developing vital energy resources? First, it directly killed the northern gateway pipeline project and passed a tanker exclusion bill that sought to make the export of our energy resources from northern B.C. impossible. Even if there were to be a new project proposed that went through all the consultation requirements, that still would be unable to succeed because of Bill C-48.

The government piled all sorts of new conditions on the energy east pipeline project, which led to a decision not to proceed with it. However, let us be very clear. It was the Liberal government changing the rules in the middle of a process, adding additional conditions, that prevented that from going forward. Of course, we have seen its failure thus far with respect to the Trans Mountain pipeline as well. This is really having a chilling effect on development.

I look forward to continuing my remarks after question period.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-88, an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Before I get into the details of the bill, it is important to look at the context with respect to what has been happening over the past three years and what is starting to be a real pattern of the Liberal government. The decisions it makes consistently increase red tape and bureaucracy, and are mostly anti-resource development. This bill is no different.

I would like to talk about a few areas to show the context, which will then show that this follows a pattern that adds to what is becoming an increasing concern in the country, and that is the ability to move our natural resources forward.

When the Prime Minister took office, there were three private companies willing to invest more than $30 billion to build three nation-building pipelines that would have generated tens of thousands of jobs and billions in economic opportunity. The Prime Minister and his cabinet killed two and put the Trans Mountain expansion on life support. Bill C-69 would block all future pipelines.

In addition, the government has made a number of arbitrary decisions regarding natural resource development, with absolutely no consultation with those impacted. Today, we only need to look at what is happening in Alberta with the hundreds of thousands of job losses. Who has ever heard of a premier having to decrease the production of a needed resource throughout the country and the world because we simply cannot get resources to the market? This is because of the government's failure.

The northern gateway project was approved by the former government in June 2014. It had a number of conditions on it, just like the current Trans Mountain project does.

In November 2015, just one month after being elected, the Prime Minister killed the project without hesitation. It was subject to a court challenge. When we did finally hear what came out of that court challenge, to be frank, it was nothing that could not be overcome. We could have dealt with that.

The court decision told the Prime Minister to engage in consultation in a more appropriate and balanced way. The court really gave what I would call a recipe for perhaps fixing some problems with the process.

Did he wait for the court decision? No. He went out and killed it flat. With this approved pipeline, he did not wait for a court decision or wait to see how it could move forward. He decided that he did not want that one.

I think we are all pretty aware of the Trans Mountain pipeline. It has been moving along for many years. We know that many first nations support it and hope to see it go through, as they see enormous opportunities for their communities. Of course, others are against it.

What happened in this case? When the Liberals came to government, they decided they had to have an additional consultation process. However, did they follow the directions of the court in the northern gateway decision in which the court was very clear about what the government had to do to do consultations properly? Apparently not. When the court decision came down, we learned otherwise. To be frank, it was much to my surprise, because the Liberals talked about how well they were consulting and that they were putting this additional process in place. The court said that the Liberals did not do the job. What they did was send a note-taker and not a decision-maker.

The fact that the Liberals did not consult properly on the Trans Mountain pipeline is strictly on their laps, as they had very clear guidance from the northern gateway decision and they did not do what they needed to do. They should be ashamed of themselves. Had they done a proper process, they likely would not have had to buy the pipeline, the pipeline would be in construction right now and we would be in a lot better place as a country. With respect to the Trans Mountain pipeline, the blame for where we are on that pipeline lies strictly on the laps of the Liberals.

I also want to note, in spite of what people say, that the courts have said the process was okay, so it has nothing to do with environmental legislation by the previous government or with anything the Conservatives had put in place. It was the Liberals' execution of a flawed process.

Energy east was another one. The former Liberal MP who is now the mayor of Montreal was very opposed to it. I am not sure of all the pieces that went into the Liberals' decision-making, but all of a sudden, the downstream and upstream emissions of energy east had to be measured. As people have rightfully asked, has that happened for the tankers coming down the St. Lawrence from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela? Did that happen with the bailout for Bombardier?

The Liberals created regulatory barriers. Trans Mountain hung on for a long time before it finally said no go. I think Energy east saw the writing on the wall, knowing that the government was not going to be its friend and create an environment to get the work done. It could see the new rules coming into place, so it walked. What a double standard. Canadians who extract energy in an environmentally sound and environmentally friendly way have had standards applied to their ability to move oil through a pipeline that no other country in the world imposes on companies in terms of upstream and downstream emissions.

Next on the plate is Bill C-69. A number of former Liberals are very open about their concerns about Bill C-69. Martha Hall Findlay, a very respected former Liberal MP, said in a recent Globe and Mail article that the new environmental legislation, Bill C-69, “is the antithesis of what this regulatory reform effort hopes to achieve.... [I]n its 392 pages, the word 'competitiveness' appears only twice. Neither the word 'economy' nor the phrase 'economic growth' appear at all.” We have new environmental legislation that most people call the no-more-pipeline bill.

Martha Hall Findlay went on to note that this bill would create enormous uncertainty, more red tape and increased court challenges, and not only in the energy sector but in all other infrastructure in Canada for years to come. I do not know if members are starting to see a pattern: the Liberals have killed pipelines and put in legislation preventing new pipelines from being built. I am not sure why the process with Trans Mountain was not proper; it should have been. Everyone knew what they had to do, but they did not.

Another piece of legislation that is focused on killing opportunities in this country is the tanker moratorium, Bill C-48. The government loves to talk about how it consults, consults and consults, but it only consults to get the answer it wants. There was a large group of first nations that had a huge opportunity with the Eagle Spirit pipeline that would go through its territory. It had plans, it was moving along, everything was in place, and all a sudden Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, put its dreams and hopes to rest for a while. The interesting thing is that there was no consultation at all. There was no notice about this tanker ban, so how can there be consultation when the government does not want to do something, but vice-versa when it wants to do something?

Now I will get into the details of Bill C-88. In 2016, there was an oil and gas moratorium in the Beaufort Sea, and the interesting thing about that announcement was that for most people in Canada, it came out of nowhere. The Prime Minister did not even have the respect to hold conversations with the territorial premiers and the people most impacted. He made the announcement down in Washington, D.C., along with an “Oh, by the way” phone call 20 minutes before announcing this measure that would impact those communities. That is absolutely shameful. The Prime Minister announced a moratorium on all oil and gas development in the Beaufort Sea when he was down in the United States with President Obama at the time.

I want to read a few quotes by the community leaders subsequently. The Northwest Territories premier Bob McLeod issued a “red alert...for urgent national debate on the future of the Northwest Territories”. He wrote:

The promise of the North is fading and the dreams of northerners are dying as we see a re-emergence of colonialism....

Whether it be ill conceived ways of funding social programs, or new and perplexing restrictions on our economic development, our spirit and energy are being sapped.

That is a very different from what we just heard from the parliamentary secretary when she talked about the previous government. It is her government. Did she hear those words from the premier? He said, “our spirit and our energy are being sapped”.

Mr. McLeod further wrote:

Staying in or trying to join the middle class will become a distant dream for many....

This means that northerners, through their democratically elected government, need to have the power to determine their own fates and the practice of decisions being made by bureaucrats and governments in Ottawa must come to an end. Decisions about the North should be made in the North. The unilateral decision by the federal government, made without consultation, to impose a moratorium on arctic offshore oil and gas development is but one example of our economic self-determination being thwarted by Ottawa.

Then Nunavut premier, Peter Taptuna, told the CBC on December 22, 2016:

We do want to be getting to a state where we can make our own determination of our priorities, and the way to do that is gain meaningful revenue from resource development. And at the same time, when one potential source of revenue is taken off the table, it puts us back at practically Square 1 where Ottawa will make the decisions for us.

Merven Gruben, the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, told the indigenous and northern affairs committee on October 22, 2018:

I was talking to [the Liberal MP for the Northwest Territories]...and he said, “Yes, Merven, we should be doing something. We should be helping you guys.”

I agree the Liberals should be helping us. They shut down our offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole freaking Arctic without even consulting us. They never said a word to us.

We're proud people who like to work for a living. We're not used to getting social assistance and that kind of stuff. Now we're getting tourists coming up, but that's small change compared to when you work in oil and gas and you're used to that kind of living. Our people are used to that. We [don't want to be just] selling trinkets and T-shirts.

To go to the actual bill, what we can see is that in spite of the lofty words by the parliamentary secretary, there has been a real lack of consultation on issues that are very important to northerners.

Part A would amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act to reverse provisions that would have consolidated the Mackenzie Valley land and water boards into one. These provisions, of course, were introduced by the former Conservative government with Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories devolution act. Part B, of course, would amend the the Canada Petroleum Resources Act.

As I have already noted, this is another anti-energy policy from the Liberal government that is driving investment out of Canada, costing Canadian workers their jobs and increasing poverty rates in the north. Like Bill C-69 before it, Bill C-88 would politicize oil and gas extraction by expanding the powers of cabinet to block economic development, and would add to increasing red tape that proponents must face before even getting shovels in the ground. Further, Bill C-88 reveals a full rejection of the calls by elected territorial leaders for much of the self-autonomy they desire.

We used to look at the north as being an opportunity to be a key economic driver for decades to come. Other Arctic nations, including China and Russia, are exploring possibilities. This could be something that is very important for our sovereignty.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are creating great swaths of protected land. I want to know why that change was originally made to the water and land boards.

In 2007, Neil McCrank was commissioned to write a report on improving the regulatory and environmental assessment regimes in Canada's north. As outlined in the McCrank report, entitled, “The Road to Improvement”, the current regulatory process in the Northwest Territories is complex, costly, unpredictable and time-consuming. The merging of the three boards into one was a key recommendation. Part of the report stated:

This approach would address the complexity and the capacity issues inherent to the current model by making more efficient use of expenditures and administrative resources. It would also allow for administrative practices to be understandable and consistent.

If these recommendations on restructuring and improvements are implemented, the regulatory systems in the North will be able to ensure orderly and responsible development of its resources.

Regarding the move to consolidate the boards, the report went on to state:

...is not meant to diminish or reduce the influence that Aboriginal people have on resource management in the North. Rather, it is meant as an attempt to allow for this influence in a practical way, while at the same time enabling responsible resource development...

I want to note that it was Bill C-15, which the Liberals and NDP voted for, that included that component. It was supported on all sides of the House. It was also included as an available option in the three modern land claim agreements. Bill C-15 looked to streamline the regulatory process and to place time limits on reviews and provide consistency. It was never meant to impact impact indigenous communities and their ability to make decisions. It was to streamline the regulatory process, place time limits on reviews and consolidate federal decision-making.

Certainly, I see this component of the bill as a move backward rather than forward. At this point, it would appear that all of the communities involved want to move in this direction. I believe that is unfortunate. The model I wish they would have worked toward would have been a much more positive one in doing the work they needed to do.

The final part is the drilling moratorium, which is perhaps the most troublesome. It would allow the federal cabinet to prohibit oil and gas activity in the Northwest Territories or offshore of Nunavut if it were in the national interest. This is a much broader power than currently exists in the act, which only allows Canada to prohibit that activity for safety or environmental reasons, or social problems of a serious nature.

I note that the licences set to expire during the five-year moratorium would not be affected, which is seen as somewhat positive by the people holding those licences. However, I suppose if we have a moratorium forever, it really does not matter if one's licence is on hold forever, because it would not be helpful in the long run.

In conclusion, what we have here is perhaps not on the scale of Bill C-69 or some of the other things the government has done, but it just adds to the government's habit, whenever it deals with the natural resource industry, of tending to make it more complicated and of driving businesses away rather than doing what Canada needs, especially right now, which is bringing business to us.

Steel Industry

[Erin Weir, Independent, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this month I asked about the structural steel construction of the new LNG Canada facility. After determining that China was dumping and subsidizing structural steel, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal applied countervailing duties. LNG Canada sought an exception from those tariffs so that it could ship in steel modules from China. It appears that the Government of Canada has granted exactly such an exception.

It is understandable that the government wants to pull out all the stops to facilitate a $40-billion project. However, we should recognize that this project will not contribute very much to our economy if $39 billion is spent on imported components. On the contrary, I would argue that the construction of LNG Canada should be seized as an opportunity to develop Canada's steel industry.

As much as I would like to advocate that these steel modules be built in Regina, I recognize that it would not be feasible to ship them over land to the west coast. However, if they can be shipped from China, perhaps they could be shipped from Canada's east coast or perhaps we need to look at developing the construction facilities on Canada's west coast to build the modules right there. Therefore, we should take this as an opportunity, a historic chance, to build up our steel industry. There are all kinds of ways that the government could try to support this industrial development. However, the first and obvious step would be to uphold the existing tariffs on Chinese structural steel and not to grant an exception for LNG Canada to ship in modules from China rather than build them here.

I have talked about Canada's steel industry. Another aspect of the LNG Canada project is the regulation of tanker traffic on our west coast. Yesterday, I saw Canada's best premier, Rachel Notley, speak to the Canadian Club here in Ottawa. Unfortunately, only one other member of this House attended that event. It is too bad that other MPs missed the speech because Premier Notley raised a very good point, that the LNG Canada project inevitably means a large number of tankers on the north coast of British Columbia, which seems inconsistent with Bill C-48, which put a moratorium on oil tankers on the north coast of B.C.

I supported Bill C-48 because it seemed like a reasonable compromise to limit tanker traffic on the north coast and allow it on the south coast. That seemed consistent with the plan to export oil through the Trans Mountain expansion. However, since that project is now stalled, I think we need to re-examine whether it makes sense to ban oil tankers while increasing the number of LNG tankers. Maybe the government has a good reason for that, but I think we need more of an explanation.

Therefore, I have two questions for the parliamentary secretary. Why not use the LNG Canada project as an opportunity to develop Canada's steel industry? Why continue to ban oil tankers on B.C.'s north coast while the government supports LNG tankers in those same waters?

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak to the government's budget implementation bill. It is a very long bill, unprecedented in its length in terms of Canadian parliamentary history, despite promises to the contrary from the government.

There are many different aspects and themes that one could dig into. I am going to focus my remarks on what I see as five dominant debates that have emerged around this budget. I will share some thoughts on each of those five areas.

I want to speak about the government's carbon tax and associated debates about the issue of climate change and how we should respond.

I want to address deficits. The current government's massive deficit is relatively without precedent in peacetime and in times without a global economic downturn.

I want to discuss some of the debates around poverty, equity and how we can and should be responding to those very real issues.

I will speak about the energy sector and pipelines.

Finally, I want to address the government's media bailout. It has been interesting observing the debate around the media bailout and having conversations with the people I know in the press. I will contend very strongly that our position, opposing the bailout, is the fundamentally pro-media position. We recognize the importance of strong, independent media, and there is a legitimate discussion about what can be done that establishes conditions for the financial success of the media.

However, the way in which the government has approached this, whereby the media are dependent on the evaluations of a government-appointed panel, makes the media very vulnerable in terms of perceptions of lacking independence. They will be vulnerable to the kinds of challenges that naturally arise when they have been put in a position of having to come to a government-appointed body for dollars. I will speak more to that in a few minutes.

The first issue I want to address is that of the carbon tax. We have a government that does not want to have a debate around the effectiveness of the carbon tax as a tool. The Liberals will accuse anybody who does not agree with their chosen policy mechanism of somehow being not serious about responding to the challenge of climate change.

I sincerely believe that we need to respond to the challenge of climate change, and that we need to do it in a way that is effective, which means not using the climate change issue as an excuse for imposing new taxes on Canadians. Let me make a few points about that.

The first point is a historical one. Let us look at the records of the past Conservative government and the current Liberal one, as well as at the record of the previous Liberal government, by way of a contrast.

A previous Liberal government, under Chrétien and Martin, signed the Kyoto protocol, yet greenhouse gas emissions went up significantly during that period. Our Conservative government proposed binding, sector-by-sector, intensity-based regulatory targets. In other words, they did not penalize companies for increasing their output, but sought to regulate in a way that enhanced the efficiency of our production here in Canada.

In the long term, those kinds of measures would ensure and indeed increase our competitiveness. They would also ensure that we were part of effectively responding to the challenge of climate change.

The objective record of greenhouse gas emissions under the previous government shows that emissions went down. It was the first government in Canadian history under which emissions went down. In response to that, people like my friend from Spadina—Fort York will praise the record of the Kathleen Wynne Liberals, which is not as popular in Ontario as he might wish it to be.

However, across different jurisdictions we see that in every single Canadian jurisdiction, emissions under the Conservative government either went down, or they went up by less than they had under the previous Liberal government. Although the member for Spadina—Fort York might not want it to be true, he must recognize that under the previous Conservative government, progress was achieved in terms of the issue of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in every single jurisdiction across this country.

That was done with an approach that emphasized binding sector-by-sector regulations but also ensured that individuals had the capital they needed to make investments in these kinds of improvements.

Rather than a punitive approach, like the carbon tax which punishes people, we had things like the home renovation tax credit, which ensured that people who wanted to make energy innovation investments in their own homes had the tax advantage in the process of doing so. That empowered people to engage with an issue that I think many people want to engage with, rather than the punitive approach adopted by the Liberal government.

What have we seen from the government? Upon taking office, the Liberals decided they would take the punitive approach, that they would impose new taxes on Canadians. Make no mistake that this approach is designed to raise revenue for the federal government. The GST is consistently being charged on top of the carbon tax. The GST, as everyone knows, is a federal tax. The imposition of the carbon tax in association with the GST means that this tax is designed to and will increase revenues for the federal government.

It is a punitive approach. It is a negative approach. It is a taxation-oriented revenue approach that is imposed on all Canadians. Because it is a point-of-sale tax, it is particularly regressive. We know that consumption taxes are more likely to hit those who are struggling economically. Even the natural regressivity of a sales tax was not enough for the government, which decided on top of that to provide an additional benefit for Canada's largest emitters.

It makes one wonder how sincere the government is in its rhetoric. The Liberals will extol the virtues of a carbon tax, yet they give a break to the largest emitters. The Liberals say these large emitters will really struggle to pay the carbon tax and it might hurt us economically. However, they are completely indifferent to the suffering this imposes on small and medium-sized businesses and to the suffering this imposes on individual consumers.

It especially hurts low-income people. Without the benefit of things like the home renovation tax credit, without some of the positive, constructive policies we had in place before and without things like the transit tax credit, which was an environmental measure that benefited people who were using public transit, without those kinds of measures, we are in a situation under this government where many people may not be able to make those kinds of investments that would allow them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

This underlines the failure of a punitive approach instead of a constructive approach. Our party believes that through constructive regulations and supporting innovation and not through punishing people we can work collaboratively for environmental improvements that do not hurt the economy. That is what we saw previously.

I would just note parenthetically that whenever we talk about the issue of how greenhouse gas emissions went down under the previous government, members on the other side will always say that was only because of the global recession. However, they never bring up the global recession in the context of deficits, which I will talk about next. When they want to complain about the fact that deficits were run under the previous government, they mysteriously forget that there was a global recession, but then when they are trying to explain away the real progress that was made under the previous government on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, they are happy to talk about the fact that there was a global economic downturn.

The reality is that Canada was relatively less affected by the global economic downturn because of prudent policies that were pursued by the previous government in the lead-up to that. Canada was relatively less affected and our emissions still went down; whereas other parts of the world were more affected and yet global emissions went up. It is simply not logical to say that greenhouse gas emissions went down only because of the global economic downturn, because Canada was outperforming the rest of the world in terms of environmental improvements as well as the economic situation relative to the rest of the world. That very much contrasts with what we see under the Liberal government.

I want to speak now to the discussion about deficits. Let us be very clear that we are dealing with a significant dissonance between what the government promised in the last election and what it is saying today.

The government promised three deficits which would be a maximum of $10 billion and then in the final fiscal year, which is the one upcoming, the budget would be balanced. However, the government has articulated absolutely no plan to balance the budget ever.

It is great to see young people watching the debate today. I know they will have to pay for the spending of the government long into their future, as a result of the fact that the government has no plan to balance the budget and is spending money today that those young people will have to pay back tomorrow. At the very least, it is a broken promise.

How do members of the government respond to the reality that they broke a promise? The previous speaker, the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, talked about when they came into office, they started to take a look at the situation. Maybe the Liberals should have started to take a look at the situation before they wrote their platform. The fiscal situation is quite clear in the reports coming out from the government, in terms of all the financial data that is publicly available. It is not as if there is any surprise in the fiscal situation.

The Prime Minister made commitments that he said were set in stone, yet he broke those commitments as soon as he came to office. The Liberals have to explain why they brought one spending plan to Canadians in the election and delivered a completely different spending plan as soon as they were elected to government. Beyond the question of broken promises, it is hard for me to understand how anyone who claims to care about their children and the next generation would impose on them the burden of paying for the benefits we enjoy today, plus interest.

Sometimes we hear members across the way raise the spectre of austerity. Let us be clear that the worst cases of austerity are those that we have seen in countries which have had no choice as a result of a debt crisis. When governments spend without a plan of ever balancing the budget, it causes a situation where the most severe form of austerity is forced on them whether they like it or not. What goes up ultimately must come down.

What we advocate then is having a plan to control spending, that is, to moderate the growth of spending in such a way as to balance the budget, not to dramatically increase spending beyond government revenue. It is a little bit absurd to suggest that any call for spending control or any call for balance will somehow be austere. It is a grievous misuse of the word “austerity”, as if to imply that we only have two choices, austerity on the one hand or out-of-control spending on the other. I actually think we can pursue a middle way, which is prudent measured spending that recognizes fiscal realities, while still investing as much as possible in the future in social programs but in a way that ensures that those social programs will be sustainable.

Members across the way know that if one spends consistently more than one has, or makes promises as the Kathleen Wynne Liberals did that are completely unbudgeted with no plan to pay for them, then yes, people are going to be disappointed when those things cannot be delivered. However, it is a result of overspending. It is a result of out-of-control debt and deficits. Then subsequent generations will have to pay not only for their own needs, but they will also have to pay down the debt and interest on the consumption of previous generations.

We propose a fiscal policy that avoids the need to pay massive interest and instead is prudent and measured. It is one in which when we make spending commitments to people, we do so in the context of a balanced budget so that they can have the certainty that those programs will be there for the future.

What we see from the Liberal government are these branded plans, these national strategies that often involve most of the spending in the latter years of those programs, but they have no realistic fiscal plan of actually delivering on. It is a grievous problem. It is one that will negatively affect the next generation and the most vulnerable. Inevitably, the government is promising things that it will not be able to deliver. I think that is a good segue into making a few comments about the government's approach to the issue of poverty.

The budget implementation act proposes to legislate goals, legislate the hopes and aspirations of policy-makers. Might I humbly submit, that is not going to provide very much confidence and reassurance to those who are living in poverty. What makes much more sense are concrete policies that would benefit the most vulnerable.

I have already spoken about how the carbon tax disproportionately impacts those who are most vulnerable in terms of being forced to pay more and not getting the same holidays that the large emitters get.

The government legislates goals. It spends half a million dollars developing a logo for an anti-poverty organization, yet it does not pursue the kinds of policies that we pursued that help the most vulnerable.

With respect to homelessness, the Conservatives invested significantly in housing first. We raised the base personal exemption and lowered the lowest marginal tax rate. We also cut the GST, which is the one tax that everybody pays.

Our approach was to recognize the need to help the most vulnerable but also to understand that helping the most vulnerable should not be an excuse to increase the size of government. Big government does not benefit those who need help the most. Constantly growing government benefits well-connected insiders, as we have seen consistently from the policies of the Liberal government.

The Liberal government could consider following the positive track record of the previous government. It could provide tax relief through raising the base personal exemption, through lowering the lowest marginal rate, through cutting the GST, through providing relief on the carbon tax to those who need that support the most.

There is nothing progressive about the government's approach to policy which gives huge amounts of money in corporate welfare, in payouts to companies like Bombardier. Bombardier even said it did not need the money, and then used some of that money to give benefits to its executives.

Nothing helps the most vulnerable when the government subsidizes CEOs through policies like the supercluster. Instead we could have a competitive tax regime. We could cut taxes for the most vulnerable. We could establish the conditions by which people could keep more of their own money and use more of their own money to meet their own needs.

Instead, the government uses climate change, uses poverty, uses whatever excuse it can come up with as part of its insatiable plan to increase the size of government and to increase government spending.

I am going to try to hit my last two points in the brief time I have left.

When it comes to our energy resources, the government spent a huge amount of public money to buy a pipeline with no plan to get that pipeline built. Under the previous government, four pipelines were built, some of which did increase our ability to move resources to tidewater.

The government has no plan to proceed with pipelines. It brings in legislation like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 that would significantly hurt our ability to move forward in terms of pipelines, while, through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, it is paying a Chinese-controlled bank, an instrument of Chinese foreign policy, to build pipelines overseas. Its justification is that Canadian firms might get some of that work.

I have visited the headquarters of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Beijing. It told us that regardless of whether Canada is a member of that bank or not, Canadian firms would still have the same ability to bid for work through that bank.

This talking point for justifying sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars to China to build pipelines in Azerbaijan and other places instead of building pipelines here by getting out of the way of the private sector holds absolutely no water.

Finally, on the point of the independence of the media, $600 million of taxpayers' money is going to a bailout of the media. Leading voices in the media have talked about how problematic this would be, because in order for the media to be strong, independence of the media is required. It also requires the perception of independence.

Journalists recognize that the perception of government handing over significant amounts of money through a process that fundamentally can be controlled by government makes them so much more vulnerable to misperceptions and criticism. We need to have media that are independent of government and that can do their job well.

This is an attack on the independence of the media through the government's attempt to control the process of allocation of funds. It is a significant threat to the media's independence more so than we have seen in the recent history of this country and more so certainly than the odd verbal criticism here and there.

For these and many other reasons that I do not have time to go into because it is such a large bill, I will be opposing this legislation.

Canada's Oil and Gas Sector

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the challenge that we face today in the energy sector is very simple. It is a question of stability and a question of certainty, both for the people who are making the investment decisions to invest in production in Canada's energy sector, and the people whom I talk to every day, who have selected me to be their voice in Ottawa. It is a question of certainty, and it is a question of stability.

The colleagues opposite who are laughing at this tonight should give their heads a shake. When people are sitting around a corporate board table and trying to determine whether or not they should spend several billion dollars on a major capital investment, they look at several determinants. They look at labour availability, political stability, market conditions, and all sorts of things. They make a determination based on a set of information available at the time, but they have to be certain that the information is right and that it is going to stay stable.

If there is no certainty in an area, workers who are trying to decide whether or not to stay in a region, or whether or not to sell their house, or what sort of purchases to make, or how to make ends meet, are going to make a decision one way or another.

The problem we have seen with the government over the last three years is the question of instability. When we started to see a shift in the supply side model of energy products in North America, as the Americans started to come on stream with more energy supply—and of course we should spend a bunch of time talking about the demand side model internationally as well—what the government should have done at that point in time, when they the Liberals came into government in 2015, was to do everything in its power to make the situation more certain and stable for the workers in Canada's energy sector so that companies could stay and prosper in Canada, and for those who seek to invest in Canada's energy sector, to do the same.

What does the government need to do to rectify the decisions it has made that have led to instability, so that we can see projects built from here on in?

First of all, the government has to scrap its carbon tax. It creates investment instability in the energy sector and is a burden on energy sector workers. There is no economic modelling to show that it will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because for the most part carbon in Canada is price inelastic.

The second thing that it needs to do is to repeal its cancellation, during a major downturn in the Canadian economy, of the oil and gas exploration drilling tax credit. It needs to reverse that decision that it made.

The government needs to reverse the tanker ban that it put in place.

The government also put in place a five-year moratorium on northern oil and gas exploration, giving the territorial governments less than two hours' notice. That caused instability. It needs to reverse that decision it made.

The government also need to reverse the decisions it made around the methane regulation framework that it put in place. That is an example of the instability the government caused when it knew that the energy sector was going through a downturn.

The government needs to scrap and do everything possible to stop the passage of Bill C-69, which it has tabled. That bill creates instability. It creates a new regulator and an environmental assessment process with indeterminate timelines. If people are sitting at a corporate board table and trying to make a decision whether or not to invest, it is not about just getting to a yes, but about getting to a yes or no within a defined, clear set of timeframes. Bill C-69 completely undermines that.

Any investor who is looking at investing in Canada's energy sector looks at Bill C-69 and says, “No way.” The government put that in place in a time of economic downturn, and it needs to scrap that.

The Liberals need to scrap Bill C-48, which put in place the unilateral imposition of a ban on using B.C.'s north coast for oil and gas exports. They put that in place. They need to reverse that.

Bill C-86 gives cabinet the authority to unilaterally shut down the shipping of natural resources by water anywhere in Canada, including offshore oil and gas. That is instability that the sector looks at. They need to repeal that bill that they put in place during a major downturn in Canada's energy sector.

They need to repeal Bill C-68, because it dramatically increases the red tape on project development by adding a multi-month review under the navigable waters act for any water on a project site that is large enough to float a kayak. It adds instability. It is unnecessary red tape. They need to repeal this bill that they put in place during a major energy sector downturn.

They need to repeal Bill C-88, which politicizes oil and gas development in the Far North, by providing cabinet in Ottawa the unilateral power to shut down oil and gas development in the Far North.

As well, they need to stop the proposed fuel standards that they are proposing to unveil before Christmas that will equate to a carbon tax of $228 per tonne of fuel, which would almost certainly mean the end of the oil and gas sector.

They also need to apologize for standing here and applauding Barack Obama after doing nothing to prevent the veto or speak against the veto of the Keystone XL pipeline.

They need to apologize for the fact that they did nothing when they allowed Denis Coderre to dump millions of litres of raw sewage in Quebec and say that energy east was not in the best interest of Canada. Instead they stood up here and agreed with him. The speech by the member for Calgary Centre was such a disgrace. He said he was going to pound on the table for a pipeline. Where was he when Dennis Coderre was doing that? He got kicked out of cabinet. He was our supposed voice in cabinet for Calgary who did nothing to stop any of these bills.

They politically vetoed the northern gateway pipeline. In a political process, the government overturned a years-long regulatory review of the northern gateway pipeline that had over 200 conditions on it that was set and ready to go. That created uncertainty and instability, and politicized a system during a downturn in the energy sector.

They need to invoke section 92.10(c) of the Constitution Act to bring the Trans Mountain pipeline completely into federal jurisdiction so that B.C. cannot obstruct its building out through permitting or other mechanisms in their jurisdiction right now.

Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.

They need to start building the Trans Mountain pipeline. If what the Prime Minister said is true, and it is in the best interest of this country, why are the Liberals kicking the can down through a potential spring election window? If they are serious about it they should be building it out today. There should be shovels in the ground tonight.

The last thing they need to stop doing, for the love of all that is holy, is stop abdicating the responsibility for getting these policies right. Every time, they stand up here and say that it is Stephen Harper's fault. They had three years to get these projects done. With that litany of lists that are nowhere near complete, all they have done every step of the way is add uncertainty and instability for the investors in Canada's energy sector and for the workers in my community. All the people in my riding want to do is get back to work. Everything the government has done has been to abdicate responsibility and create instability.

The last thing they need to do is the Prime Minister needs to stop going overseas and telling his true agenda to the world, which is that he wants to phase out Canada's energy sector. If I was a worker in Canada's energy sector or if I was looking to invest in this, I would be saying that is a pretty clear policy. He has backed it up with action. Every single one of these bills and actions has been anti-energy sector.

None of the Liberals can stand up in this place and say they have done anything for Canada's energy sector. However, they can tonight by undertaking to repeal all of these bills and standing up and saying that they were wrong, that this stuff was wrong, that it created instability and the death of Canada's energy sector.

We are out of time. The Liberals need to build Trans Mountain. They need to get the shovels in the ground tonight, repeal these bills, and start being serious about one of Canada's most prosperous and stable industries in this country.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, obviously what my hon. colleague is referring to is when I was actually a member of Parliament as a Liberal, and I did not fully appreciate just how devastating Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 were, not only to Alberta but to the entire country. Therefore, I am very grateful to colleagues on this side of the House who have given me the opportunity to understand the complexity and why those were bad bills. I have no problem reconciling it, because I did not know what I knew then, and I am doing my very best to know what I know now and make amends.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, like my hon. colleague, I am a Quebecker. I come from a different region, but I also care very much about the people of Alberta.

I listened very carefully to a lot of the speeches tonight, and I am a little perturbed that so much of it was focused on blaming one side or the other for things that happened instead of looking at solutions.

I have heard a couple of solutions from my Conservative colleagues. They have talked about how horrible Bill C-48 is and how horrible Bill C-69 is, yet the hon. member voted in favour of both bills at all stages. How does she reconcile the opinions she has expressed tonight with her current verbiage?

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

Mr. Speaker, that member spoke about Syncrude and its great track record in the 1970s and 1980s. My grandfather was working for Syncrude at the time and he sure remembers the national energy program better than that member does.

What is really sad about this is that the member is sacrificing the interests of his own constituents and his province on the altar of his cabinet ambitions.

He voted against energy east. He voted against the Trans Mountain pipeline. He voted in favour of Bill C-69, the no pipelines bill. He voted in favour of Bill C-48, the tanker exclusion zone legislation. He talked about the court ruling with respect to that, but that does not justify his vote in favour of a permanent tanker exclusion zone that would prevent any pipeline, no matter how much consultation happened, from going through northern B.C. He refused to support the repeal of the Trans Mountain ruling.

Every time the member has a chance to stand up and vote in the House for his constituents, why does he consistently choose to vote with the Prime Minister instead of with the people who sent him here?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much.

I want to pick up on what you've just said in terms of continuing to consult. During our study of Bill C-48, we did in fact hear from a number of indigenous communities, and absolutely, there are some that support Bill C-48 and a number that do not. However, I think what was unanimous from those individuals who provided testimony was that they had not been consulted prior to the introduction of Bill C-48. I would just leave that with you.

I want to pick up on the line of questioning of my colleague in regard to the carbon tax. We know that there's been an exemption provided to the air industry in the north, so obviously that's in recognition of perhaps the detrimental effects that the carbon tax will have on that industry and on the costs of operating in the north. I'm wondering if you or your government are contemplating providing an exemption to the rest of the industry across Canada.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you for your question.

I can tell you that these consultations are consultations with Canadian organizations and with Canadian indigenous groups. As you know, and as you mentioned in the context of Bill C-48, there are certain coastal first nations that don't agree with the government's decision on the moratorium, but you also know that there are coastal nations in British Columbia who agree 100% with the decision that has been taken. Recently, in fact, they've been providing testimony to the Senate committee that is looking at Bill C-48, where this bill currently resides.

It's an enormously complex situation, but we feel that the input from indigenous groups is extremely important. Does it mean that it is unanimous? No. It's very difficult when we're talking about a very large number of different coastal nations or indigenous groups in any project, including the TMX, to get unanimous consent, but we are committed to continuing to consult in a meaningful way with first nations and, where we can, to try to address their concerns.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Transport Canada is requesting close to $10.4 million in funding in these estimates. That's a combination of votes 1a, 5a and 15a, and it includes “[c]ontributions to support the participation of Indigenous groups in the navigation protection system and to establish Indigenous advisory groups”.

Minister, your government is already facing a lawsuit from the Lax Kw'alaams Indian Band as a result of a lack of consultation prior to the introduction of Bill C-48. As is widely known, but swept under the carpet, we heard again in committee last Tuesday from witnesses that American environmental groups funnel money to Canadian organizations to oppose resource development and the expansion of pipeline capacity in Canada. These same groups probably had much to do with your government's decision to introduce Bill C-48 in the first place, as there are no economic or environmental reasons to do so.

In the estimates, as I've said, your department is asking for the amount of $10.4 million, and I'm wondering if you can tell us what measures will be taken to ensure that these advisory groups will not be populated or influenced by American-funded special interests.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank you, Minister Garneau, for joining us today for 90 minutes. We're very pleased to be able to ask many questions. We look forward to your answers. I also want to welcome the departmental officials you've brought with you. There's quite a team here today. I do appreciate the fact that they've taken the time to join us this morning.

I know that we are studying the supplementary estimates and government spending, but I would like to ask some questions around a bill that we studied recently. It was referred to us by the finance committee. It was part of the budget implementation act, Bill C-86.

There were a couple of divisions in the budget implementation act that I think come directly from Transport Canada. They were buried within this budget implementation act between pages 589 and 649, in divisions 22 and 23. They contain substantial changes to the Canada Shipping Act and the Marine Liability Act.

One of the witnesses appearing before the committee for the Chamber of Shipping noted that clause 692 of this bill appears to be another mechanism with which to implement a moratorium on specific commodities through regulation and interim order, not legislation as the government has already done through Bill C-48. The witness noted that this contradicts what should be the government's objective in providing a predictable supply chain.

Quite honestly, Minister, there is no question in my mind that the inclusion of this clause in Bill C-86 will have a further chilling effect on Canada's oil and gas industry. My question for you this morning is, can you assure Canadians that this will not be yet another measure to undermine Canada's oil and gas sector?

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague put it very eloquently when he spoke about the fact that, because of this Prime Minister and the current government's failure, thousands of Canadians have lost their jobs. As well, Canadian taxpayers are now on the hook for a $4.5-billion pipeline that may never be built. Add to that the legislation that has been introduced. In my comments, I mentioned Bill C-48, and my colleague has mentioned Bill C-69. This legislation is already having a devastating effect on investment here in Canada. Those companies have not just stopped investing, but have taken their investment to other countries. They are going ahead and building pipelines in other places around the world. It is just not happening here in Canada.

I know that the leader of our party, the leader of our caucus, has stood and suggested what a Conservative government would do if it were elected. The first thing Conservatives would do is repeal Bill C-48, a moratorium on tanker traffic off the northwest coast of British Columbia. In itself, that would begin to build some confidence. We would repeal Bill C-69. Again, we have placed a regulatory burden on certain sectors in this country that needs to be reversed if we are ever to see a thriving oil and gas industry in this country again.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-86, the Liberal government's second mammoth budget implementation bill, related to budget 2018.

As I begin my remarks today, I would invite everyone to reflect on the following section from the Liberal Party's 2015 election platform. Under the heading “Prorogation and omnibus bills”, there is a line that says:

Stephen Harper has also used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice.

These are stinging words, but as is so often the case with the Prime Minister, the promises he made in the Liberal platform document are not worth the paper they were written on.

The string of broken promises by the Prime Minister is long. Just last week, the finance minister reaffirmed another broken promise to Canadians. In 2015, the current Prime Minister pledged that his budgetary deficits would be small and temporary. However, with this bill and with the recent fall economic statement, the Prime Minister and his government have broken their promise. In fact, the federal deficit is three times what the Liberals pledged it would be, and we all know that more debt today means higher taxes tomorrow.

I could go on about the Prime Minister's broken promises and betrayal of Canadians, but there is a specific part of this bill that I would like to address. Buried in this bill between pages 589 and 649 are divisions 22 and 23, which make amendments to the Canada Shipping Act 2001 and the Marine Liability Act.

To begin, it must be noted that three shipping associations representing members across Canada were all taken by surprise at the inclusion of these clauses in a budget implementation bill. The pan-Canadian Shipping Federation of Canada, the B.C.-based Chamber of Shipping, and the Great Lakes St. Lawrence-based Chamber of Marine Commerce all expressed their surprise at the move, as well as their concern at the speed with which the bill was being rushed through the House of Commons and committee.

Talk about ramming a mammoth bill through Parliament, the bill was introduced on October 29. A day later divisions 22 and 23 were referred to the transport, infrastructure and communities committee, where we were invited to study and then submit any recommendations and/or amendments in less than two weeks.

Despite this ridiculously rushed timeline for reviewing the bill, the transport committee did hold two meetings where we heard from shipping stakeholders who, despite the time crunch, identified some areas of common concern. Our committee also heard from departmental officials about the proposed changes. One shocking revelation from the officials was that the changes being proposed were the most substantial changes to these acts in, in one case, 10 years and, in the other, 25 years.

These substantial legislative changes, with the potential to have a dramatic impact on the Canadian shipping industry, as well as all the way down the transportation chain, are being rammed through Parliament with hardly any time for prudent study. To me, this reflects the disregard with which the government treats the Canadian economy.

Further, I would like to highlight another way that the government is disregarding the transportation sector when it included these divisions in Bill C-86. Apparently, through the framework of the government's much lauded oceans protection plan, it was conducting so-called consultations on potential legislative changes related to marine safety and environmental protection.

These consultations ended on Friday, October 26, and, as I mentioned, this bill was introduced with divisions 22 and 23 on the morning of Monday, October 29. Given the tight timeframe, the Minister of Transport did not appear at committee, so we questioned the assistant deputy minister on how the department managed to craft 60 pages of legislation in just one weekend. Needless to say, we were not satisfied with the answers that we received and were left with only one conclusion, that these consultations were a farce.

While there were some elements of divisions 22 and 23 that stakeholders found agreeable, there was unanimity in the call for specific amendments. I would like to highlight a couple of these amendments that my colleague the member for Calgary Shepard argued for at finance committee. Regrettably, these amendments failed to be passed at the committee.

An amendment was proposed to section 690. This amendment introduced some safeguards regarding the use of the interim orders by the Minister of Transport. Stakeholders suggested that the parameters around which the minister could make an interim order needed to be properly defined. Additionally, they suggested that the use of an interim order needed to be precipitated and/or necessitated by a significant risk and/or an immediate threat. Without these constraining definitions, Bill C-86 would create uncertainty and this uncertainty could become the norm in the shipping industry.

They also suggested that it was essential that the proposal to give the minister the power to adopt interim orders under the Canada Shipping Act be sufficiently restricted through the appropriate checks and balances to ensure that their use would not open the door to the practice of governing by interim order as a workaround from the normal regulatory process. The new subsection they believed was required, because of the potential major ramifications of a minister's making an interim order, was also rejected by Liberal committee members.

This rejected amendment also proposed to reduce the length of time that an interim order would be in effect. The current bill allows for an interim order to be in effect for one year, plus an extension of two years if granted by the Governor in Council. Stakeholders felt that it was quite unprecedented that a new regulation could exist for three years without going through the normal regulatory process. The proposed amendment would have limited the length of an interim order from one year to 14 days and the Governor in Council extension to one year, which is more in line with other legislation.

Another amendment that also failed at the finance committee, but which should have been included in Bill C-86, proposed to amend clause 692. The purpose of this amendment was to introduce safeguards around the use of ministerial powers. What Bill C-86 proposes in clause 692 would go a step further than simply introducing new Governor in Council regulatory powers. In some cases, it would also enable the minister to modify the content of Governor in Council regulations relating to matters like compulsory or recommended routes, cargo loading, and navigation and anchoring by using a ministerial order for up to one year.

To curb this expanded power, the shipping stakeholders felt that their amendment was needed to ensure that the minister would consult with industry before making any order under this section.

In rejecting these reasonable proposals by the shipping industry, the government is turning a blind eye to the concerns of those workers and businesses that would be most directly impacted by these changes.

As the shadow minister for transport, I value the input of key stakeholders. This legislation and the Liberals' rejection of reasonable amendments is a reflection of their disregard for Canada's economy and future well-being.

I want to highlight a final area of concern that was given in testimony to our committee on November 6.

The witness appearing for the Chamber of Shipping noted that clause 692 of this legislation appeared to be another mechanism by which to implement a moratorium on specific commodities through regulation and interim orders, and not through legislation, as this government is doing with Bill C-48. The witness noted that this contradicted what should be the government's objective in providing a predicable supply chain. There is no question in my mind that the inclusion of this clause in Bill C-86 would have a further chilling effect on Canada's oil and gas industry.

The Liberal government has been bad for Canada's economy and this legislation would only take Canada further down this mistaken path.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today. It is good to hear from all of you.

As you are aware, we have undertaken this study. It has been in the works for quite some time and now we are actually getting down to holding some meetings on it. There has been some travel done and I believe we're doing this to understand both the challenges and the opportunities that face our transportation system, with a view to trying to address them through a logistics study.

However, we continually find ourselves dealing with legislation that seems to be working contrary to the very study that we are undertaking, when we look at legislation like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. Some witnesses have mentioned measures in the BIA 2 that affect the marine industry, as well as our shipping stakeholders. You've mentioned the Great Bear Rainforest, which is 6.4 million hectares that has now been turned into a national park. This appears to catch communities and industry stakeholders by surprise many times.

I'll ask this of both Mr. Helin and Chief Helin. Could you advise this committee about what impacts Bill C-69 will have on your organization, your communities and whether or not you believe that pipelines should be an integral part of Canada's transportation corridor strategy?

[Calvin Helin]

The bills, both C-48 and C-69, are inconsistent with articles 23 and 26 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The council chiefs and likely the National Coalition of Chiefs will file human rights violations with the United Nations for breach of UNDRIP, treaty and aboriginal rights infringement, unacceptable colonialist social engineering policy, blocking the poorest people in Canada from exercising their inherent right to be able to raise their own revenue for their own purposes.

[Calvin Helin, Chairman and President, Eagle Spirit Energy Holding Ltd.]

[Witness speaks in Sm'algyax]

Thank you very kindly for the invitation to be here today.

I'm speaking on behalf of Eagle Spirit and the chiefs council. The chiefs council consists of about 35 communities, from Lax Kw'alaams up to Fort McMurray. I'll be speaking specifically in relation to Bill C-48, but I will have some comments on Bill C-69.

A meeting of all of our chiefs was held in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. The chiefs council is completely opposed to Bill C-48. The general tenor of their concern is that they have constitutional rights over their traditional territory. They don't think anybody, particularly what they call “latte-slurping elitist environmentalists”, should be coming into their territory and trying to ram stuff down their throats. They look at that as being wholly inappropriate. There wasn't any consultation whatsoever.

You heard from John relating to the Lax Kw'alaams community. All of the communities along the route feel that their right to be able to determine what happens in their traditional territory is being infringed upon by this proposed legislation.

The chiefs council passed a resolution to quash Bill C-48 by legal and other means, so that will be proceeding forward. It may be unknown to this committee that there's now a National Coalition of Chiefs. It's a group of the chiefs across Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C., and will probably include the two northern territories. They are essentially fed up with this environmentalist agenda being rammed down their throats. They feel it's being done by American-financed environmental groups. There's plenty of evidence to support that.

They passed a similar resolution. There will probably be about 200 first nations opposed to both Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, and I'll explain that a little further. These resolutions have been included, and I have some other information for you.

The other thing our chiefs wonder about is how come this is being proposed, essentially to cut off half of B.C.'s coast to important commercial traffic, when tanker shipping of oil and petroleum fuels is happening everywhere else in Canada. There are about 4,000 inbound oil tankers each year to the east coast, 82 million tonnes of petroleum and fuel products, and 25 million tonnes of crude oil and petroleum products in and out of 39 ports. There is 89% of the shipments that go into Quebec City and Montreal. The question they ask is whether the federal government would consider imposing such a ban in Quebec or anywhere else.

We are from the north, and environmental concerns are at the top of the list of our concerns. That is why we got involved in this project. We feel that we have probably the highest, most robust environmental model in the world for the oceans protection plan that's been proposed by the federal government. We feel that's minimal. We will voluntarily comply with a much higher standard. The government keeps talking about $1.5 billion, I believe, for ocean protection, but what they don't explain is that is being applied to 14,000 kilometres of shoreline along the entire Canadian coast when you need that kind of money focused in one area.

We respect the rights of other indigenous people in their traditional territory to disagree with this position, and that's the position of our chiefs. At the same time, the protocol amongst first nations and the law is that you can have an opinion on somebody else's territory, but you don't have any rights to determine what happens in their territory.

[Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett]

Good morning.

My name is Káwázil, Marilyn Slett. I am the chief councillor of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, which is the elected leadership for the Heiltsuk First Nation.

We support Canada's building of world-class marine corridors that are safe and competitive while protecting the coastal environment. We have managed our traditional marine territory for thousands of years. Safe and healthy marine corridors are vitally important to us. This committee has heard much about the need for marine transport to be financially competitive, which implies low-cost approaches. Heiltsuk believes that world-class marine corridors are worth paying for with the creation of safe, ecologically viable systems where industry pays its fair share for modern-day risks, which is what the public demands.

We have three key points.

First, a system of world-class marine corridors means that government must be able to control traffic in sensitive ecological areas and harvesting areas. Heiltsuk raised this issue on Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, but it did not find its way into the final version. This committee has the opportunity when addressing other legislation, such as the Pilotage Act, to include a power to decide where vessels, especially oil carriers, may or may not travel in sensitive areas.

Spills in sensitive areas are better avoided through the regulation of marine corridors. Heiltsuk's experience with the Nathan E. Stewart oil spill in 2016 illustrates that oil spills are costly for everyone: for governments, for indigenous communities and for shipowners. Millions of dollars were spent on raising the vessel and responding to other aspects of the spill. Heiltsuk spent significant amounts on its own response to the spill and on its attempts to negotiate a robust environmental impact assessment. The cost of our environmental impact assessment and remediation is currently unknown, but will be significant. The incident is subject to current litigation, which is expected to be lengthy and expensive.

All of the existing regulations were not able to prevent the spill from the Nathan E. Stewart in a key harvesting area. One officer was on watch, whereas two were required. He lacked pilotage qualifications. He fell asleep. The navigation alarms were off and spill responders did not arrive and deploy booms in time to confine the spill. The existing compensation regime does not compensate [Technical difficulty—Editor] or cultural losses. In the long run, regulation of marine corridors is in everyone's best interests, including industry and government, because it will help avoid spills in the most harmful areas.

Second, a system of world-class marine corridors must include indigenous pilots, and where the west coast lacks indigenous pilots, local pilots and seafarers know the coast intimately. They will put the safety and protection of the coastal environment first because that is the foundation of their traditional practices.

Third, Heiltsuk recognizes that even with the best safeguards, there may be accidents. There must be a world-class spill response centre. Heiltsuk had proposed the building of an indigenous marine response centre in Bella Bella that would provide a maximum five-hour response time, and our IMRC would always make emergency response vessels available instead of the current tug of opportunity system, indigenous leadership, [Technical difficulty—Editor], the weather, and the specific areas that would be in danger.

The work of the standing committee is a real opportunity for Canada to directly consult with Heiltsuk and other indigenous peoples. We are pleased to see the progress on pieces of legislation that provide for some indigenous engagement. However, there needs to be a full embrace of UNDRIP and indigenous engagement. It is only when Canada recognizes our self-determination in our territories that there is true reconciliation.

Gayaxsixa. Thank you.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are drowning Canadian job creators in red tape and tax hikes. Whether it is the carbon tax, small business tax hikes or the many cancelled tax credits and deductions, the Liberals are driving businesses out of Canada and killing Canadian jobs, hurting workers and middle-class families across the country.

Every other day major oil and gas companies cancel future projects, stop expansions or completely sell their Canadian businesses and take their money to other countries. It is a crisis, and it is not a result of external factors beyond the government's control. In fact, it is a direct consequence of the Liberals' message to Canadians and the world that Canada is closed for business because of the Liberals' added red tape and imposed cost increases.

Context is important. The energy sector is the biggest private sector investor and accounts for over 11% of the value of Canada's economy. To put this in perspective, it contributes twice as much as agriculture and fisheries combined, sectors in which farmers and fishermen also often have jobs in oil and gas. It contributes more than the banking and finance sector and more than the auto sector. The benefits are shared across Canada. Every one job in the oil sands creates seven manufacturing jobs in Ontario. Every one upstream oil and gas job in Alberta creates five jobs in other sectors, in other provinces.

However, spending in Canada's oil and gas sector declined 56% over three years, from $81 billion in 2014 to $45 billion in 2017. More money has left Canada's oil and gas sector since the 2015 election than at any other comparable time period in more than 70 years. The equivalent value would be losing 75% of auto manufacturing in Canada, or almost the entirety of the aerospace sector in Canada, something no one rightfully would accept.

The biggest beneficiary is the U.S. where spending in oil and gas increased 38% to $120 billion in 2017. Today, U.S. investment in Canada is down by more than half. Canadian investment in the U.S. is up by two-thirds. The consequences of these losses are hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of work and less revenue for core social programs and services at every level of government in every single province.

Over 115,000 Albertans are out of work and not receiving any employment insurance assistance right now and tens of thousands more have lost their jobs. The Liberals' anti-energy agenda is clearly both hindering the private sector from being able to provide well-paying jobs, but it is also risking the life savings of many Canadians.

Oil and gas companies are a big part of most people's pension plans, and whether through employer provided defined contribution plans or personal investments in mutual funds, chances are that most Canadians are invested in oil and gas. When oil and gas companies leave Canada, the value of those investments in Canada drops, reducing the value of everyone's retirement savings. Now CPP and the Ontario teachers' pension plan are also investing in the United States.

I want to highlight an aspect of this legislation that will compound uncertainty and challenges for Canadian oil and gas proponents. On page 589, in the very last chapter of this 840-page omnibus bill, clause 692 implements sweeping new powers for the federal cabinet to impose regulations on marine transport. Included in these powers is the ability to pass regulations:

(j) respecting compulsory routes and recommended routes;

(k) regulating or prohibiting the operation, navigation, anchoring, mooring or berthing of vessels or classes of vessels; and

(l) regulating or prohibiting the loading or unloading of a vessel or a class of vessels.

This means the Liberal cabinet can block any class of tanker from any route leaving Canada or from docking at any port the Liberals choose. In Bill C-48, oil tankers of a certain size will be prevented from travelling and from the loading and off-loading of crude at ports only off the northern coast of B.C.

This legislation, Bill C-86, would be a dramatic expansion, giving the Liberal cabinet the power to block oil exports from any port anywhere in Canada or to block oil tankers in general from entering Canadian waters. Places like the Arctic could lose access to the fuel tankers that keep power on during the winter. Offshore oil and gas development in Atlantic Canada could be blocked overnight. That is alarming in itself, and it gets worse.

This legislation authorizes a single minister to be able to make legally binding changes to these regulations for a year at a time and even up to three years, regarding “compulsory routes” and “prohibiting the operation, navigation, anchoring, mooring or berthing of vessels or classes of vessels”. One minister with one stroke of a pen can shut down an entire industry with wide-ranging impacts.

This is a pattern. The Liberals repeatedly demonstrate their hostility to the oil and gas sector in Canada. The Prime Minister of course said that he wants to phase out the oil sands, and Canadians should believe him. He defended the use of tax dollars for summer jobs to stop the Trans Mountain expansion. The Liberals removed the tax credit for new exploration oil drilling at the very worst time.

Also, many Liberal MPs ran in the last election opposing the export of Canada's oil to the world. Since they formed government, the Liberals have used every tool at their disposal to kill energy sector jobs.

Canada is the only top 10 oil-producing country in the world, let alone in North America, to impose a carbon tax on itself. While there are significant exemptions for major industrial emitters, it will hike costs for operations across the value chain, and certainly for the 80% of Canadian service and supply companies that are small businesses. Moreover, individual contractors will still have to pay it.

The proposed clean fuel standards—which would be unprecedented globally because they would be applied to buildings and facilities, not just to transportation fuel—will cost integrated oil and gas companies as well as refining and petrochemical development in Canada hundreds of millions of dollars. Canada is literally the most environmentally and socially responsible producer of oil and gas in the world, oil and gas that the world will continue to demand for decades. We are falling dramatically behind the United States and other countries for regulatory efficiency and clarity.

The Liberals imposed the tanker ban, with no substantial economic, safety, or environmental assessments and no real consultation, and a ban on offshore drilling in the north against the wishes of the premier of the Northwest Territories.

The Prime Minister vetoed outright the northern gateway pipeline and then intervened to kill energy east with delays, rule changes and a last-minute double standard. Now, the Liberals' failures have driven Kinder Morgan out of Canada. Construction of the Trans Mountain expansion has never started in the two years since the Liberals approved it, and they have repeatedly kicked the can down the road for months. The consequence is that crude oil is now being shipped by rail and truck at record levels, negatively impacting other sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and retail.

The Liberals would add uncertainty and great expense for any resource project that has even a ditch on its property, by subjecting all water to the navigable waters regulatory regime in Bill C-68. Moreover, their “no more pipelines” Bill C-69 would block any future pipelines and therefore stop major oil and gas projects from being built in Canada.

Kinder Morgan is now going to take all of that $4.5 billion in Canadian tax dollars the Liberals spent on the existing pipeline and will use it to build pipelines in the United States, Canada's biggest energy competitor and customer. The consequences are that large companies are pulling out of Canada and investing in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Encana, a made in Canada success story, is selling Canadian assets to buy into projects in the United States. Gwyn Morgan, its founder, did not mince words. He said:

I’m deeply saddened that, as a result of the disastrous policies of the [Liberal] government, what was once the largest Canadian-headquartered energy producer now sees both its CEO and the core of its asset base located in the U.S.

It is estimated that the Liberal failure to get pipelines built is forcing Canadian oil to sell for $100 million dollars less a day than what it should be worth. That is $100 million dollars a day that is not providing for middle-class families, that is not fuelling small businesses, and not generating taxes to pay off the out-of-control Liberal deficit.

RBC recently reported that in 2008, taxes generated by oil and gas were worth $35 billion a year for provincial and federal governments. That is now down to almost $10 billion a year in 2016. That is more than $20 billion a year that could have gone to health care and education or to cover old age security costs, or be invested in building bridges and roads. Of course, the Liberals promised a deficit of only $10 billion a year and that the budget would be balanced by 2019, but none of that is anywhere in sight. They choose to spend recklessly: millions of dollars on perks like renovations for ministers' offices, a $5 million hockey rink on Parliament Hill that operated for a couple of months, or $26 million for vehicles. Never mind the billions of dollars spent outside Canada, building oil and gas pipelines in Asia with Canadian tax dollars or funding groups linked to anti-Semitism and terrorism.

Never has a government spent so much and achieved so little. The end result is Canada is trapped in a debt spiral. The ones who are going to pay for these deficits are millennials and their children, and it makes life less affordable today while federal government debt increases interest rates across the board. That poses significant risks to Canada and leaves us utterly unprepared for a global economic recession or worldwide factors that the government cannot control, unlike the Liberals' damaging policies. Future generations will find that their governments cannot afford services or programs they are counting on, and their governments will be in a trap of borrowing and hiking taxes. That is why Conservatives advocate balanced budgets, because it is the only responsible thing to do for Canada's children and grandchildren.

The out-sized contributions of the energy sector to the whole country's economy and to government revenue is also why the future of energy development in Canada is one of the most important domestic economic questions facing all of us. That is what makes the Liberal layering of red tape and costs on Canadian energy so unconscionable, and the consequences so devastating for all of Canada.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a quick question and I'll then toss it to my friend Mr. Badawey.

A lot of the provisions, as we heard from the last panel, have been consulted in the process of developing bills C-48, C-64, C-68 and C-55. Between this committee and the fisheries committee, we've done a deeper dive into it, clause-by-clause, recommendations, etc., but there was one example that helped me understand the nature of your concern. That was with respect to protecting the north Atlantic right whale. There was a slowdown and fishing bans in certain areas, and it was ultimately discovered that they had probably overreacted, that they could have taken a more refined approach to protecting that whale from ship collisions, in this case.

Based on what we've heard from you, would you be content if an interim order came down—as you mentioned, Ms. Simard, for a short period of time—that allowed for refinements to come forward that might mitigate what otherwise would be unnecessary impacts on your industry?

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The complementary bills that are folded into this initiative—Bill C-48, the crude oil moratorium on the north coast, Bill C-64 regarding wrecked, abandoned and dilapidated vessels, and BillC-68 and Bill C-55, a couple that relate to the Fisheries Act and the Oceans Act—are they basically all enclosed, if you will, in divisions 22 and 23, or do they comprise what's going forward in this budget implementation bill that's of concern to this committee?

Natural Resources

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, in the government's last budget, it was noted with some concern that the discount on Alberta crude had averaged $20 a barrel over the previous year. The budget then went on to predict that, with new pipelines on the way, the differential this year would begin to close, allowing Canadians to get closer to world prices.

The differential has not shrunk. Last week, it hit a staggering $50 per barrel. This means that under the current government's failed pipeline policies, Canada is subsidizing the American economy by sending discounted oil, along with jobs, investment and lost tax revenue to the United States, while supporting Saudi Arabia by importing its oil.

Therefore, on behalf of thousands of my constituents who depend directly on the energy industry, I call upon the government to stop Bill C-69, stop Bill C-48, quit dithering, table a plan to get the Trans Mountain pipeline built, scrap the carbon tax, and get serious about energy policy.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everybody, for your presentations here today.

I want to add to Mr. Fergus' assessment of the theme of the presentations. I also heard that Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and carbon taxes don't help the industries we're talking about today. They actually hinder them. I just wanted to take a second to get that on the record, from my assessment on this side of the table.

I want to start with you, Mr. Scholz. You spoke of 1,800 wells to 600, to about 550 wells next year. Each of those represents 135 jobs. Could you expand on what that means? What types of jobs are those? What does that mean, broadly, for a community here in Alberta?

We've gone across the country, as you know, and heard from a variety of organizations, but this is quite specific to Alberta and what we're experiencing right now. If you have any examples of those jobs and of the impact on the community, that would be helpful.

[Mark Scholz, President, Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors]

Thank you again, Mr. Chair. It's great to be back.

I hope the weather improves on the island so you can get those wonderful potatoes out of the ground. We have experienced some interesting weather here in Alberta, as well.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to address the committee. I represent oil and gas well drilling and wells servicing contractors from across the country. These are the hard-working men and women who spend their days on drilling and service rigs, drilling holes in the ground that eventually become the producing wells that supply us with affordable and reliable energy.

Canadians are proud of their oil and gas industry, and the majority of us support its responsible development. This industry has a long history of building Canadian businesses and allowing Canadian families to prosper. They recognize that new pipelines represent thousands of jobs, a bright future for Canada's economy, and a safer way to transport our ethical resources, both domestically and to the rest of the world.

The lack of market access for Canadian oil and gas is an enormous short-, mid-, and long-term liability to the Canadian economy. Without new pipelines, we are not competitive in global markets, and we are losing investment opportunities.

Over the past 18 months, our members have moved over 20 high-spec drilling rigs, including Canadian skilled labour and management teams to the United States. We are losing jobs, talent, market share, margins and our industry, because we cannot compete.

In 2014, there were approximately 800 drilling rigs and 1,200 service rigs in Canada. Today, there are only 600 drilling rigs and 900 service rigs, a difference of 500 rigs. In 2019, we are estimating the rig fleet count to decrease again, to only 550 drilling rigs, a 30% reduction since 2014.

These statistics should alarm policy-makers, because every active drilling rig represents 135 direct and indirect jobs. It means that an estimated 54,000 high-value jobs have disappeared from the Canadian economy and are not coming back because of the relocation of these assets.

Unfortunately, given Canada's recent track record and the looming prospects of Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, we do not see a bright future for the competitiveness of the Canadian oil and gas industry. What perhaps is worse is the fact that as we sit paralyzed, fretting over the most regulated, safe and environmentally conscious hydrocarbon jurisdiction in the world, countries such as the United States have incentivized investment in their own oil and gas sector. For example, the recent tax reforms in the United States have provided businesses with the ability to immediately expense 100% of investments in machinery, equipment and qualified approved property in the same year of purchase.

With our world-class standards, Canada has an opportunity to play a significant role in shaping the world's energy future responsibly, yet, rather than enabling our industry, we continue to place roadblocks in front of it. In addition to falling behind regarding market share and investment, our egress challenges cost Canadians $40 million per day in pricing discounts. Canadian lose up to $50 per barrel compared to WTI, depending on the grade of crude, and the majority of these discounts are due to transportation bottlenecks.

In 2016, the federal government removed the fuel excise tax exemption on heating oil from my members. This decision had an effect of increasing costs at a time that our membership could least afford it. We're asking the federal government to reinstate this exemption.

The carbon tax in Alberta and British Columbia, as part of Canada's climate plan, has increased operating costs significantly. A prominent oil and gas producer in Canada stated that it cost over $100,000 in carbon taxes alone to drill a single well in British Columbia. The increasing cumulative costs, however, do not factor in the lost jobs and opportunity costs that are missed as our industry begins to dig itself out of the downturn.

In the meantime, our equipment, people and capital are being redeployed to other oil and gas-producing jurisdictions, such as the United States. Over-regulation has shuttered Canadian oil and gas firms, and in turn harms, not advances, global action on climate. A failed Canadian oil and gas industry cannot help to assist in the reduction of global emissions through the displacement of hydrocarbons from jurisdictions with lagging environmental standards.

In summary, our association is calling on the federal government to do the following. First, defeat Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 in the Senate. Second, reinstate the federal excise tax exemption on heating oil for drilling and service rigs. Third, consider incentives such as allowing firms to expense 100% of their investment capital in the first year.

Fourth, focus Canada's climate strategy around reducing global emissions and not just domestic emissions. Fifth, defend and promote the benefits of our industry, including our world-class standards and technical expertise. Sixth, appeal the lower Federal Court's decision on the Trans Mountain project to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Finally, stand firm in the position that pipeline construction falls under federal jurisdiction and that getting Canadian oil and gas to Canadian and world markets is a priority.

Thank you very much.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, everyone.

Our colleague Kelly represents Saskatchewan. Rightfully so, she directed her questions to Mr. Orb. Matt and I represent a couple of Alberta constituencies, so I want to talk a bit about oil and the safety of shipping oil on our waterways.

As was mentioned by a colleague here, we were in Vancouver last week. Each time we asked, whether on our port tour or in presentations, about the safety of shipping oil by tanker, every answer was the same: There are no safety concerns by the shipping industry.

That was Vancouver. I'm more interested in shipping oil out of the northern ports. We all know that Bill C-48 was introduced to meet a campaign commitment that was made on the back of a napkin. I'd just like to get some comment on this from you. We have a government that talks about making decisions based on science and statistics.

To the Shipping Federation, do you have any statistics or do you know of any statistics that would support the tanker ban off the west coast?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

I've appeared before this committee before on Bill C-48. We certainly had concerns about the fact that a risk assessment was not included in the draft bill, and one of our recommendations was to include some sort of risk assessment on a periodic basis in that piece of legislation.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to order made earlier today, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-48.

The House resumed from May 4 consideration of the motion 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.

Business of the House

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all members of the House for their understanding and flexibility as we adjust the schedule and voting a little in order to honour our late colleague Gordon Brown.

With that in mind, I would like to ask for unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-374, An Act to amend the Historic Sites and Monuments Act (composition of the Board), standing in the name of the Member for Cloverdale—Langley City, be deemed read a third time and passed; Bill C-377, An Act to change the name of the electoral district of Châteauguay—Lacolle, standing in the name of the member for Châteauguay—Lacolle, be deemed concurred in at the report stage; that any recorded division requested on the motion for second reading of Bill S-218, An Act respecting Latin American Heritage Month, standing in the name of the member for Thornhill, be deferred to Wednesday, May 23, 2018, immediately before the time provided for Private Members' Business; and that the recorded division on the motion for third reading 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, be further deferred until the end of the time provided for Government Orders later this day.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to speak in the House of Commons.

On a more serious note, I would like to take a moment to talk about my colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, who passed away very suddenly this week. I never imagined this could happen. I share his family's sorrow, though of course mine could never equal theirs. His young children will not get to share amazing moments in their lives with their father, and that is staggeringly sad. I would therefore like to publicly state that I encourage them to hang in there. One day, they will surely find joy in living again, and we are here for them.

As usual, I want to say acknowledge all of the residents of Beauport—Limoilou who are tuning in. I would like to let them know that there will be a press conference Monday morning at my office. I will be announcing a very important initiative for our riding. I urge them to watch the news or read the paper when the time comes.

Bill C-48 would essentially enact a moratorium on the entire Pacific coast. It would apply from Prince Rupert, a fascinating city that I visited in 2004 at the age of 18, to Port Hardy, at the northern tip of Vancouver Island. This moratorium is designed to prevent oil tankers, including Canadian ones, that transport more than 12,500 tons of oil from accessing Canada's inland waters, and therefore our ports.

This moratorium will prohibit the construction of any pipeline project or maritime port beyond Port Hardy, on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, to export our products to the west. In the past three weeks, the Liberal government has slowly but surely been trying to put an end to Canada's natural resources, and oil in particular. Northern Gateway is just one example.

The first thing the Liberals did when they came to power was to amend the environmental assessment process managed by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency; they even brag about it. Northern Gateway was in the process of being accepted, but as a result of these amendments, the project was cancelled, even though the amendments were based on the cabinet's political agenda and not on scientific facts, as the Liberal government claims.

When I look at Bill C-48, which would enact a moratorium on oil tankers in western Canada, it seems clear to me that the Liberals had surely been planning to block the Northern Gateway project for a while. Their argument that the project did not clear the environmental assessment is invalid, since they are now imposing a moratorium that would have prevented this project from moving forward regardless.

The Prime Minister and member for Papineau has said Canada needs to phase out the oil sands. Not only did he say that during the campaign, but he said it again in Paris, before the French National Assembly, in front of about 300 members of the Macron government, who were all happy to hear it. I can guarantee my colleagues that Canadians were not happy to hear that, especially people living in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta who benefit economically from this natural resource. Through their hard work, all Canadians benefit from the incredible revenues and spinoffs generated by that industry.

My colleague from Prince Albert gave an exceptional speech this morning. He compassionately explained how hard it has been for families in Saskatchewan to accept and understand the decisions being made one after the other by this Liberal government. The government seems to be sending a message that is crystal clear: it does not support western Canada's natural resources, namely oil and natural gas. What is important to understand, however, is that this sector represents roughly 60% the economy of the western provinces and 40% of Canada's entire economy.

I can see why the Minister of Environment and Climate Change says we need to tackle climate change first. The way she talks to us every day is so arrogant. We believe in climate change. That is not the issue. Climate change and natural resources are complex issues, and we must not forget the backdrop to this whole debate. People are suffering because they need to put food on the table. Nothing has changed since the days of Cro-Magnon man. People have to eat every day. People have to find ways to survive.

When the Liberals go on about how to save the planet and the polar bears, that is their post-modern, post-materialist ideology talking. Conservatives, in contrast, talk about how to help families get through the day. That is what the Canadian government's true priority should be.

Is it not completely absurd that even now, in 2018, most of the gas people buy in the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, and Ontario comes from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia even though we have one of the largest oil reserves in the world? Canada has the third-largest oil reserve in the world, in fact. That is not even counting the Arctic Ocean, of which we own a sizeable chunk and which has not yet been explored. Canada has tremendous potential in this sector.

As I have often told many of my Marxist-Leninist, leftist, and other colleagues, the price of oil is going to continue to rise dramatically until 2065 because of China's and India's fuel consumption. Should Canada say no to $1 trillion in economic spinoffs until then? Absolutely not.

How will we afford to pay for our hospitals, our schools, and our social services that are so dear to the left-wing advocates of the welfare state in Canada? As I said, the priority is to meet the needs of Canadians and Canada, a middle power that I adore.

To get back to the point I was making, as my colleague from Prince Albert said, the decision regarding Bill C-48 and the moratorium was made by cabinet, without any consultation or any study by a parliamentary committee. Day after day, the Liberals brag about being the government that has consulted more with Canadians over the past three years than any government in history. It is always about history with them.

The moratorium will have serious consequences for Canada's prosperity and the economic development of the western provinces, which represent a growing segment of the population. How can the Liberals justify the fact that they failed to conduct any environmental or scientific impact assessments, hold any Canada-wide consultations, or have a committee examine this issue? They did not even consult with the nine indigenous nations that live on the land covered by the moratorium. The NDP ought to be alarmed about that. That is the point I really want to talk about.

I have here a legal complaint filed with the B.C. Supreme Court by the Lax Kw'alaams first nation—I am sorry if I pronounced that wrong—represented by John Helin. The plaintiffs are the indigenous peoples living in the region covered by the moratorium. Only nine indigenous nations from that region are among the plaintiffs. The defendant is the Government of British Columbia.

The lawyer's argument is very interesting from a historical perspective.

“The claim area includes and is adjacent to an open and safe deepwater shipping corridor and contains lands suitable for development as an energy corridor and protected deepwater ports for the development and operation of a maritime installation, as defined in Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act”.

“The plaintiffs' aboriginal title encompasses the right to choose to what uses the land can be put, including use as a marine installation subject only to justifiable environmental assessment and approval legislation”.

He continues:

The said action by Canada “discriminates against the plaintiffs by prohibiting the development of land...in an area that has one of the best deepwater ports and safest waterways in Canada, while permitting such development elsewhere”, such as in the St. Lawrence Gulf, the St. Lawrence River, and the Atlantic Ocean.

My point is quite simple. We have a legal argument here that shows that not only does the territory belong to the indigenous people and the indigenous people were not consulted, but that the indigenous people, whom the Liberals are said to love, are suing the Government of British Columbia. This will likely go all the way to the Supreme Court because this moratorium goes against their ancestral rights on their territory, which they want to develop for future oil exports. This government is doing a very poor job of this.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Beauport—Limoilou.

I stand in the House today to speak to Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, a bill that is yet another disappointment for all Canadians who want to see our country prosper.

The Liberals may want Canadians to believe that this moratorium is in their interest, but that is just not the case. This legislation is not justified by an environmental or economic study, nor is it supported by proper consultation with the impacted communities, industries, and experts. Rather, the legislation before us today is the fulfillment of political will, and its economic impact goes far beyond the prescribed geographic area in the legislation.

In considering Bill C-48, we must look at the full picture. The proposed moratorium is yet another hit to Canada's oil and gas sector, a sector that has already lost $80 billion in investment under the Prime Minister's watch. That is the biggest decline in Canadian energy investment in 70 years. Just last week, Canadians found out that the Prime Minister's government gave taxpayer money to an environmental lobby group to hire an activist to protest against the Trans Mountain pipeline project, a pipeline project that is supported by its environmental assessment and that the government told Canadians it supports. Canadians deserve a government that is up front with them, a government that does not undermine their prosperity.

Championing Canada's energy sector should be common sense. The responsible development of our natural resources is essential to our country's prosperity. It is our second-biggest export and provides tremendous economic opportunity. In fact, it employs hundreds of thousands of Canadians. It creates billions of dollars of tax revenue, tax revenue that benefits Canadians and communities across this country from coast to coast to coast, and we cannot dismiss the fact that oil produced and transported in Canada operates within strict environmental standards while also upholding human rights and workplace standards.

The message that the government's action is sending is that it would rather import oil from countries like Saudi Arabia than create infrastructure to move Canadian oil across this country, and by obstructing Canada's access to the global market, it is opening the door for countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela, countries that do not have the same environmental standards and human rights that Canada does.

The demand for oil is not ceasing but growing, and I believe the world needs more Canadian oil. The fact is that Canada is capable of providing more energy and greater energy security to Canada and the world, but to harness that opportunity, we need new infrastructure. We need pipelines and access to reach new markets, and to get that done, we need federal leadership, not tomorrow but today.

Unfortunately, that is not what we have before us. What we have is another step forward in the Prime Minister's plan to phase out the oil sands. The United States is Canada's largest energy trading partner, which is an important relationship, but landlocking Canadian oil does not put our country on a path for long-term energy success. That is why the diversification of Canada's energy partners is also important. By not relying on a single market, we will reduce our economic risk and better protect the long-term health of our country's economy.

The Asia-Pacific region is a large and valuable market opportunity. It is a market that can only be accessed through marine transport. The tanker moratorium proposed on the north coast of British Columbia hinders that access. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has said, “The moratorium would cut off the most economic path to Asia and sends yet another signal to the investment community that Canada is not open for business.”

The Liberals are turning away business, and for what benefit? The moratorium bans oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of oil from loading, unloading, or anchoring in the north coast of British Columbia. It does not ban tanker traffic. It does not take any substantial action to protect the environment. It penalizes an industry and prohibits communities in northern British Columbia from accessing economic opportunity.

Let us contrast that with real action to protect our coastlines. Our former Conservative government took strong action to ensure that Canada's tanker safety system is robust and modern. It introduced changes that included modernizing Canada's navigation system, improving inspections for all tankers, enhancing area response planning, increasing penalties for polluters, and building marine safety capacity in indigenous communities. That is tangible action to protect our environment, action that improves environmental protection in our waters and our coastlines, all while keeping Canada on the right path to harness our economic opportunities.

The legislation in front of us does not build on that meaningful action. As I have said, it builds on the Prime Minister's record of building roadblocks to stop the success of our energy sector. It is not in the interests of Canadians.

The Prime Minister already vetoed the northern gateway pipeline that would have brought economic opportunity to the impacted region. Now, if this ban is enforced, the north coast of British Columbia will be closed for energy business. Again, let us remember that is closed for business without any meaningful consultation, a concern that is rightfully echoed by industry leaders and impacted communities.

In fact, this tanker moratorium is even being pushed through without properly consulting coastal first nations. There is considerable support among British Columbia's coastal first nations who want to pursue energy development opportunities that are environmentally sound. I find it quite hypocritical of the Liberal government to move ahead without that meaningful consultation, particularly given that it has committed to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including free, prior, and informed consent.

It is no surprise that the Liberals' actions are already being challenged. The Lax Kw'alaams are among 30 first nations that are challenging the tanker ban in court. This ban prevents them from opportunities for future energy development on their land. It hinders their people from the economic benefits that it could yield.

The Lax Kw'alaams band has said that they were disheartened that this bill that is directed at their territories was introduced “without prior informed consent or even adequate consultation and input” from their people.

Eagle Spirit Energy Holding Ltd. was working toward a pipeline project that would have yielded tremendous economic opportunity and helped Canadian oil reach the Asia-Pacific market. However, with this ban, its project is essentially rendered useless. In response to the government's legislation it has said:

[T]here has been no consultation with those communities harmfully impacted in the interior of British Columbia or those in Alberta—a situation which certainly falls short of the deep consultation the Crown requires of corporations proposing major resource development projects on the traditional lands of Indigenous Peoples.

I cannot support this legislation. It cannot be overstated that this legislation takes no meaningful action to improve environmental protection in the north coast of British Columbia. It is not justified by science or safety. I cannot support the Liberal government's continued mismanagement of the energy sector. Many of my constituents work in the energy sector and their livelihoods depend on it. Canada needs to diversify its energy-trading partners, not introduce regulations and measures that will landlock it.

The Prime Minister needs to show leadership. The Liberals need to start supporting energy projects that are determined to be safe for the environment and in the interests of Canadians. They need to stand up for our energy sector and they need to stand up for Canadians.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity today to join in the discussion about Bill C-48 and the important role it would play in the protection of the province I represent, British Columbia.

Bill C-48, an act that would establish an oil tanker moratorium on British Columbia's north coast, is a significant step we are taking to enhance environmental protections for our coastlines. Preventing accidents from occurring in the first place is our primary goal. This measure, which complements the $1.5-billion oceans protection plan, takes a precautionary approach to help safeguard the extremely ecologically sensitive marine environment in this region.

The B.C. oil tanker moratorium would build on the existing voluntary tanker exclusion zone, which has been in effect since 1985. To protect our shoreline, the voluntary tanker exclusion zone ensures that loaded tankers carrying oil from Valdez, Alaska to U.S. west coast ports transit west of the tanker exclusion zone boundary.

By formalizing an oil tanker moratorium, this legislation would prohibit tankers carrying large shipments of crude or persistent oils from stopping, loading, and unloading at ports and marine installations in northern British Columbia. The moratorium area would extend from the Canada-U.S. border in the north down to the point on British Columbia's mainland adjacent to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, and it would also include the beautiful islands of Haida Gwaii.

The legislation would also include strong penalty provisions for contravention that could reach up to $5 million. This would help keep our waters and coasts safe and clean for use today, while protecting them for future generations. Through this legislation, we would put in place unprecedented levels of environmental protections for the marine environment in northern British Columbia. The precautionary approach taken in Bill C-48 would target both crude oil and persistent oil products that are likely to remain in the environment the longest if spilled.

Under the act, the Governor in Council would have authority to amend the schedule of prohibited persistent oil products. Amendments to the schedule would be done via regulation and could be considered following a review that would assess new science and evidence around the fate and behaviour of the petroleum product when spilled, advances in cleanup technology, and institutional arrangements for responding to vessel-source oil spills. Indeed, environmental safety and science would be the main considerations for adding products to the schedule or removing products from it.

During consultations and witness statements, we heard about the importance of environmental protections in this region. Coastal communities and industries rely on healthy ecosystems to protect their way of life and livelihoods, for example through fish populations that could become threatened should a serious spill occur in this region.

The moratorium would protect the livelihoods of communities on British Columbia's north coast by providing a heightened level of environmental protection while continuing to allow for community and industry resupply by small tanker.

Bill C-48 demonstrates that we do not support large shipments of crude oil or persistent oil products in this region. The British Columbia oil tanker moratorium would take a preventative approach to oil spills in the region so that Canada's coastal habitats, ecosystems, and marine species, including marine mammals, are able to thrive.

In addition to establishing the moratorium, we are also taking steps through the oceans protection plan to improve our incident prevention and response regime, and address environmental concerns in the event of a marine incident.

The role and authority of the Canadian Coast Guard are being strengthened to ensure rapid and efficient responses in case of a marine incident. The Canadian Coast Guard will offer training to indigenous communities for search and rescue, environmental response, and incident command to allow for a greater role in marine safety for these communities.

We are implementing the incident command system and enhancing emergency coordination centres across the government in order to bolster our response capabilities. These measures would improve the coordination of response actions of departments and agencies when dealing with an incident by using a common response system.

During the response to larger pollution incidents, our government quickly brings together relevant subject matter experts in the field of environmental protection who supply consolidated scientific and technical advice on environmental concerns, priorities, and spill countermeasure strategies. This ultimately enables an effective and timely response to pollution incidents.

Clearly, the oil tanker moratorium is just one of many initiatives in our comprehensive plan to protect the marine environment. The oceans protection plan, which is the largest investment ever made in our oceans and waterways, and the oil tanker moratorium act are two concrete actions we are taking to ensure a clean and vibrant marine environment. These measures reinforce our determination to advance science and utilize valuable traditional knowledge to keep our waters and wildlife clean, safe, and healthy for generations to come. This is why we hope we can expect the support of the members present for the passage of this bill, which moves this critical agenda an important step forward in protecting our pristine environment.

The House resumed consideration of the motion 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.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-48, the north coast partial oil tanker ban. That we have this in place is a credit to decades of work by north coast people. I also want to acknowledge the work of my colleague, the member of Parliament for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. His version of this bill in the previous Parliament toured the entire country, and thousands of people came out under the “Defend Our Coast” banner. It was very powerful. It gave the Liberal government the mandate to implement this, so we are glad to see the legislation.

We will be voting in favour of the bill. Our New Democratic colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam tried quite hard to strengthen it. There is more ministerial discretion than we would like to see. Some of our colleagues have been quoted saying that one could drive an oil tanker through this moratorium. Nevertheless, we are going to vote in favour and we are glad to see some version of it moving forward.

As a member representing the south coast of British Columbia, the Salish Sea and Nanaimo—Ladysmith, I can say that we have very complicated shorelines, very fast-moving currents, very sensitive ecology, and 450 islands between the area I represent on Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia and the U.S. border, with extremely complicated shipping traffic. We have very sensitive ecology and shorelines where we know that if there was an oil spill of any size, it would be extremely difficult to clean up.

Given that the industry standard for oil spill response is a 10% cleanup of oil, let me say again that members representing the southern part of British Columbia are committed to protecting their coastline, the economy, and the jobs that depend on it. They are just as concerned about the impacts of oil tanker traffic, especially when it is an unrefined, raw product that has no value-added jobs in Canada and no energy security benefit for Canada. Certainly, for British Columbians, the shipment of what we view as an increased level of danger by more oil tanker traffic and a thicker, unrefined product is all downside for our coast. There is no upside.

If the government is willing to put in strong measures for the north coast, why not for the south coast? There is still no peer-reviewed science that tells us how bitumen would react in the marine environment, in rough water with sediment in it. Who is going to have an oil spill with no waves? It just boggles the mind that the Liberal government could have approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline in the absence of evidence that bitumen can be recovered from the marine environment and that our response times are adequate to clean it.

What we have is some suspicion or concern based on what has been observed from other times when bitumen has been spilled in the marine environment. The diluent, which allows the raw, unrefined bitumen to flow, may evaporate very quickly. The evaporation itself may pose dangers to first responders, so it might be that first responders have to keep away. Certainly, if there was a bitumen spill in a heavily populated area, such as downtown Vancouver, a million people would be affected by a spill with much more toxic fumes than a refined product would have. We saw that in the Kalamazoo spill, which was in fresh water, but that was a huge occupational exposure.

When first responders have to stay away and cannot get to the spill quickly, this means that the diluent has more time to evaporate and there is an increased risk that the bitumen would sink. I have folders full of science reports from the Polaris Institute, the Royal Society of Canada, and others that talk about the stickiness and impact on marine wildlife such as sea otters and sea birds, let alone what would happen if we end up with bitumen coating the seabed. The damage that would be done trying to clean that up is alarming to contemplate.

We ask again, how is it that although the north coast partial oil tanker ban is being lauded by many of us on the coast and in the environmental movement, we do not have a concomitant level of protection in the south? We do not have confidence that our oil spill response is in a respectable and responsible place.

It turns out I am splitting my time with the member for Courtenay—Alberni. I look forward to his speech. We are full of surprises today.

My understanding is that the response regulations have not been updated or tightened since 1995. The Liberal government has had two and a half years to make that change. It has not. It is my understanding that if there is an oil spill in my region, the corporate entity responsible for the oil spill has 72 hours to get there. It is not in violation of the regulations unless it does not have booms and an oil spill response plan enacted within three days. How could that ever give any of us any confidence?

If the current government, or the previous government, really wanted to have pipelines approved and give coastal people any measure of confidence, then surely it would have upgraded and tightened those response times, as Washington State has done, repeatedly, as has Alaska.

When I was chair of the Islands Trust Council, we heard from our fellow governments at the local, regional, and state level that they were extremely concerned about Canada's, or British Columbia's, poor level of preparedness for an oil spill. Oil does not recognize the international boundary. They are very concerned, given the fast-moving currents. First of all, we are shipping a dangerous product for which there is no adequate response technology, and if we do not have the response times in place, the oil will move quickly to their side of the border. Certainly, their aquaculture industry is extremely concerned about our poor level of preparedness.

I am very glad to continue to see the Washington State governor salute the British Columbia NDP premier, John Horgan, for the very strong stand that he is taking to say, “I believe that the oil spill response plans for B.C.'s south coast are inadequate.”

We are seeing now, in court, the provincial government saying that as soon as the oil hits the shoreline, it is its responsibility and jurisdiction. If the federal government is not going to adequately regulate to protect this resource, then the provincial government will consider implementing regulations itself that would protect coastal ecology and coastal jobs.

To my regret, yesterday the federal Liberal government decided to intervene in that case to oppose my premier's efforts to better protect the coast where the Liberal government has failed to. Our New Democrat leader, Jagmeet Singh, urged the Prime Minister to join the British Columbia premier so they would co-operatively go to the courts together and ask for clarification.

That would have been leadership, and it would have been a real sign of co-operation and trying to get the right answer. Instead, to see the federal government intervening against the British Columbia government, which is simply trying to strengthen and increase the safety net, is extremely discouraging. What a strange way of spending both the government's legal resources and taxpayers' dollars. How on Earth could that be a good expenditure? What we need to be doing is strengthening the ecological safety net, and not fighting against stronger measures in court.

When I was chair of the Islands Trust Council, we heard from our Washington State colleagues about how important it was to have geographic response plans in place for oil spill prevention and preparedness. These are micro-studies of a particular region that would be enacted in the event of an oil spill. The responsible spiller, whoever that was, would know to boom this. The spiller is likely to be a corporate entity, and they do a pretty good job of looking after their own business.

We would love to see geographic response plans in place. I am pleased that the B.C. government is pushing for that.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak on Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. The name of the bill is actually quite curious, because when we look at the facts, we see that this piece of legislation has very little to do with banning oil tankers from the B.C. north coast and everything to do with continuing the government's hurtful campaign against pipeline and oil development throughout this country, and in particular in western Canada. Little is surprising in this regard. The Liberals arbitrarily shelved the northern gateway pipeline in 2016, forced the cancellation of the energy east pipeline in 2017, and continued to do as little as possible to support the development of the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline, which has been put on life support now, certainly in this month of May.

First, let us examine what the Liberals are saying this bill would do. Time and time again, we have heard in this chamber that Bill C-48 is about environmental protection, that by imposing this moratorium, the northern coast will be better protected, specifically against oil spills. They argue that a moratorium is the only way to safeguard against the problem and that this legislation is therefore the way forward. There are numerous and significant flaws with this jurisdiction, which mark it as both hollow and ill-advised.

First, there is an issue of consistency. Why are the Liberals targeting the B.C. north coast for a ban on oil tankers while they apparently ignore the presence of oil tankers along many other of our coasts in this country? Why are they making the arbitrary decision to limit the transport opportunities for oil along the north coast and not the south? This kind of moratorium does not exist along the St. Lawrence Seaway or in the Great Lakes, and it does not exist along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick. It does not exist around Vancouver. The fact that Bill C-48 quite arbitrarily applies only to the B.C. north coast sheds serious doubt on the Liberal claim that the intention of this bill is environmental protection.

Second, this environmental jurisdiction fails to consider that a voluntary exclusion zone of 100 kilometres for oil tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington State has been in place since 1985. These preventive measures have already been taken, prior to any sort of moratorium being put in place by the government. Additionally, oil tankers operating at this distance from the coastline would continue to be unaffected by this legislation. Once again, we struggle to find any support for the arguments being put forward by the Liberals in favour of this bill.

Third, the Liberal argument that the oil tanker moratorium is the only way to protect the environment completely ignores the current and extensive regulatory framework that exists for oil tankers today travelling within our waters. Canada's oil tanker safety procedures and processes still remain one of the best in the world.

We recall 2014. The former Conservative government introduced and implemented many innovative measures to ensure that oil tankers operated under strict regulations and environmental protections. These measures included modernizing Canada's navigation system, enhancing area response planning, building increased marine safety capacity in first nation communities, and ensuring that polluters pay for any spills and damages since 2010.

Every large crude-oil tanker that operates in Canadian waters must be equipped now with a double hull, so any tanker in our waters is covered by two full layers of water-tight surfaces to ensure safety and environmental protection. Oil tankers are consistently monitored by our national aerial surveillance program, and our data-sharing and communication technologies rigorously guide oil tanker traffic across this country to reduce the risk of collisions.

Do these kinds of regulations and protections exist for tankers exporting oil from, let us say, Venezuela or Saudi Arabia? There is no way. Given the strong and extensive regulations that exist for oil tankers travelling through Canadian waters, it is very clear that any jurisdiction for a moratorium on oil tankers for environmental reasons is completely unfounded.

What, then, is this bill all about? The answer, of course, is that it is about the Liberals' ideological objective to restrict Canadian pipeline and energy development as much as possible. The bill can most accurately be described as a moratorium on any and all pipeline development along the coastline of northern B.C., and as a result, this legislation would kill any economic opportunities communities in this region would otherwise have due to the increased energy investment in that area. We are already seeing that. This ban would seriously hurt many, and I say many, first nation groups that have stood to gain from a pipeline in their area.

The Eagle Spirit pipeline is a $16-billion project that would stretch from Bruderheim, Alberta, to Grassy Point, along the northern coast of B.C., which would be forced to reroute to Hyder, Alaska, and its end point. If this pipeline ban is imposed, the Eagle Spirit pipeline project, directed by more than 30 first nations across northern B.C. and Alberta, and their communities stand to lose a major economic opportunity due to the Liberal government's ideological and political posturing.

Bill C-48 has been brought forward without any true or meaningful consultation with first nation communities, which would be severely impacted by the implementation of a pipeline ban in northern British Columbia.

I will quote Calvin Helin, the chairman of Eagle Spirit and a member of the Lax Kw'alaams first nation, who said, “First Nations are completely opposed to government policy being made by foreigners when it impacts their ability to help out their own people [on reserve]. The energy industry is critical to Canada’s economy”, which no doubt it is, “and by some reports we are losing [an unbelievable] $50 million a day”.

We are losing $50 million a day. That could be many schools and hospitals that we could build in Canada every single day.

It is simply unacceptable that the government refuses to consult with these groups to allow them to develop energy infrastructure, which would create significant economic opportunities in these communities. However, this behaviour coming from the Liberals is also unfortunately unsurprising, considering that it is the Liberal government that has overseen the largest decline in Canadian energy investment in the past 70 years. We have talked a lot in the House about $80 billion-plus taken out of the economy, along with jobs in the energy sector. Well over 110,000 workers are unemployed in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

A moratorium on pipelines in northern B.C. is just another example of the government's blatant hostility toward our energy sector and the jobs and economic opportunities it would supply to communities across this country. The government has used the justification of environmental protection as a smokescreen for its anti-Canadian energy policies. When this argument is held up against the facts, we see it for what it is: a desperate attempt to mask the Liberals' ideological agenda. There are no real winners as a result of the northern B.C. pipeline moratorium, except American consumers, who receive discounted prices on our Canadian oil.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, that is why the Liberals need to have proper consultations. That is why they need to say to the public that this is what they are thinking and this is the problem. They would be surprised by what would come up as solutions. There are solutions to the problems. If they do not want to hear the solutions, they do stuff like this. They shove it down people's throats and get it done so they do not have a chance to present a solution. That is what they are doing in this case.

I will remind the House that there are still going to be tankers going up and down the west coast. However, they will not be Canadian tankers, and they will not be hauling Canadian oil.

We can look at all these new processes and new technologies and embrace them. I encourage us to embrace them. However, the government will not embrace them. It does everything but that. Instead, we see things like Bill C-48, which takes a sledgehammer to it and bans it outright. It takes all the development and throws it away, when there are probably opportunities here to make it better so that it works for everyone involved. That is so disappointing.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood.

I would like to thank my colleagues across the aisle for accommodating me this morning. Sometimes I think we should issue a press release whenever goodwill shows up between parties, because all Canadians see in this chamber is something other than that, which is unfortunate, because we do work together many times to get things done.

I am rising today to talk about Bill C-48 and the importance of making sure that we get this right. I am also going to talk about the concerns that we in Saskatchewan have about how this is being handled.

I sit on the trade committee. When the Liberals came into power, they wanted to review the TPP. They said that proper consultations had not happened. They said that the consultations had to be redone before the agreement was signed by the Liberal government.

The trade committee went across Canada. It redid all the work that the previous government had done and then some. Committee members made sure they talked to first nations and to business communities. They talked to people right across Canada. A lot of people said it was the third or fourth time they had talked about the TPP and it was being done again. The Liberals were telling us that we had to consult, that we had to do our homework, that we had to make sure everybody was aware of it, and that we had to be aware of all circumstances before going forward with that trade deal.

I look at this bill and I say the same thing. When we look at the impact this legislation would have on western Canada and Canada as a whole, we know we need to talk to a lot of people before this can be done.

I am from Saskatchewan. Some may ask why people in Saskatchewan would care about a tanker ban. A lot of people in Saskatchewan work in the oil and gas sector and their jobs will be impacted by this ban.

Let us not fool ourselves. This is not a tanker ban. This is to stop development in the resource sector and to stop shipping products to the west coast. It is nothing more than that. It is what the Liberals really planned to do from day one, and this bill is how they are going to achieve it. That is very disappointing.

If the Liberals wanted to make this major change, where were the committee meetings? When did the committee travel out there and talk about this with the various people who would be impacted? When did the Liberals talk to the premiers? When did they talk to the Premier of Saskatchewan and tell him this is what the government had planned? They did not do that.

This is the Prime Minister personally saying that he is going to ban tanker traffic because he thinks it is bad. Where is the science? What is his logic for doing this? Is there a problem with tankers? Are tankers unsafe? Is there a problem with the currents and other things in that area? The science that we have says no.

If tankers were unsafe, why would we allow them down the St. Lawrence River? Why would we allow them off the coast of Atlantic Canada? As we speak, tankers around the world are shipping oil out of places like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. They do this every day and we hear nothing about it.

What is it about this coastline that is so unique and special that Atlantic Canada does not get the same special consideration? Why is Atlantic Canada or the St. Lawrence not treated the same way? If we are concerned about the west coast, why are we not concerned about the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Canada? It does not make sense.

Some from western Canada may ask why the Prime Minister is doing this. It comes back to what he said before. He does not want the resource sector to be developed. He wants to shut it down. This bill is one of the corner pieces of the puzzle that would actually do that. What does that mean for the people of Saskatchewan, the people of Alberta, and the people of northern British Columbia? It means lost economic opportunity and lost jobs. What is left for the families that are employed in this sector, who are in good, well-paying jobs, who are in a good situation and are able to give their kids a good quality of life?

People in western Canada right now are taking part in rallies. I was on Facebook last night and watched a rally in Fort Nelson. Families are saying, “Enough is enough.” They have had enough. They want their MPs to represent them. They want their MPs to tell them that they care. They want their MPs to understand that the resource sector is not bad. They want us to understand that people need fuel in their cars and they would love to provide it. They want us to understand that they provide it in the most environmentally friendly fashion in the world.

What is the deal? Where is the problem? It comes back to one thing. The Prime Minister does not like the resource sector.

The Prime Minister went to Paris. He wanted to be the big guy in town, so he made commitments. He came back to Canada and he took the Conservative targets. He brings in things like a carbon tax, which he is going to shove down the throats of Canadians. People in Saskatchewan are looking at that carbon tax and they know it is really going to hurt them because they cannot pass those costs on.

A farmer cannot pass a carbon tax on. He cannot take the cost of fuel for his tractors, his combines, and his machinery and put it in the price of a commodity that is traded on the world market. However, he is still forced to compete against Americans who do not have a carbon tax. The Australians removed their carbon tax. Other countries are not going down this road.

What is even sadder about carbon is Saskatchewan has a really good game plan that does not involve a carbon tax, which would actually meet our commitments, and the Liberals will not agree to that. Why is that? What is the issue there? If their goal is to reduce carbon and there is a game plan that will not impact the economy and will actually achieve that goal, why not take it? It goes back to one thing: lack of respect.

The Liberals want to shut down the resource sector. We are hearing stories now that they want to shut down the coal sector. In Saskatchewan, we have carbon capture off our coal power plants. With this technology, those power plants have five times less emissions than natural gas. However, the Liberals say, “Let us get rid of coal.” What does that mean? Is that really crazy? I think so.

If there is technology to make coal clean and to reduce its carbon footprint, why would we not embrace the new technology and still use this fuel source? No, we are going to get rid of it. We are to ignore the science because, heaven forbid, cabinet knows best. That is what is happening. All the regulations and science are being thrown out the window, and it goes back to cabinet, and its members are going to say “Do I like this guy or not?”, or “I have a toothache so I'm going to vote no.” What about the science? Science needs to trump that.

In Bill C-48, where is the science to say it requires this type of ban? It is not there. There is no science.

There have been no consultations. It is something that is going to drastically change the lives of families across western Canada, if not all of Canada, yet the Liberals just march ahead. They put the earplugs in and just do what they do. Then they wonder why people are protesting in western Canada. They wonder why families are concerned and upset. They cannot understand why they do not love them. There needs to be respect. The Liberals need to talk to them. The Liberals need to understand why this is important to people. They need to show common sense, because there is no common sense in bringing oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela when we have oil right here in Canada. It is actually clean oil. It is more environmentally friendly than any oil we would receive from other parts of the planet.

This bill is a bad piece of legislation. It should be thrown away. If the Liberals want to talk about protecting the environment in that region, or maintaining areas in that region in their natural state, let us have that discussion. I have no problem with that. There might be areas where we see that through. However, to say there will be no more tankers in the whole region is absolutely crazy. It is ludicrous.

People in western Canada just cannot understand the government. It has so many things at its fingertips to make this economy run really well and still meet all its environmental commitments and the government keeps chopping off the hand that feeds it. It is so sad.

I will not be voting in favour of the bill. It is a bad piece of legislation. It sets a bad precedent. It does not meet the commitment Liberals made to voters about consulting before making legislation. It does not meet the commitment about working with opposition parties and other groups at committee to have good pieces of legislation. It does not meet any of those criteria. However, the Liberals will still ram it through. It is unfortunate they are going to do that because they are making a huge mistake.

I will leave it at that, and I will entertain some questions.

The House resumed from May 3 consideration of the motion 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.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House today to discuss Bill C-48. It is always both an honour and a privilege to stand in the House and have the opportunity to take part in these crucial debates.

I am speaking today mainly about the issue that Bill C-48 raises and why I will not support the bill.

The Liberal government has introduced Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, which would ban all tanker traffic on the north coast of British Columbia. Aside from this legislation just being another shameful step in phasing out the oil sands, it seems highly hypocritical to me. The Liberals believe that Venezuelan oil in Quebec is fine, that Saudi Arabia oil on the east coast is fine, that Canadian oil in Vancouver is fine, but they do not believe it is fine in northern British Columbia. This does not make any sense.

My colleagues in the Conservative caucus and I know that diversifying Canada's export markets for oil and gas is crucial to support the continued growth of our economy. We also know that the demand for Canadian oil is strongest in the rapidly growing market of the Asia-Pacific region.

We on this side of the aisle want to keep our country competitive and we will always support jobs and growth in Canada's energy sector.

Our Conservative caucus wants Canada to prosper in the international market so that Canadian families from coast to coast can prosper. I just do not understand why the Liberal government would put forward legislation like this which seeks to stifle prosperity for Canadians on one specific coast in one single sector.

This bill would establish 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 $5 million. Nowhere else in Canada would there be a ban like this. The government is just trying to throw a wrench into the Canadian energy sector.

I want to touch on the work of the previous Conservative government. We introduced and implemented a number of measures to create a world-class tanker safety system in November 2014. These measures included modernizing Canada's navigation system, enhanced area response planning, building marine safety capacity in aboriginal communities, and ensuring polluters pay for spills and damages. These were meaningful changes while still supporting our energy sector in Canada.

I want to remind the House that there is already a voluntary exclusion zone of 100 kilometres for oil tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington state. This is a voluntary practice that has been in place since 1985.

The Liberals claim this legislation is being put forward in the name of the environment, but that is not at all the case. This is a pipeline moratorium under a different name.

My Conservative colleagues would suggest that Bill C-48 would do absolutely nothing for the preservation of British Columbia's environment. Ships, including U.S tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington state, will continue to be able to travel up and down the coast just outside the 100 kilometre limit. This bill does not take meaningful action in terms of the environment.

On that note, Canadian oil is extracted and transported under some of the safest and most environmentally strict regulations in the world. Conservatives are here to help, rather than hinder, Canada's energy sector. Preventing our Canadian oil resources from reaching customers in other countries only serves to increase the production of oil products extracted and transported in a less safe and less environmentally friendly way.

We need to support Canadian industry. The strange contradiction that we see here with the government's view on Canadian oil is that its opposition to it defeats its supposed greater goal of protecting the world's environment. Canadians deserve better than this.

The proposed moratorium would be in effect from the Canada-U.S. Alaska border and the northern tip of Vancouver Island. This legislation would prohibit oil tankers carrying oil as cargo from stopping, loading, and unloading at ports or marine installations in the moratorium area. Vessels carrying less than 12,500 metric tons of crude oil would be exempted from the moratorium. I believe the government should maintain strong regulations to allow for the safe passage of all vessels through Canadian waters rather than impose measures that target the development of one single industry.

In addition to this, there is another issue with this legislation I would like to raise. The 3,800-member Lax Kw'alaams based near Prince Rupert is a collective of nine tribes that oppose Bill C-48, known as the oil tanker moratorium act. I am proud that my colleagues and I support responsible development of all kinds of energy in all sectors across all provinces for the benefit of all of Canada. The government needs to look at the facts. It is important for this discussion that it consider all of the risks, costs, and benefits associated with this legislation, which was imposed without sufficient consultation with local communities and indigenous Canadians.

If we look at the evidence, we see that the tankers have safely and regularly transported crude oil from Canada's west coast since the 1930s. We also see that there have not been any tanker navigational issues or incidents in about 50 years in the port of Vancouver.

There is considerable support among first nations on B.C.'s coast for energy development opportunities. How does the government plan to move forward with this tanker moratorium without properly consulting coastal first nations? Canadians are concerned about the direction in which the government is taking this country. They are worried about their jobs, their industry, and their economy. This bill is an attack on the hundreds of thousands of energy workers across Canada. It is an attack on one industry, and one industry only, and one product. The government needs to head back to the drawing board with this legislation and focus on what is best for the growth of this industry, the growth of communities, and the growth of livelihoods.

My Conservative colleagues and I will continue to stand up for Canada's energy sector and continue to hold the government to account.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks on Bill C-48, let me add my voice to those who have spoken before about our colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Gord Brown. Although Gord was a few years younger than me, he became my mentor when I was first elected in 2008. His quiet demeanour, his love for his community, and his respect for this institution, along with his fervent belief as a Conservative that individual rights and freedoms create the strength of our nation, are beliefs that he so passionately championed and ones that this side of the House will continue to champion and hold dear. To his wife Claudine, as well as his two sons, my wife Judy and I offer our sincerest condolences.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Markham—Unionville.

The bill we have before us today is the genesis of the demise of our oil and gas industry under the advisement and dictation of the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Gerald Butts. It has been said that it is not the puppet that we fear; it is Butts, the puppeteer. It is now obvious that both the puppeteer and the puppet are things Canadians need to fear.

This proposal was developed to ensure that the northern gateway project, although properly vetted, with stringent conditions, would be derailed. This was the goal of eco-activists headed and funded by groups whose goal was to cause havoc in Canada's resource industry to curry favour with international donors, who many say are simply hedging their bets with oil and gas investments in other parts of the world. These groups do not care about the well-being of Canadians. They do not care about our first nation entrepreneurs. They do not care about our commitment to humanitarian causes around the world. They just want to see Canada's natural resources stay in the ground so that their global partners can reap the benefits from such actions.

Whenever we hear from those who want to “phase out” the oil sands, including the current Liberal Prime Minister, we need to know that it will be all Canadians who will suffer from these actions. How can it be in the interest of Canadians to have Venezuelan oil power vehicles in Quebec? How is it better for the environment to have Saudi Arabian oil filling up refineries on the east coast? Why would we want American oil to fuel our machines in Vancouver? None of this makes sense.

If we had a government that recognized the need to diversify our export markets so that the most ethical oil and liquid natural gas on the planet could find its way to the rapidly growing markets of Asia, then maybe we would not be the laughingstock of the world. What other country would do this to its own economy and its own people?

As was mentioned in a November 8, 2017, article in the Financial Post, entitled “How the B.C. tanker moratorium is killing First Nations' enterprise”, Canadians have to be awoken to what the current government is doing and what the consequences of its actions are.

Five years ago, members of the Lax Kw'alaams Band proposed an energy corridor from Fort McMurray to the B.C. coast. The social licence, which has now become some imaginary, elusive target, would have been achieved for all types of future expansion, helping all Canadians, especially first nations people. After consultation, and with broad acceptance, Eagle Spirit Energy came to the table with practical solutions that focused on environmental protection that even exceeded Canada's world-class regulations. What happened after was pure sabotage of a nation-building project, a pattern that has become all too familiar under the current Liberal government.

We should have been aware that this was the Liberals' goal all along, as they have been trying to limit the potential expansion of northern gateway since the project was first proposed a decade ago. The previous attempts by the Liberals, when in opposition, proposed banning tankers sailing within the defined waters of Canada's fishing zone 3, which is from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaska panhandle. Bill C-48 would expand this original proposal to prohibit tankers carrying crude oil from entering or leaving ports in the same area. In order to avoid a conflict with the U.S.A., tankers can still carry crude up and down the waters, as long as they do not enter or leave from a Canadian port.

Who does this hurt and who does this benefit? We have stopped our private sector partners from moving ahead with first nation partners to move Canada's natural resources to tidewater. That hurts Canadian taxpayers who could have been building schools, building hospitals, and other needed infrastructure across this land with the profits attained, but they now need to depend on deficits to be paid off by future generations in order to develop those same types of projects.

Who benefits? The foreign funders whose investments flourish around the world as those countries market their crude at world prices to the very markets that we are shut out of. What adds insult to injury is, as I mentioned earlier, that we buy oil from those very same countries to fuel our economy in eastern Canada. However, those same activists and complicit provincial governments that want to shut down or oil going west have also thwarted our efforts to move it to the east.

Is that what makes a nation strong or is that what causes division and scorn? The old Trudeau government only cared about the unity of our country as long as he got his way. What is the difference now?

In November of 2014, the Conservative government introduced and implemented a number of measures to create a world class tanker safety system, including the modernization of Canada's navigation system, enhancing area response planning, building marine safety capacity in aboriginal communities, and ensuring that polluters paid for spills and damages.

The concept of Liberals demonizing Conservative actions, layering them over with red paint and calling them new and improved, is nothing new. This was the game played with regulatory reviews for pipelines. The Liberals used this to argue for Kinder Morgan, but now they stay quiet about how safe this would make all our other waterways because that does not fit their narrative.

In summary, Bill C-48 would do very little for the preservation of British Columbia's environment. Ships, including U.S. tankers, travelling from Alaska to Washington State, will continue to be able to travel up and down the coast just outside the 100 kilometre limit. This is just another slap in the face to resource developers, as it is just another pipeline moratorium under a different name.

There is no recognition, because it does not fit the Prime Minister's “keep it in the ground” narrative, that Canadian oil is extracted and transported under some of the safest and most environmentally strict regulations in the world. Preventing our Canadian resources from reaching customers in other countries only serves to encourage the use of foreign oil products that are extracted and transported in a less safe and less environmentally friendly way.

What is ironic is that the political machinations of both the Liberal government and the NDP, which also hold a negative view and constant vendetta against our oil and gas sector, actually defeats their stated goals of “protecting the global environment”. Their efforts not only cripple our economy and communities, they are also helping to fill the coffers of some of the most unethical and ruthless regimes on the planet. It is the Liberals who insist on creating wedges among Canadians.

The Liberals know that on this issue they are losing ground, and now they are desperate to paint any distractions in the most negative manner. One thing is for sure. The Conservatives will always be the party of freedom, opportunity, security, prosperity, and conservation. We will always stand proud of Canada and the millions of Canadians who work hard every day to make it the best country in the world.

Canadians deserve a government that takes pride in what Canada has to offer. Canadians deserve better. They deserve a government that will put them first. In 2019, that is exactly what the Conservatives will offer Canadians.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Vancouver Quadra, hon. the parliamentary secretary. I completely agree about the hazardous area of the Hecate Strait. From the last time I rose, when talking to the parliamentary secretary for transport, I looked up the reference. Environment Canada's marine weather hazards manual lists the Hecate Strait as one of the fourth most dangerous bodies of water in the world.

However, I have to agree with my friend from Courtenay—Alberni. It is hard to understand. I applaud Bill C-48, but our Salish Sea needs protection. We have no known technology for cleaning up diluted bitumen. I know it is not a Bill C-48 issue, but could we not agree that no new pipeline should go through for Kinder Morgan until we know how to clean up dilbit?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak today about the importance of B.C.'s north coast and why we are seeking to protect it with Bill C-48.

The area targeted by the tanker moratorium goes from the southern border of Alaska to the tip of continental British Columbia, to the north end of Vancouver Island, and it includes Haida Gwaii.

I will begin by reading from a document written eight years ago:

[This bill] legislates a crude oil tanker ban in the dangerous inland waters around Haida Gwaii known as Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. It will protect our oceans and communities from the risk of a major oil spill and promote a sustainable economy – one that supports B.C.’s growing fisheries and tourism sectors.

[This] bill responds to the clear voices of British Columbians, [the majority]...of whom support a permanent tanker ban on B.C.’s north coast. First Nations, B.C. municipalities and thousands of businesses whose growth and sustainability depend on a healthy ocean and coastal ecosystem are united in their call for a permanent ban.

To be clear, [this bill] does not apply to natural gas products and will not affect existing deliveries of condensate into Kitimat, B.C. It will not prevent the continued transport of diesel and other oil products to local B.C. communities or in any way affect current or future shipments of oil to Asia and the United States through the Port of Vancouver. The bill does not limit growth in exports of Canadian crude to expanding international markets. And finally, it allocates no new ministerial ability to close other shipping areas in Canada, as these powers already exist under the Canada Shipping Act.

[The bill] does acknowledge that Canadians want communities and wildlife protected and [they want] prosperity. This can be achieved by making smart choices about where and how development takes place.

We have witnessed the environmental, economic and social devastation caused by the Exxon Valdez and BP catastrophes [in the Gulf of Mexico]. One major spill along B.C.’s shorelines would threaten fragile ecosystems, endanger wildlife, harm lives and communities, and jeopardize many of our...[tens of thousands of] coastal jobs. It is simply not worth the risk.

I am reading from a letter that was written to my colleagues when I tabled Bill C-606 back in 2010. Today, I am so grateful and appreciative to our Minister of Transport for having tabled this bill, Bill C-48, which would do exactly what I called for with my bill, Bill C-606.

I had a chance to visit 15 communities up and down our coast, hosting events to hear from community members, including the chambers of commerce, indigenous people, and citizens. There was an overwhelming consensus that the Pacific north coast was a very important internationally-significant area that we must protect and defend from the risk of a major oil spill.

I spoke with individuals who showed me pictures of themselves wearing gumboots as they cleaned up oil from sea life and shorelines up in Prince William Sound in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill of 10.8 million U.S. gallons of oil back in 1989. Some of those ecosystems have never recovered from that spill, and it affects the economy and ecology of those areas today. I certainly understood the concern the people in the north coast had.

I will explain why that area is so unique, actually risky, and why in my letter I talked about this risk British Columbians did not believe was worth it with respect to the benefits to our province.

I want to give credit to the environmental advocacy groups that raised awareness about the risk of oil tanker traffic and spills in our north coast related to a pipeline that was proposed for the area. It has since been determined not permissible by our government. I want to also thank our Prime Minister for recognizing that our Pacific north coast is not the right route for pipelines and oil tankers.

I was privileged to successfully ensure that the ban on oil traffic in the Pacific north coast was included in two Liberal platforms, one in 2011 and one in 2015: promise made, promise kept.

The marine ecosystems that span the northern coast of British Columbia are unique. The coastline itself with its rugged cliffs and inlets provides an abundant environment for its ecologically rich and diverse animal populations. It is dotted with thousands of islands and etched with deep fjords. The coastal rainforests are places of stunning biological prosperity and diversity, and an environment that deserves protection.

Not only is the north coast geographically complex, it also supports a wide range of distinct marine ecosystems. These ecosystems provide spawning and schooling areas for fish, and is important for a variety of sea birds, marine mammals, and other marine fauna, like humpback and killer whales, and that says nothing about the region's rich flora.

I had a chance to travel in this area as the environment minister for the province of British Columbia. I spent a week on a B.C. Park's boat touring the isolated inlets and shorelines as we sought to discuss with local indigenous peoples the possibility of creating a provincial park and reserve in the Great Bear Rainforest. I had a chance to see just how little human impact there had been on that part of our coast and how it really was a virgin ecosystem, which is expressed in the rich variety of the ecosystem I spoke about.

It was not just the marine areas that were so important to protect, but also the area on land, which a pipeline was proposing to traverse. The pipeline would have crossed hundreds of fish and salmon-bearing streams. It would have crossed wilderness, mountain, and valley areas with virgin forests and ecosystems, which are almost impossible to even hike through as they are so remote and uncivilized, and I say that in the technical sense. So few people live there in such vast areas that are uneroded. It is very important for grizzly bears and other wildlife to live without the impacts of human civilization, which have caused challenges to their abundance in other parts of our province and country.

In the northern coastal area, salmon still runs in the rivers, trees hundreds of years old loom over vast landscapes, and predators and prey keep the delicate balance necessary for these ecosystems to thrive. Our government is committed to ensure that this coast remains a vibrant ecosystem for generations to come. Ecotourism in this area is growing year by year as people from around the world recognize how internationally unique the area is.

The government recognizes that indigenous groups have inhabited the north coast for millennia and continue to rely on its bountiful ecosystems as foundations for their cultures and economies. As I travelled around Haida Gwaii and Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve in a sailboard a few years ago, I spoke to many indigenous people from Haida Gwaii. They were completely and utterly determined that their precious area would not be subject to the risk of a major oil spill by oil tanker traffic. Therefore, this moratorium is very important to those members of the Haida Gwaii community.

Bill C-48 is a significant step being taken by our government to enhance environmental protection for this pristine and important coastline.

The minister also travelled from coast to coast to coast to hear from people about this particular project. From Haida Gwaii to Iqaluit and St. John's, he wanted to hear their perspectives on the oil tanker moratorium and improving marine safety.

Our government has met with stakeholders, non-governmental organizations, other levels of government, and indigenous groups to listen and gather input. I have to recognize that the Minister of Transport has done a full and deep job of consulting with people across the country. As the proponent of Bill C-606 in 2010, which was up for debate in March 2011, I was not able to do quite that thorough a job of consulting, but certainly the majority of people I spoke with felt that this was an important initiative. The minister heard a diversity of views, and the importance of these environmental protections was made abundantly clear.

Coastal communities and industries everywhere in Canada understand the importance of healthy ecosystems to protect the way of life and livelihoods of those areas. In fact, there is a wide range of economic activity that feeds and sustains the Pacific north coast region's economic life cycle. For over a hundred years, we have had logging, mining, fisheries, and canning and processing facilities. Those activities have been important and have supported many communities along the coast.

I want to acknowledge that the Province of British Columbia has really worked hard to consult with stakeholders from environmental groups, communities, indigenous communities, and industy to make sure that its land use planning process reflects where there should be more intensive use of the land and waters, and where there should be more protection of the land and waters. That balance has been found in our province. It can always be improved, but there has been a great deal of emphasis on proper management of the lands and waters in British Columbia since the 1990s, including the government I was part of in the early 2000s.

It is not something our government takes lightly, to ensure that a particular activity, such as a pipeline or oil tanker traffic, will not be permitted there. The jobs that would have been created, I would point out, were not an enormous number. The building of the pipeline would have created some jobs for sure, but once it was built, the number of ongoing jobs would have been far less.

The moratorium would protect the livelihoods of communities on British Columbia's north coast by providing a heightened level of environmental protection, while continuing to allow for community and industry resupply by small tanker, which was an important part of the bill I proposed as well, Bill C-606. We know that these communities and the industry rely on marine shipments of critical petroleum products to sustain their livelihoods. That is why our government will continue to allow shipments of crude or persistent oil products below a certain level, which is 12,500 metric tons.

The moratorium would protect the northern coastline, that whole area and its delicate ecosystems, including Haida Gwaii, from accidents that could upset this fragile region via a major oil spill.

We know that the vast majority of citizens in this area do not believe the risk of that kind of major spill, which we have seen before on our west coast, is worth it. We understand that should something like this happen, our coast would never be the same. On the north coast, there are far fewer services to prevent a spill, to act quickly if a major oil tanker were in difficulty, and to prevent the damage.

This tanker moratorium does not tell the whole story of our protection of the coast and the precautionary approach that we are building in to help safeguard the marine environment in this region. I want to mention the oceans protection plan, which adds another set of protections. The oceans protection plan is a $1.5-billion initiative on which there was wide consultation. I know many members of the Pacific caucus, the B.C. members of Parliament, were asked to provide input into what should be in the oceans protection plan.

It will improve our incident prevention and response regime and address environmental concerns in the event of a marine accident. The oceans protection plan will lift the liability cap for defraying the costs of cleanup, should there be a spill, to unlimited liability. I am referring now to smaller ships. My colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam read into the record some concerns about the smaller ships that were underneath the cap. There would be unlimited liability and the government would implement a levy on oil shipments to fund compensation, as well as to speed it up, so communities would not be not stuck footing the bill for the cleanup of smaller spills.

In the bill, we recognize that when the delicate balance of this coastline becomes threatened, it upsets relationships between the environment and its inhabitants. It is not just about today's coastal communities. It is also about inhabitants that have spanned thousands of years. The Musqueam first nation, for example, which is on a different part of the coast, the south coast, has a record of habitation and its traditional areas for over 4,000 years. We know there are deep historical and cultural ties to the Pacific north coast that support cultural practices and social structures, and that is also what makes this area worth protecting.

Clearly, the oil tanker moratorium is just one of many initiatives in our comprehensive plan to protect the marine environment, to begin restoring some of the species that have been impacted by human activities over the years, and changes to our oceans, like acidification and warming from climate change, and the warming of streams that are necessary for our salmon cycle. There is so much work to be done, but this is a key part of it for a key part of our country, which is the Pacific north coast.

I hope we will have the full support of all members present for the passage of this bill, to take this important step in protecting one of the world's most diverse and rich regions anywhere on the planet.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we are at a crossroads. I am glad he learned of the story of my three-week swim down the Fraser, which was a life-changing event for me. I have done that twice. I did it in 1995 and again in 2000. The only effect that I have suffered as a result of that is I got into politics, which I feel passionate about.

His question about the world and the country being at a crossroads in our energy use is critical, and we must shift. Our science, information, and local knowledge are all converging and telling us that we have to shift now, that we are beyond the point of knowing that we cannot avoid this shift and that we have to make it. It is not a future issue; it is now. We have to look at developing, supporting, and turning to a just transition in renewables, moving to geothermal, solar, wind, and hydro. We need to invest in these projects.

We need to work with municipalities, provinces, territories, and with working people to make the transition. We need to have jobs and work. We need them to make our communities and economies thrive. We also need to have a planet that is livable and sustainable, one that we can pass on and feel proud, as a society and national government, that we did the most we could to pass on a sustainable way of living.

That is why Bill C-48 is a move in the right direction. We need to make an even greater move in the direction of a sustainable way of living, support it, invest in it, and make the needed transition happen today.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-48 on an oil tanker ban on British Columbia's north coast. Canada's New Democrats are pleased that the Liberal government is finally taking action to protect the north coast of British Columbia from crude oil tanker traffic. However, we are concerned that Bill C-48 would give the minister too much arbitrary power to exempt vessels from the ban or to define what fuels would be covered under the act. We hope the government will implement constructive amendments to limit ministerial power and increase spill response resources. We are certainly concerned about the lack of consultation with first nation and other coastal communities.

I want to talk about my colleague, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, and the work he did in his riding on the northwest coast with regard to this oil tanker ban. He consulted with many people in communities and first nations. He worked with them and listened to their concerns. What they told him, over many years, was that one oil spill could ruin their way of life. That way of life depends on the ocean: on salmon, on halibut, on shellfish, on a healthy, clean ocean. What he heard was that the risks were too great. They were just not worth it.

Patrick Kelly, chair of the board of Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative, wrote an opinion piece called “Opinion: Coastal First Nations affirm support for oil tanker ban on north coast”, which was published February 11, 2018. It reads:

The ocean is an integral part of our coastal First Nations cultures, societies and economy. An oil spill in our territorial waters, which includes all of the North and Central coast and Haida Gwaii, would be catastrophic.

We understand that large-vessel shipping is essential for our modern economy. Fossil fuel use is a reality we must deal with as we transition to a clean energy future. But we already know that the question is no longer “if” there’s going to be an oil spill, it has already happened. There is no “world class” oil spill clean-up system that will work on the coast. It simply does not exist.

The Heiltsuk Nation still has not recovered from the Nathan E. Stewart diesel spill. It may be years before their waters, clam beds and other marine resources are healthy again. The Haida also experienced a near disaster in October 2014 when a 135-metre bulk carrier, the Simushir, lost power in storm-force winds in their territories. The Gitga’at have been impacted by two spills, the MV Zalinski which was carrying Bunker C [fuel] when it sank and the B.C. Ferry, Queen of the North, which sank in 2006. Despite government promises of clean-up, both wreckages still leak fuel.

Our identities and culture will cease to exist if the fish, animals, plants, medicines, creatures and birds are compromised. Our way of living and livelihoods has already been severely impacted because of past industrial and commercial unsustainable practices. One example is the decline of fish and fisheries on the coast.

Historically, our leaders managed our territories and resources to meet our community needs. Wealth and surpluses were generated when times were good, and this enabled trade and inter-tribal commerce. Governing also meant enforcement of Indigenous laws and protection of lands, seas and resources. We are guided by our potlatched hereditary leaders and elders who have taught us how to balance the economic needs of our people and the need to respect our lands, cultures and environment. They have told us that oil tankers are too risky to our existence and therefore must be kept out of our territories. Consultation has been provided through the clear leadership of the CFN communities.

As chiefs and leaders we have a responsibility to leave future generations with a healthy environment and a sustainable economy. This is why we are working with the federal government to develop a fisheries industry that will benefit our communities. It is why we are working with the B.C. government to develop new clean energy strategies which includes First Nations from the outset.

CFN, through its Carbon Credit Corp., is now the largest carbon credit seller in Canada and revenues generated from sales are re-invested by each nation to further protect their lands and resources. Collectively, our nations have trained and now employ over 100 stewardship staff and guardians.

Our people and communities need jobs and revenue, and we know that the traditional resource sectors alone will not meet growth demands of our nations so we are open to new developments. But new resource or industrial developments must never compromise our natural environment. There is no place for oil tankers on our coast. As Indigenous people who have lived in our territories for more than 14,000 years, as British Columbians, and as Canadians, we have a collective responsibility to protect our lands, waters and resources.

The tanker moratorium is good and necessary public policy.

That is a powerful letter, and a powerful statement, and I am glad to have read that into the record.

I got into politics to defend our west coast way of life; the incredible biodiversity we enjoy in the province of British Columbia; the rivers, the lakes, the forests, the mountains, the oceans, the wildlife; and the communities and economies that have developed as a result of that abundance. However, the way we are living now is impacting that abundance and biodiversity. We have species at risk, threatened and endangered, whether it is salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, caribou, or many other species that are SARA listed.

These are real issues, and they are not easy problems to fix, but there needs to be political will to address these problems and to do things differently. We must find ways to live within our means and move to a low-carbon economy, and we need to do that in a just way. We need a just transition to a sustainable way of living.

This is what motivated me to swim the 1,400 kilometre length of the Fraser River, one of the greatest salmon rivers on the planet. The northern gateway Enbridge pipeline project would have crossed hundreds of rivers and streams, going through salmon and fish-bearing rivers and creeks and crossing very steep slopes and mountainous valleys right through the northern part of the Fraser River basin. I was so passionate about bringing my message of sustainability, I swam for three weeks in icy cold water from Mount Robson, in the Fraser's headwaters, to Prince George, down through the Fraser canyon, past Hope, and west past my home community of Coquitlam to the river's mouth, Musqueam territory, in Vancouver, near the Salish Sea.

This was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, swimming for three weeks in that cold water, but it taught me one thing. It taught me to be resolute, and I committed that I would do everything in my power to encourage people to transition to a sustainable way of living, which includes transitioning in a just and fair way to a low-carbon economy, shifting away from oil and gas and toward renewable forms of energy.

The reasons are clear. The science is overwhelming. The world is burning so much carbon from oil, coal, and gas that we are changing the climate. We have now passed 400 parts per million, a historic high. We are well on our way to an average warming of 2^o C, which global scientists warn us will have a dramatic impact on human civilization, our economies, our communities, and all others we share this planet with. That is not just in the future. That is happening now, and we are seeing it in the form of floods, fires, and impacts on our planet.

This means that sometimes we have to say no. We need to say no to things that we know will harm us. This is one of those times. Banning oil tanker traffic off B.C.'s north coast is the right thing to do.

Another one of those times is the Kinder Morgan pipeline project which, if built, is planned to bring a 700% increase in oil tanker traffic to the Vancouver port in Burrard Inlet. For the past two years, my colleague, the member for Burnaby South, has been working hard to raise awareness about the detrimental impacts of that Kinder Morgan project, how the risks far outweigh the benefits of this proposal. He knows, like I do, it is times like these that we must take a strong and principled stand on projects that will not bring prosperity to the country that we love and that we know is full of promise. Worse, it will have a detrimental impact on the existing way of life and on future generations.

I am very disappointed the government is sticking to its decision to move ahead with the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. This pipeline would triple the amount of tar sands oil being moved to the coast of British Columbia where it will be loaded onto oil tankers and headed out to sea and directly through critical habitat of the endangered southern resident orca, and other marine life. Not only does this significantly increase human caused noise and ship strikes, but it also increases the risk of catastrophic oil spills in southern resident orca habitat, which would be devastating for this endangered iconic species and the entire ecosystem of the Salish Sea.

The government tells us not to worry, that it has everything covered with its so-called oceans protection plan. The problem is the government has no marine mammal response plan for an oil spill. As I and others have said many times in the House, the tankers would be carrying diluted bitumen and there is no technology in place today to clean it up. It simply does not exist. On top of that, the rugged B.C. coastline and often challenging weather conditions can make response efforts extremely difficult.

The government's record and its ability to respond to emergency incidents have been causing many on the B.C. coast concern. Response to the 2015 Marathassa spill in Vancouver's English Bay and the 2016 Nathan B. Stewart spill near Bella Bella proved that Canada's response plan is completely lacking. The government keeps making funding announcements for the oceans protection plan, but all the money in the world will not change the fact that the impact of an oil spill on B.C.'s rugged coast would be devastating.

I want to conclude my remarks by referring to DeSmog's summary of what it wants Canadians to know about Bill C-48.

One, DeSmog indicates that a tanker ban will not ban supertankers of refined oil from the coast. While the proposed legislation does prevent supertankers of crude oil and similar hydrocarbon products from moving in and out of northern ports in large quantities, it does not prevent refined oil products from doing the same. This leaves the door open for future major oil refinery projects on B.C.'s north coast. There are two proposed refineries, one in Kitimat called Kitimat Clean, which would refine 400,000 barrels of oil per day, and the Pacific Future Energy refinery project, which would refine 200,000 barrels per day. Those are the projected refinery amounts.

Two, DeSmog is very concerned that tankers carrying 12,500 tonnes or less of oil are excluded from this ban. This is a huge amount of oil. Once passed, the bill would only prevent vessels carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of crude oil from stopping at coastal ports. This is a big concern to its readers.

Three, DeSmog indicates that the tanker ban would not prevent another Nathan E. Stewart incident from happening. The tanker ban was first announced by the federal government after the Minister of Transport travelled to the Heiltsuk territory to witness a diesel spill from the Nathan E. Stewart, a sunken fuel barge. This spill had a devastating impact on the local fishery and shellfish fishery.

Jess Housty, a tribal councillor from the Heiltsuk First Nation said that the tanker ban “changes nothing”. She is adamantly concerned about tanker traffic and the types of products that will be transported off the north coast of where she calls home.

Fourth, DeSmog indicates that the south coast of B.C. near Vancouver and Victoria is still not protected. DeSmog is concerned that this tanker ban would not impact tanker traffic off B.C.'s south coast near the terminus of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline in the Burnaby-Vancouver port.

The fifth concern that DeSmog would like to bring to the attention of all Canadians is that the details of the banned fuels are subject to change. I talked about ministerial discretion. There is a concern that the tanker ban will prevent the movement of large amounts of crude oil from traversing coastal waters in B.C. and the ban will also cover heavy hydrocarbons known as persistent oils in the schedule. DeSmog is concerned that there are many other types of deleterious substances that will be transported which could have an impact on the coastal way of life.

This is a huge concern to many coastal communities, first nations, and others on Canada's west coast. It is a growing concern to many throughout this great country.

This is a good first step to ban oil tanker traffic off the north coast, but we still have a way to go to deal with the impacts of a changing climate, the impact of losing species at an alarming rate, and transitioning in a just and fair way toward a sustainable way of life.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom of the Woodland Cree First Nation opposes the tanker ban and is one of the representatives of the 35 communities all along the route, every single one of which supports the Eagle Spirit pipeline as a new energy corridor. He says:

I'm 100% an environmentalist as well, but I'm also 100% into the economy so that I can provide purpose and get people to work. This tanker ban is not just going to hurt us at the moment, which it is doing, but it's going to hurt future generations. I have four daughters at home, and I want to provide a better education for them. I can't do that on social assistance.

Bill C-48 would hurt these first nations and would stop Canadian oil, which is extracted, transported, and produced under the safest and most environmentally rigorous standards of any oil and gas-producing jurisdiction on earth. That is what the Liberals would be stopping with this tanker ban. It makes no sense whatsoever.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-48 is one part of the Liberals' plan to phase out Canada's oil and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose livelihoods depend both directly and indirectly on Canadian energy. The Canadian Energy Research Institute has said that every job created in Canadian upstream oil and gas results in the creation of two indirect and three induced jobs in other sectors. From engineers in Edmonton to steel manufacturers in Hamilton and refinery workers in Sarnia and Saint John, Canada's economy depends on Canadian energy.

Canada can and should play a major role in the global future of oil and gas, for which demand will continue to grow. Of the world's top 10 oil and gas producers, Canada and the United States are the only two Liberal democracies, yet these Liberals' policies are suffocating Canada's energy sector while the others thrive.

Canada has long been the world's most environmentally and socially responsible oil and gas producer. The Liberals should champion Canada's expertise, innovation, and regulatory know-how. The Liberals should be proud of Canada's track record and of Canada's future in oil and gas, instead of imposing policies and laws to phase it out, like this tanker ban.

As developing countries modernize and the world's middle class grows, oil and natural gas will continue to be the most significant sources for meeting global energy needs. Therefore, the world needs more Canadian energy, and the world wants Canadian oil and gas.

The Liberals constantly undermine Canada's energy sector. They killed energy east with red tape and rural changes and outright vetoed the approved northern gateway pipeline. While the Trans Mountain expansion is at risk and a full-blown crisis is escalating, the Liberals are imposing Bill C-48 to ban on and off loading of crude and persistent oils on ports on B.C.'s north coast, which will cut Canada off from the most efficient route to the Asia Pacific and prevent any new energy infrastructure opportunities to the region. The International Energy Agency estimates that in the past five years, 69% of global oil demand growth has been in the Asia Pacific and that is expected to grow for decades. Canada needs to supply that demand because the United States is both Canada's biggest energy customer and competitor.

However, Bill C-48 is an intentional government-created roadblock that deprives Canadians of potential benefits. The bill will permanently prevent any opportunities for pipelines to transport environmentally and socially-responsible Canadian oil to the Prince Rupert-Kitimat area, where it could reach the rapidly growing Asia Pacific.

Deliberately limiting Canada's export potential by blocking access to tidewater risks the livelihoods of Canadians everywhere. It will put very real limits on future prosperity. Reaching tidewater in all directions for Canada's oil and gas should be a pressing priority. It makes no sense to delay or to equivocate on this from an economic, environmental or moral perspective. Stopping Canadian oil cedes market share to countries where standards, enforcement, and outcomes do not measure up to Canada's performance, to many corrupt regimes with abysmal environmental and human rights records where energy development only benefits a select and wealthy few.

A 2014 WorleyParsons study comparing major oil and gas producing jurisdictions confirmed that Canada maintained the highest level of environmental stringency and compliance, the highest level of regulatory transparency, life-cycle analysis, community consultation, and collaboration with indigenous people in the world. That conclusion echoed several major benchmarking assessments before it. I note that was before the last 2015 election.

Every time the Liberals attack Canada's track record of energy and environmental assessment and evaluation, they empower and embolden anti-Canadian energy activists who are fighting to shut down Canadian oil and gas and exports. That is how the Liberals have created the mess they are in, picking and choosing which energy projects to defend and to attack. For the Liberals, this is about politics, not about facts. Here are the facts.

The safety track record of Canada's energy infrastructure and transportation systems, including pipelines and tankers, has also long been world-leading. The evidence shows tankers have safely and regularly transported crude oil from Canada's west coast since the 1930s.

The previous Conservative government implemented a suite of strong measures to create a world-class tanker safety system, modernized Canada's navigation system, enhanced response planning and marine safety capacity for first nations communities, and ensured that polluters paid for spills and damages on all coasts. Canada already has industry-leading regulations with standards well beyond other jurisdictions on all aspects of tanker safety, pipeline safety, prevention, and response. The Liberals are building on that work.

The average response time of the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation has been 60 minutes for the last 10 years. The Canadian Shipping Act requires this corporation to have the capacity to clean up 10,000 tonnes of oil in 10 days. The largest marine spill to ever occur was on the east coast.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom of the Woodland Cree First Nation said, “What I don't understand about this tanker moratorium is that there's no other tanker moratorium on other coastlines in Canada. You have oil coming in from Saudi Arabia, up and down the St. Lawrence River right now.”

Therefore, when it comes to tankers bringing in foreign oil along the St. Lawrence River, the answer is yes. When it comes to oil tankers delivering oil from Saudi Arabia to the Irving oil refinery refinery in New Brunswick, the answer is yes. When it comes to continuing operations on offshore oil rigs off the coast of Newfoundland, the answer is yes, but of course not in northern offshore areas near the Northwest Territories, which the Liberals banned against the will of the premier. However, when it comes to opportunities to expand market access, create well-paying jobs for all Canadians, and millions of dollars in economic opportunity for indigenous communities, the answer from the Liberals is no, phase it out.

During a transport committee testimony, first nations were given only 30 minutes to share their opposition to the tanker ban, and spoke of their investment in the Eagle Spirit pipeline project, a $17 billion indigenous-owned corridor and what had been called “the largest first nations endeavour in the world”, which could secure economic opportunities, social benefits, and reduce poverty for at least 35 first nations for generations to come. Bill C-48 would undermine the hard work and aspirations of those first nations. It might drive their project into the U.S. too, chasing even more energy investment across the border.

During the committee meeting, which was the only consultation the Liberals offered with directly impacted first nations, Calvin Helin, the chairman and president of Eagle Spirit Energy and a member of the Lax Kw'alaams First Nation, said that the 35 first nations supporting the project, “do not like outsiders, particularly those they view as trust-fund babies coming into the traditional territories they've governed and looked after for over 10,000 years and dictating government policy in their territory.”

Calvin said:

...we set up a chiefs council that represented all of the chiefs from Alberta all the way out to the B.C. coast. They have had a position with a lot of power and control over the environmental aspects and over the project in general, so it was a fairly high hurdle that we sought to meet. They were so satisfied with the environmental model we put forward that they voluntarily voted at their first meeting to support an energy corridor.

The Prime Minister says that the relationship with Canada's indigenous people is the most important to him and that he wants “an opportunity to deliver true, meaningful and lasting reconciliation.” However, his words do not match his actions. This legislation, dictated by the Prime Minister, would block wealth and opportunity for first nations communities.

Gary Alexcee, vice-chair of the Eagle Spirit chiefs council, said:

With no consultation, the B.C. first nations groups have been cut off economically with no opportunity to even sit down with the government to further negotiate Bill C-48. If that's going to be passed, then I would say we might as well throw up our hands and let the government come and put blankets on us that are infected with smallpox so we can go away. That's what this bill means to us....Today, the way it sits, we have nothing but handouts that are not even enough to have the future growth of first nations in our communities of British Columbia.

Less than a month after the last election, the Prime Minister directed ministers to work toward this tanker ban. However, the Prime Minister also said that his Liberals would “ensure that decisions are based on science, facts, and evidence, and serve the public’s interest...”. How does the Prime Minister expect Canadians to believe that he consulted indigenous communities, industry, and experts with comprehensive assessments of existing environmental and safety records, standards, outcomes, gaps, and comparative analysis of marine traffic rules, enforcement and track records on all Canadian coasts and internationally, and thorough local, regional, and national economic impact in less than a single month? It is a sham anyway, targeting docking and loading at ports of Canadian oil, not banning any other vessels of any other kind or from any other countries. Unfortunately, it is a pattern. Because despite all the talk, voter coalitions, politics, and ideology drive the Liberals' predetermined conclusions, not evidence, facts or consultations.

Alarmingly, foreign funds and interests have also influenced this bill. Before the 2015 election, the Oak Foundation, based in Switzerland, gave a $97,000 grant to the West Coast Environmental Law group to campaign for a change in government, with the express purpose of constraining Canadian oil and gas development “through a legislative ban on crude oil tankers on British Columbia’s north coast.”

The West Coast Environmental Law website says:

WCEL aims to establish the conditions under which...opposition parties holding a parliamentary majority work together to enact a legislative tanker ban under a minority government and/or incorporate a ban promise into their manifestos, committing them to act following an election that produces a majority government...

Calvin Helin said:

What the chiefs are starting to see a lot now is that there is a lot of underhanded tactics and where certain people are paid in communities and they are used as spokespersons...Essentially (they are) puppets and props...to kill resource development...

He went on to say that it was outrageous and people should be upset about it, that the chiefs were upset.

Eagle Spirit's indigenous leaders say the tanker ban is the result of a lobby campaign by foreign-financed environmental groups. Notably, some of these groups were also involved in a coordinated opposition to the Pacific Northwest LNG project, which the Lax Kw'alaams First Nation members also supported and welcomed after meeting environmental assurances and getting more information, another project that was killed under the government's watch.

The port of the project was to go straight into their traditional territory. Their community has a municipal-like government whose leaders are elected, while their original tribes are represented by the Lax Kw'alaams Hereditary Chiefs' Council.

Calvin Helin wrote:

It turns out the Seattle-based Wilberforce Foundation financially supported a local environmental extremist who posed as a hereditary Chief of the Gitwilgyoots tribe.

The Nine Tribes publicly clarified the misrepresentation in May 2016. It was later settled in court.

Calvin Helin went on:

The rightful hereditary leadership who had been governing their territory for over ten thousand years were shocked that an outside environmental organization would seek to essentially overthrow their ancient leadership structure....

Another quote:

Wilberforce, the California-based Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Hawaii-based Sustainable Fisheries Partnership and others have poured money into anti-LNG campaigns in B.C., as they funded opposition to oilsands development before them. Indeed, the record suggests the long project to establish...the Great Bear Rainforest was a strategy to stop hydrocarbon exports from western Canada, even as U.S. sources ramped up production.

One of the same groups involved in the anti-LNG campaign pushed the Liberals' tanker ban and opposition to the proposed Eagle Spirit project while claiming to be representatives of the Lax Kw'alaams.

In September 2016 the chiefs' council said:

[it] does not sanction inviting professional protestors from non-governmental organizations, and non-Lax Kw'alaams First Nations members into their traditional lands in breach of ancient tribal protocols. Conversely, the Nine Tribes of Lax Kw'alaams would never go into another First Nation's territory without first obtaining their permission. The unauthorized action by this renegade group has created needless confusion, damages tribal unity, and is insulting to tribal members.

However, here is the point: when the Liberals, along with the NDP and green activists, propose legislation like Bill C-48 to appease those groups, they undermine the will of first nations and their elected leadership. They talk of consultation and reconciliation, but their attack on economic opportunities and their failure to consult and listen to directly impacted indigenous people are the height of hypocrisy. Mayor John Helin, Calvin's brother, is forced to spend time and resources fighting this coalition and Bill C-48 in court.

It is stunning to hear Canadian politicians speak of the poverty and socio-economic challenges experienced disproportionately by indigenous Canadians while deliberately using every possible means to block financial opportunities for them and to undermine all their efforts to secure agreements to benefit communities, their youth, and their future.

Five hundred of the 630 first nations in Canada are open to pipelines and to oil and gas development. For example, Fort McKay, near the Athabasca oil sands, has an unemployment rate of zero and financial holdings in excess of $2 billion.

There are 327 indigenous-owned enterprises in Alberta alone that do business with oil and gas operations. Oil sands businesses have conducted more than $10 billion of business with first nations-owned companies.

Chief Jim Boucher of the Fort McKay First Nation says:

We have a different view of the oil sands industry than other people who are not close to our neighbourhood. A lot of people are making judgment calls in regards to what they see and hear from environmental groups, which is really contrary to what we believe and what we see in our region.

Responsible oil sands development is a key driver of Alberta's and Canada's economies and creates employment. Even as recently as 2014, nine out of every 10 new full-time jobs created in Canada were created in Alberta, bringing tax revenue for all levels of government to support the social programs and capital infrastructure projects on which everyone depends.

However, Alberta continues to face obstacles to move oil to markets, hostage to the myth that a broad-based carbon tax on everything will buy support for pipelines. Instead, it will disproportionately harm the economy and make it harder for vulnerable, low-income, working poor Canadians everywhere,

This narrative is especially toxic because Alberta was actually the first jurisdiction in all of North America to regulate and report emissions, to set targets for reduction across all sectors, and to implement a targeted carbon levy on major industrial emitters. That was more than a decade ago.

Oil sands developers and workers have led the world in improving sustainable production, enhancing energy efficiency, and minimizing the footprint of development, ensuring air, water, land, and habitat stewardship while working towards complete reclamation. The oil sands are a long-term strategic asset that any country in the world would want to have and that any other national leader would value and promote.

The oil sands are all about innovation. Without new technologies, Alberta would still be sitting on a hydrocarbon resource with no economic value. That is true of the energy sector overall: it is always innovating, adapting, advancing.

In the 1970s an Imperial Oil engineer, Roger Butler, invented a thermal recovery process called steam-assisted gravity drainage. Around roughly the same time, the Alberta government established the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority to focus on developing Alberta oil sands that were too deep to mine, which is the vast majority of the resource.

In 1996, the first commercial SAGD project was built at Foster Creek. It went into production six years later. The federal Liberal and provincial Progressive Conservative governments worked together to put in place fiscal and regulatory conditions to unlock this incredible resource.

Securities regulators took notice that deep-lying bitumen could now be recoverable. In 2002, when the Houston-based Oil & Gas Journal released its authoritative estimates of global petroleum reserves, it raised Canada's total proven oil reserves nearly fortyfold, from 4.9 billion barrels to 180 billion barrels. Major authorities followed suit over the next few years.

Alberta is blessed with abundant, accessible, affordable resources, and responsible development is an opportunity for all Canadians, benefiting every community, reducing poverty, and sustaining middle-class jobs. Producing from the oil sands is a technological, innovative, and relatively recent and unique achievement from a private, public, academic, and indigenous partnership of which all Canadians should be very proud.

The Liberals should champion Alberta's oil sands and not phase them out. However, Bill C-48 is a clear attack on the oil sands, on pipelines, on Canadian crude oil, on the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who depend on its success, and it limits Canada's role in the world. I urge all members to vote against the tanker ban.

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

Mr. Speaker, we were talking about the improvements in technology and the changes we see that will actually help to protect our coasts and how much we are actually working to encourage research and to encourage the development of technology partnerships with the marine industry, with academia, with other federal departments and other governments to continue to work with us to develop innovative solutions that enable the official movement of goods and at the same time protect the marine environment. These partnerships are essential to enable us to share the latest innovations in research, knowledge, and intelligence on new technologies and to also encourage skills capacity for an increasingly knowledge-based economy.

Accordingly, the Government of Canada will strengthen the polluter pay principle by strengthening the Canadian ship-source oil pollution fund. We want to ensure adequate industry-funded compensation is available for those affected by oil spills. This includes removing the fund's current limit and providing unlimited compensation to those affected by an oil pollution incident. When compensation is beyond what is currently available, funds will be recovered by a levy on the companies that import and export oil by ship. The changes to the ship-source oil pollution fund will position Canada as a world leader among ship source liability and compensation regimes.

I should point out that Canada has a long-standing tradition of multilateralism related to international shipping. Canada is a founding member of the International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that regulates the world's maritime shipping. Canada also has a proud history of working closely with the International Maritime Organization to advance standards that promote maritime safety and security, protect the environment, and safeguard seafarers.

The Government of Canada will continue to contribute to the comprehensive body of international conventions supported by hundreds of recommendations governing every facet of shipping. In fact, as part of the oceans protection plan, the Government of Canada will strengthen its leadership role internationally. This includes playing an active role in developing international marine safety standards with the International Maritime Organization and other international partners.

As a trading nation, Canada relies on a safe and secure maritime transportation system to support our economic growth. A wide variety of cargo is transported through Canada's marine transportation system, from food and consumer goods to energy resources. Marine transportation is the primary means of transporting Canada's trade with other countries other than the United States. It is critical for economic growth in Canada which has provided us with one of the highest standards of living in the world.

The moratorium will continue to allow critical local resupply activities and still enable communities to develop economically. The moratorium does not apply to lighter oils such as gasoline, propane, or jet fuel that local communities and industries rely upon, nor will it apply to liquefied natural gas. Accordingly, opportunities remain open for the continued shipment of non-persistent oils.

Further, once passed by Parliament, the Governor in Council will have authority under the act to amend through regulation the schedule of persistent oils should future innovations and technological developments in the transportation of these products offer a significantly higher level of protection for our waters.

Amendments to the schedule could be considered following a regulatory review that would assess new scientific evidence about the fate and behaviour of petroleum products when spilled, cleanup technologies, and the state of institutional arrangements to respond to ship-source oil spills.

The schedule could only be revised through the regulatory amendment process. Environmental safety and science would be the primary considerations for any changes to the schedule.

Always keeping an opening for new technology and scientific development is testament to our commitment not only to protecting the environment but also to fostering innovation in the marine industry.

We are committed to demonstrating that a clean environment and a strong economy can go hand in hand, and that is why Bill C-48 is so important to all Canadians. The moratorium is but one of a suite of actions that the government is taking that will strengthen environmental protection, instilling confidence in Canadians that it is possible to have economic growth and to protect the environment, because this is not an either-or proposition.

I have a list of those who have demonstrated and expressed strong support for the passage of Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. It is quite an exhaustive list: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Dogwood Initiative, Friends of Wild Salmon Coalition, Haida Gwaii, North West Watch, Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, SkeenaWild, and Stand.earth, and there are many more.

We remain open to enable future innovation and technological developments in the transportation of oil that offer a significantly higher level of protection for our waters today and for future generations.

I hope I can count on the support of all hon. members to establish in law an oil tanker moratorium on the north coast of British Columbia. Let us work together so we can continue to create a sustainable future for the generations that will follow.

The House resumed consideration of the motion 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.

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.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak to Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. A north coast tanker ban has been a legislative priority of the NDP for many years, and we welcome the fact that the Liberals are finally taking action on this issue.

The bill calls for a ban on tanker traffic carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of crude oil on the northwest coast of Canada. It makes exceptions for refined oil products, like diesel and gasoline, in order for coastal communities to be resupplied. Therefore, right off the top, the bill does nothing to prevent refined oil spills, like the Nathan E. Stewart disaster, from threatening our coast.

We are concerned that Bill C-48 also gives the minister broad arbitrary powers to exempt vessels from the ban, and define what fuels are covered by the act. We hope the government will implement constructive amendments to limit ministerial power and increase spill response resources.

I have had the good fortune and privilege of travelling to and working on the north coast of B.C. numerous times. I have been on that wild coast going around the eelgrass beds of Flora Bank when I was working on the environmental assessment for the Ridley Island terminals. I have worked on charter sailboat natural history cruises around the coast of Moresby Island, acting as a natural history resource person. For a young guy from the desert grasslands of the Okanagan Valley, those were really life-changing experiences.

It is truly a wild coast. I remember one ferry trip to Haida Gwaii across Hecate Strait. The ferry was taking green water on the third deck, the restaurant deck. Sand was coming up from the bottom of Hecate Strait, in the middle of the strait, on to the boat's decks. Large semi-trailer trucks were being tossed around on the vehicle decks. A lot of damage was happening. It was quite an experience. I have really experienced the wild and crazy weather that can beset shipping traffic there.

Not only is it a wild coast, it is really a rich coast. We heard a lot about the fish resource, especially salmon, from my colleague, the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam. For millennia, first nation cultures have relied on this diversity, this richness, and the local economy today continues to rely heavily on fisheries and tourism. I want to talk about the rich natural heritage of that coast.

The northern B.C. coast is one of the richest in the world. There are great rivers, like the Stikine and the Skeena, that carry nutrients from the interior to the coast, where they mix in rich estuaries with marine waters. Currents, like the Alaska current, bring up more nutrients to the surface from the bottom sediments of the continental shelf. The cold waters of the Alaska current hold high concentrations of oxygen. The result is a natural diversity that is truly unbelievable. It is truly amazing. This topic may never have been brought up in this chamber before, but British Columbia and the British Columbia coast have the highest diversity of sea stars, starfish, as many of us call them, in the world. Members may not have known that. When one is kayaking along the coast of Haida Gwaii in Burnaby Narrows, one can see leather stars, bat stars, sunflower stars, and many more. It is incredible. That is just one example of that diversity.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have marine mammals, whales, dolphins, porpoises, fur seals, sea lions, seals, and sea otters, the mammal that brought Europeans to the British Columbia coast and really fuelled the European exploration of the coast and the first contacts with first nations people because of their fine fur, fine fur that cannot withstand a drop of oil or the animal will die, because those animals require their fur to be in pristine condition.

For many years, the whales were harvested in great numbers off the coast. Their numbers declined almost to extirpation and extinction. However, there have been some good-news stories. The humpback whales and the grey whales have now recovered in a dramatic fashion, and we can now see hundreds or thousands of them over a season along the coast.

Off the west coast of Haida Gwaii down to Cape St. James and other places, the land drops precipitously off into the waters. There is very little continental shelf, and sperm whales come close to the shore. If people are down to Cape St. James and they look up at the big cliffs that go straight into the water, they see thousands and thousands of seabirds, thousands of common murres and puffins. British Columbia has three species of puffins, and the Atlantic coast only one. I am looking for some Atlantic MPs, who only have one species on the Atlantic side, but there are three on the Pacific coast. They are all there in British Columbia.

There is another little relative of the puffin called the ancient murrelet. I am going to go into birds and I hope people will find it educational. Half of the world's population of the ancient murrelet, about half a million birds, breeds on Haida Gwaii. This is a little seabird that eats crustaceans in the water, such as shrimp. They nest in burrows in the forest and the young go off into the ocean when they are just tiny little downy things. Again, they are very susceptible to any pollution.

At the north end of Vancouver Island, which is the south end of the area that this bill covers, is Triangle Island. Triangle Island has another species of seabird breeding on it in immense numbers, the Cassin's auklet. There are about a million pairs of Cassin's auklets that nest there. Again, these birds are indicators of the richness of what is in the water, and we have to protect them. There are albatrosses that come from Hawaii to feed on the B.C. coast and then go back to Hawaii to feed their young.

I would like to switch gears now and talk about the history of this oil tanker moratorium. In the late 1960s there was actually oil drilling off the B.C. coast, but in 1969 there was a big blowout at Santa Barbara that sent shockwaves through the industry, and drilling was stopped. Facing that threat and the new shipments of oil coming south from Alaska, in 1972 the federal government instituted a moratorium on oil tankers off the northern B.C. coast, but it was never put into law. This is the first attempt to do that.

Plans for drilling rose to the surface again in the 1980s, but two incidents put an end to those plans. One was the Nestucca barge, which collided with its own tug off the coast of Washington just before Christmas in 1988 and spilled about a million litres of bunker C. That oil from the central Washington coast spread north and covered the entire west coast of Vancouver Island all the way down into Oregon, about 1,000 kilometres of coast. The Nestucca spilled less than one-tenth of the amount of the limit that we are talking about here today in this bill.

Not many people have heard of the Nestucca, because three months later the Exxon Valdez went down in southeastern Alaska, spilling 40 million litres of oil. That disaster killed 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 seals, and 250 eagles. The Alaska coast has never been the same.

We can see, therefore, why many British Columbians are concerned about repeated plans for bulk oil transport along the B.C. coast. The tourism industry there is worth more than $780 million a year and creates more than 40,000 jobs. Fishery is also key for the local economy, with $100 million input into the economy from that industry. There are 2,500 people working in the fishery and more in processing. Therefore, I am happy to support Bill C-48. It would put into law a policy that has been in place for almost half a century. The NDP has supported the moratorium through those years.

As I mentioned before, we are concerned about several aspects of the legislation. First is the limit of 12,500 tonnes of oil allowed for community and industry supply. The vessels that supply these communities are now well under 1,000 tonnes in size, so it is unclear why such a high limit was put in place. We would like to see that lowered significantly.

Second, we are concerned about the amount of ministerial discretion in this bill, which would allow the minister to exempt vessels and define what fuels are covered.

However, we will continue to support the bill, as it is a step in the right direction that protects the British Columbia coast.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-48 fulfills a commitment the Liberals made in the last election to put in a moratorium. The government has been very clear in terms of how important our oceans are. We have seen literally hundreds of millions of dollars over a number of years invested in protecting our oceans, our marine life, and so forth. At the same time, we have also seen a government working with indigenous people and many different stakeholders. Unlike the previous Harper government, which was not able to get a pipeline to tidewater, we were able to do that through a process that respects the importance of consultation, respects the environment, and respects the national interest.

Surely to goodness the member across the way would recognize that the bill fulfills a commitment made by the Prime Minister for a moratorium, while at the same time on another file, the pipeline, we were able to proceed with that too.

The House resumed 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.

Motions in Amendment

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the simple and easy answer is to leave it to companies, people, and entrepreneurs to innovate and find solutions to problems out in the real world. When we come before the House and consider legislation like Bill C-48, that is not a solution. It is just more red tape to kill off energy jobs.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be joining the debate on this, but I think the bill has the wrong name. It is called the “oil tanker moratorium act” when it should basically be called the “pipeline moratorium act”. That is really what it is all about. It is not about cancelling the ability of tankers to move through a certain region of northern British Columbia. In fact, they will be able to move 100 kilometres off the coast, as they have been doing all along. It has put the last and final nail into the northern gateway project, and every single other potential pipeline project that might go through northern British Columbia.

There are a few points I will raise to add to this debate, including a letter I have from Prasad Panda, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, who is also the member for the provincial riding of Calgary-Foothills. In it, he notes a couple of discrepancies. He notes that Bill C-48 is a flawed piece of legislation, mainly because it contradicts the government's own free trade agreement that it signed.

There are two points that he makes in the letter. He writes that in that free trade agreement, article 301 states, “A Province shall not adopt or maintain any measure that restricts or prevents the movement of goods across provincial or territorial boundaries.” This is what the B.C. NDP is doing to try to kill off Kinder Morgan by harassing it through legal and regulatory means to try to put an end to that project. They are trying to end that and the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the energy sector, both in my hometown of Calgary, which depends on it, and also across Edmonton and a whole bunch of smaller communities across Alberta and Saskatchewan.

With regard to my second point, he writes, “The Government of Canada shall not adopt or maintain any measure that unduly restricts or prevents the movement of goods across provincial or territorial boundaries.” I think we can make a fine argument here that restricting tanker traffic off a coast like the northern British Columbia coast is that type of restriction on the movement through a territory that the British Columbia government claims as its own. It has a certain amount of environmental regulations that it can or it seems to want to apply. It is interesting that it only wants to apply it in the north, not in the south, when 95% of all tanker traffic happens to be in the southern part of British Columbia.

This particular member of the legislative assembly, a fine gentleman, wrote quite a long letter to the chair of the committee that reviewed this piece of legislation. He also brought to the attention of that committee that this ban, this supposed oil tanker moratorium on pipelines, would be like “banning ships from moving through the Welland Canal or using the port at Trois-Rivières”. It would be like “denying rail and truck access to the Michelin Tire factory in Pictou County”, like “detouring all the traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway and driving it down 92 Avenue in Port Kells”, like “taking traffic on Highway 400 and running [it] all down Weston Road in Toronto”, and like “stopping OC Transpo service to Kanata or GO service to Streetsville.” It would be the same principle. It is not science based, not evidence based; it is the random cutting off of the transportation of goods, people, and natural resources for political purposes.

There is absolutely no reason for it. As far as I know, there have been no spills in British Columbia. Members may want to correct me on that, but I do not know of any spills that have happened off the coast of British Columbia that would make it necessary for us to pass this particular piece of legislation.

I also note that in this legislation, the government is giving itself an exemption under clause 6 that basically states,

for the purpose of community or industry resupply or is otherwise in the public interest.

Therefore, if for any reason whatsoever the government believes it should provide an exemption for the import and movement of tanker traffic, it has a complete exemption. There is no real reporting standard there. All it would have to do is make a publication requirement that states,

the Minister must make it accessible to the public on the Internet or by any other means that he or she considers appropriate

I wonder what the minister will think is appropriate when the government provides the exemption. We can imagine how hard the advocates for communities, companies, and tanker companies will push the minister to provide them with particular exemptions and how sought after those will be.

I like Yiddish proverbs, and I have one. It states, “Heaven and hell can both be had in this world.” They can also be had through government policy and legislation. The principle is to protect the environment. That is the window dressing that the Liberals have put on this anti-pipeline bill. However, what they are actually doing when they repeat “the environment, energy, and natural resources”, two sides of the same coin, is only focusing on one part of this. That is their single focus on this point. It is is supposedly the environment, when we know, because of the details of this bill, it will do no such thing. Tanker traffic will simply be moved further to the west. It is not achieving any goals that the government has set for itself. There is no similar ban on any oil tanker traffic anywhere along Canada's other coasts.

Do those environments matter less? Do the beaches in Prince Edward Island matter less than those in northern British Columbia? Do the coasts matter less in Quebec? Do the coasts matter less in Ontario? I do not think that is the case, but I do not see tanker bans being imposed. I do not see pipeline bans being imposed. That is what leads me to say that this particular piece of legislation is all about northern gateway. It is to kill it off, and that is what the government intends to do through this particular piece of legislation.

The tankers that go through the southern part of British Columbia right now are in the 80,000 to 120,000 dead weight tonnage. If this were truly about tanker traffic, and there were worries about how many of these tankers are moving through a particular geographic region, then the regulatory process would be simplified to ensure the maximum size tankers could actually come through different channels as safely as possible.

If the government wanted to do it that way, it would ensure that ultra-large crude carriers, ULCCs, were able to navigate certain regions, doing so safely, with the necessary tugboats to pull them out in case they have security problems. It would not impose a random ban on geographic areas, pushing tankers further out into the ocean. That does not achieve any environmental goal I could easily name. It would also kill off economic jobs that northern gateway and other pipeline projects could provide in the future.

What it actually would do is sterilize an entire region of northern British Columbia from any type of development in the future. It would basically ensure that no company would ever propose a new pipeline project running through any of those communities, regardless of how many indigenous communities support it, regardless of how many of them are onside.

As the member for Lakeland has said, there are many indigenous communities that would depend on these energy and natural resource jobs of the future. Over 500 communities all across Canada depend either on energy or natural resources jobs.

When oil, natural gas, coal, or any type of mineral is extracted, it has to be moved to a market. It does no good to sit on a large pile here at home. It has to be moved to the buyer. That is done through a port, through the rail system, and through tankers. Those are the requirements of ensuring that the economy is looked after, and that is what the government is failing to do with Bill C-48.

This bill would kill off any future pipeline projects. It sends another chilling signal to the business community in Canada that we are not open for business. We have had the largest flight of capital from the natural resources sector over the past two and a half years. We are at the lowest level since 2010, and it just continues.

Energy east was killed off by the government. Northern gateway was killed off by the government. The government neglected Pacific Northwest LNG. It has neglected Alberta's energy sector. It has done everything possible to ensure that every single new piece of red tape would strangle the industry, and it has done a great job at it. This is one thing the government has been quite exceptional at, strangling the industry and putting tens of thousands of Alberta energy workers out of work permanently, with no reasonable expectation to return to work in the field of their speciality, in the field where they have spent years obtaining their education and working professionally.

Back home in Alberta, we have spent a generation trying to convince people to move to Alberta in the first place. British Columbia is beautiful, but we just wanted people to stop in Alberta and have a professional career with us. We spent a generation convincing people to move there, but we also spent a generation convincing young Albertans, men and women, that it was worth getting into the energy sector because there would be jobs well into the future and they could work anywhere internationally. They are not going to have that.

Bill C-48 is a nail in the coffin of every single future pipeline project. Every company that is even thinking about running a pipeline through northern British Columbia, or anywhere in fact, will think twice. All of their money could be lost, or there could be a random moratorium, a ban, or a cancellation of their project.

I cannot support this bill. It is another chilling signal to the business community and to energy workers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia that the government is not on their side.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, today I will address the oil tanker moratorium act, and in particular, its impacts on indigenous peoples and communities that support responsible resource development.

Bill C-48 is not really about the protection of coastlines or marine ecology. It is actually only a ban on Canadian oil development and exports, on the oil sands, and on pipelines. It is an attack on the hundreds of thousands of energy workers across the country, on one industry, and on one product.

Bill C-48 specifically and only prohibits the on- and off-loading of tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tonnes of crude and persistent oils at ports or marine installations along B.C.'s north coast. It does not target any other vessels of comparable capacity carrying any other product, or vessels of any size, which have similar volumes of fuel on board to operate. It does not even enforce the 100-kilometre voluntary exclusion zone, in the region since 1985.

It only applies to one coast, not to any other Canadian coasts or ports where tankers of all products and from all countries travel regularly. Its intent is clearly to permanently prevent vital energy infrastructure in the region, denying any potential for oil exports to the Asia Pacific from there, which could expand market access for Canada and reduce Canada's near complete dependence on the United States as a customer for Canadian oil.

Diversifying Canada's exports is crucial now, as the U.S. ramps up production to secure its own domestic supply and rapidly escalates its own crude oil exports after removing the 40-year ban. It is estimated that the U.S. will supply 80% of the world's growing global demand for oil in the next five years, while the Liberals force Canada's oil to remain mostly landlocked.

Bill C-48 is also all about politics. It was a predetermined and foregone conclusion for partisan purposes entirely. The Prime Minister instructed its imposition in mandate letters to ministers only 24 days after the 2015 election. Despite all the Liberal rhetoric about consultation, science, and evidence-based, objective decision-making founding policy and legislation, that is not enough time to undertake comprehensive community or indigenous consultations. That is not enough time for thorough safety and environmental assessments, with an analysis of best practices, gaps, and opportunities for improvement; comparison, contrast, and benchmarking against other countries; or local, regional, provincial, and national economic impact assessments and the consideration of consequences. That is because the motivation was actually a political calculation to hold NDP, Green, and left-wing votes for the Liberals in B.C, which helped them win in 2015.

However, Bill C-48, while confined to one geographical area, will have profound negative impacts for all of Canada, on confidence in Canadian energy investment and development overall, and on Canada's ability to be a global leader and contributor in energy regulation, production, technology, service, supply, expertise, and exports to the world.

Reaching tidewater in all directions for Canada's oil and gas should be a top priority for the Liberals, but their track record so far has been to eliminate the only two opportunities for stand-alone pipelines to tidewater in recent history in Canada.

One was the energy east pipeline, which was abandoned after a billion dollars invested and years of review before it could even make it out of the regulatory mess the Liberals created because they changed the rules and added a last-minute, double standard condition for downstream emissions that does not apply to foreign oil or to any other infrastructure in any other sector.

The other was the northern gateway pipeline, which was initiated in 2002 and had actually been approved, with 209 conditions, under the previous Conservative government, in 2014. After a Supreme Court ruling that there was insufficient indigenous consultation by the crown, the Liberals could have ordered additional months and scope for expanded consultation, just as they did with the Trans Mountain expansion application, which started in 2013 and was under way when they announced a complete overhaul for major Canadian energy projects in 2016. However, that option was not offered for northern gateway. Instead, the Prime Minister outright vetoed it, even though it was reviewed under the exact same process, with the exact same evidence, as the other projects the Liberals announced were approved the same day, including Trans Mountain and the Line 3 replacement.

The Liberal government's decision to kill the northern gateway was a massive blow for expanded market access for Canadian oil. It was obviously a loss for energy producers in northern Alberta, for workers in the industrial heartland and Bruderheim, which is where the northern gateway would have started, inside the western boundary of Lakeland, as well as for workers who would have constructed and then maintained the pipeline through operations across Alberta and B.C. It was a loss for potential oil terminal, refinery, and deep water port workers near Kitimat, never mind of billions of dollars in investment and revenue for all levels of government.

However, there is another aspect of that veto of the northern gateway that is just as devastating. Thirty-one first nations and Métis communities were partners with mutual benefit agreements, worth more than $2 billion, in northern gateway, including skills and labour development opportunities.

In Lakeland and around Alberta, indigenous peoples are very active in oil and gas across the value chain: in upstream exploration and production; in service, supply, and technology contracting; and in pipeline operations. They support pipelines because that infrastructure is as crucial to the lifeblood of their communities, for jobs, education, and social benefits, as anywhere else.

Elmer Ghostkeeper of the Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement in Lakeland said, “Equity was offered to aboriginal communities, and with the change in government that was all taken away.... We are very disappointed.” Ghostkeeper pointed out that 71% of the communities along the proposed right of way looked forward to taking part in construction and in the long-term benefits. All that was destroyed by the Prime Minister. They were not consulted about it.

Bill C-48 would put a nail in the coffin of the $7.9-billion northern gateway pipeline and all its employment and economic and social benefits for indigenous and all Canadians, now and in the future.

However, it gets even worse. The $16-billion Eagle Spirit pipeline project could be one of the biggest private infrastructure investments in Canadian history, with meaningful revenue generation, business, employment, education, training, capacity-building opportunities, and long-term economic self-sufficiency for indigenous communities. From Bruderheim to Grassy Point, the Eagle Spirit pipeline project is supported by 35 indigenous communities, every single one along the corridor. Its proponents have been working for six years to secure that support, even from communities that opposed northern gateway, and to exceed regulatory requirements, including exceptional environmental protection, land and marine management, and spill prevention and response.

In 2015, community leaders said what the project meant to them. On behalf of elders, Jack White said, “We like the fact that the Eagle Spirit project put the environment first. Many of our elders are in need and we want our legacy to our children to offer something more that gives them opportunities.”

Youth representative Corey Wesley said, “There are no opportunities for young people in our community. We want a better way of life with real jobs and business prospects so we too can offer our future kids more hope.”

Deputy mayor of the Lax Kw'alaams band and matriarch Helen Johnson said, “Eagle Spirit has widespread support in our community because it shows a real way forward for our members.”

Eagle Spirit's chiefs council says the tanker ban is a government action that would “harm our communities and deny our leaders the opportunity to create hope and a brighter future for their members“, which all Canadians take for granted. The Premier of Northwest Territories said almost the exact same thing about the impact on the people he represents of the Liberals' five-year ban on northern offshore oil and gas drilling.

The Prime Minister often says that the relationship with Canada's indigenous people is the most important to him. He says he wants “an opportunity to deliver true, meaningful and lasting reconciliation between Canada and First Nations, the Métis Nation, and Inuit peoples”. However, for the second time, on a pipeline to tidewater, he is actively denying opportunities for dozens of indigenous communities. They say he did not consult them before he ordered the tanker ban.

The Eagle Spirit chiefs council says that the tanker ban and the creation of the concept of the Great Bear Rainforest were “promoted largely through the lobbying of foreign-financed ENGOs”. The Eagle Spirit chairman says, “they know nothing about our area, they know nothing about our regions. And they're telling us what we've got to do because it's in their financial interest to do so.” It is “without the consultation and consent of First Nations,” which are “opposed to government policy being made by foreigners when it impacts their ability to help out their own people”.

He says, “We don't need trust fund babies coming into our community...creating parks in our backyard when our people are literally starving”, with 90% unemployment.

I suggest that actual reconciliation involves employment and business opportunities, social welfare, and benefits through economic prosperity, like what is offered by Eagle Spirit, which would ensure environmental protection and benefits for all of Canada.

Eagle Spirit's chairman says, “This is an important issue for Canadians. If you look at what's happening with the oil industry, Canadians are losing $50 million a day. It's about $40 a barrel over four years in margin to the refineries in the U.S. What other country in the world would give away the value of these resources like that? It makes no sense, and it's harming people in northern Alberta and northern B.C. and the chiefs are going to do something about it.”

He is echoed by B.C. MLA and former Haisla chief councillor Ellis Ross, who says, “The more sickening thing for me is that these people who oppose development in Canada truly believe they win when they defeat a project.... Actually, you don't win. It's just that the United States buys the Canadian product at a discount and sells it on the international market.”

The tanker ban is a deliberate and dangerous roadblock to Canadian oil exports. It is detrimental to the livelihoods of Canadians everywhere. It would put very real limits on Canada's future and standard of living, with disproportionately harmful outcomes for certain communities and regions. The Liberals should withdraw it.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to support Bill C-48, a bill to legislate a permanent tanker ban along British Columbia's north coast. I also have amendments that I hope will still pass, which I brought before the committee.

I find the debate about this tanker ban to take place, as often happens, in sort of a miasma of amnesia. It is important for Canadians to know that we are now legislating a tanker ban that was honoured and in effect from 1972 until Stephen Harper chose to imagine it away. From 1972 until at least 2012, every federal and provincial government had accepted, as did our courts, that there was a moratorium against crude oil tankers along B.C.'s north coast, particularly in Hecate Strait, Dixon Entrance, and Queen Charlotte Sound.

Just for the purpose of giving us our bearings, I want to revisit how that tanker ban came to be in effect and the implications today when we look at data about the safety of transiting B.C.'s north coast and the importance of recognizing that the tanker ban was in place from 1972 until, as I said, Stephen Harper chose to ignore it.

That tanker ban was put in place in 1972 by former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. It was as a result of an immediate threat to the B.C. north coast, primarily from a proposed expansion of oil tanker traffic from Alaska to the Juan de Fuca Strait.

Now, there was a backbencher in the Liberal ranks who went on to become the minister of fisheries, the minister of environment, and so on. At that point, Dave Anderson was a backbencher from a riding that was not yet called Victoria, but that is where he was. I think it was called Esquimalt—Saanich at the time. In any case, Dave Anderson was a backbencher MLA who was also simultaneously involved with environmental groups in a lawsuit in the U.S. to try to get the newly minted National Environmental Policy Act on the U.S. side of the border to have a mandatory, thorough environmental review of the threat of Alaska oil tanker traffic bound for Juan de Fuca and what that would mean for the B.C. north coast.

David Anderson, Liberal MLA, went to Pierre Trudeau, Liberal prime minister, and put it to him that the case to protect the north coast of B.C. depended quite a lot on Canada federally exerting a policy that it would not put its tankers through there either. It was important for the legal case south of the border and it was important in principle.

I would like to see a tanker ban on any tanker carrying dilbit because, as my other hon. colleagues have already pointed out, there is no technology to clean up dilbit, but I want to hold our attention for a moment on what was happening in 1972.

I know a lot of hon. members are not from the B.C. coast, but if they look at a map, they will see why it is particularly important not to have any oil tanker traffic this area. Being originally from Cape Breton, I am often asked why there is no tanker ban on the Atlantic coast and why it only happened on the B.C. coast. It is all about the specifics of an extremely turbulent, active ocean in those places and the presence offshore of a land mass. Therefore, any spill that occurred along the Hecate Strait, Dixon Entrance, and Queen Charlotte Sound would create an oil spill that not only would not float out to sea but would go back and forth, between striking the coasts of Haida Gwaii, which we then called the Queen Charlotte Islands, and backing up to hit the coast of British Columbia. It was a specific geographical threat that continues to this day. I think it is the second most active ocean current on the planet, according to Environment Canada data from the time.

David Anderson was able to convince Pierre Trudeau to put in place a tanker ban. It stayed in place from 1972 until 2012.

What is the significance of that? It means that every time people proposing oil tanker traffic along our coast point to the safety and the safety record, the safety record has something to do with the fact that we have not allowed crude oil tankers through those waters since 1972. That has something to do with the great record of not having had oil spills: it's because we do not allow the oil tankers there. We have not since 1972.

This piece of legislation does what the Liberals promised. I heard my hon. colleague from Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek making the suggestion that they break so many promises, why not break this one too. I do not want to go in that direction. I want to thank them and approve and applaud when the Liberals keep a promise. This is an important promise. It is a legislated tanker ban that meets the goals of decades of commitments to protect those northern waters. What particularly important nation are we also protecting? It is the Haida Nation.

The member talked about how first nations were consulted. There were extensive consultations before the 1972 tanker moratorium. The Haida Nation particularly, which has the most at stake, as well as coastal nations on the other side, along the mainland of Canada, has been consistent for decades that it does not not want tankers in its territorial waters. The Haida Nation is right. The threat is far too dangerous. Crude oil along that coastline would despoil traditional fishing, not to mention tourism and other economic benefits.

This is not a tanker ban that came out of the blue. That is my main point so far. This is not something the current Prime Minister invented for an election platform. This would fulfill a commitment made in 1972 and finally give it legal teeth.

It could be better. There is no question about that. For instance, we have had spills that were devastating from much smaller vessels that would still be allowed under this ban. Everyone knows about the really disastrous spill from the Nathan E. Stewart running aground off Bella Bella. It was certainly well below the limit that would be allowed under this bill. It had a huge impact on the Heiltsuk Nation. Chief Marilyn Slett has described it as a complete disaster for that nation, that community, those waters, and those species. That was well below the 12,500 metric tons that would be permissible under this bill. I would really prefer to see a 2,000-metric-ton threshold, which was actually initially in the Transport Canada discussion paper put forward. It was widely supported to hold it to a 2,000-metric-ton threshold.

It is true that in the outer waters, those U.S. tankers could still move, but that is the point. We are protecting the historically significant internal waters of Canada that have been protected since 1972.

Having had this moratorium for so long, the waters there have been protected from crude oil. However, in the intervening time since 1972, we have had an entirely different product proposed for shipment. The different product is bitumen mixed with diluent, which cannot be cleaned up. That is the best scientific advice we have in Canada from numerous studies that have been peer reviewed. Bitumen, which is a solid, is only mixed with diluent to make it flow through a pipeline. It is a unique carrying mechanism. It is not a product. Bitumen is the product; diluent is added only to make it flow through a pipeline.

It really cannot be overstated in this place, for members who are not as deeply immersed as many of us in British Columbia are in the multitude of reasons the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion is not a good idea for Canada, that bitumen mixed with diluent cannot be cleaned up. The diluent, which is a fossil fuel condensate like naphtha, butane, and benzene, is added just to make the solid material, bitumen, flow through a pipeline. At the other end, it gets loaded onto a tanker. Wherever the tanker goes, maybe to a refinery in some other country, taking Canadian jobs with it and away from refineries in Canada, the diluent then needs to be pulled out of the material, because it is not commercially valuable at that point. The product then goes back to solid bitumen, and they have to upgrade the solid bitumen and put it through a refinery.

The oceans protection plan is still not a plan. One of my constituents, the Hon. Pat Carney, who is the former minister of energy, says that it is an oceans protection wish list. We would like to see a plan. We know it is a $1.5-billion promise. We do not know how many millions are supposed to be spent on the Pacific, how many millions on the Arctic Ocean, and how many millions on B.C. oceans. We do not know.

As we look at Bill C-48, I still hope to see amendments so we can be more protective of our coastlines. I will vote for Bill C-48 and I will defend it as the continuation of a tanker ban we have had in place since 1972.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to support Bill C-48, the north coast tanker ban. It has been a legislative priority of Canada's NDP for over a decade, and we welcome the Liberals finally taking action on this pressing issue. The NDP is pleased that the Liberal government is finally taking action to protect the north coast from crude oil tanker traffic. However, we are concerned that Bill C-48 would give the minister too much arbitrary power to exempt vessels from the ban and define what fuels are covered under the act. We hope the government will implement constructive amendments to limit ministerial power and increase spill response resources. We were also very concerned about the lack of consultation with first nations.

I want to give a little background about the moratorium. It is part of the government's oceans protection plan that was announced in November 2016. I have already brought up some of my concerns with the OPP. For example, the technology to clean up dilbit has not been identified and does not exist, yet we are still pursuing projects that would carry dilbit to our coast. If that were spilled in our oceans, that would have very devastating consequences. Bill C-48 proposes an oil tanker moratorium that extends from the Canada–U.S. border in the north, to the point of B.C.'s mainland adjacent to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, including Haida Gwaii.

Oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of crude oil or persistent oil as cargo would be prohibited from mooring, anchoring, or loading or unloading any of the oil at a port or marine installation in the moratorium area. The bill would also prohibit vessels and persons from transporting crude oil or persistent oil from an oil tanker to a port or marine installation within the moratorium area to circumvent the prohibition.

In order to allow for community and industry supply, Bill C-48 would permit the shipment of amounts below 12,500 tonnes. This is still a huge amount of oil that could be transported on that coast. However, the bill would prevent large oil tanker ships from traversing the waters. The bill includes in its administration enforcement regime, reporting requirements, marine inspection powers, and penalties up to $5 million. That is a very insignificant amount, but it is a penalty nonetheless. Multiple private members' bills have been proposed in the past to protect the north coast, including mine. Back in 2011, there was Bill C-211.

Here are some facts about other impacts that the coast has had. Obviously, the most known is the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill on the coast, which was a catastrophic spill. The spill cleanup and coastal recovery cost $9.5 billion, of which Exxon paid only $3.5 billion. Twenty years after the spill, fish habitat and stock still have not fully recovered. An oil spill of this sort would be devastating to wild salmon, marine mammals, birds, and coastal forest, including the Great Bear Rainforest. It would devastate coastal economies by jeopardizing tourism, commercial fishing, and first nations fishing.

We also know about the recent sinking of the Nathan E. Stewart fuel barge, which shows that navigation in these waters can be extremely hazardous and dangerous, and what damage can be caused by even a minor spill. The Nathan E. Stewart ran aground in the early hours of October 13, 2016 near Bella Bella, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. The vessel eventually sank, spilling as much as 110,000 litres of diesel into the marine environment. Cleanup efforts were repeatedly hampered by bad weather, and the vessel was not recovered until a month after it sank. We were lucky that the vessel was not full to its maximum capacity, which likely prevented more extensive damage.

A north coast tanker ban is popular in British Columbia. Polls show that 79% of people in the province support a ban on oil tanker traffic in B.C.'s inside coastal waters. That was back in 2011, but if anything, it has gained strength since then.

The ban prevents the creation of disastrous pipelines like the Enbridge northern gateway, which would have run 1,177 kilometres from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., at the head of the Douglas Channel. The westbound pipeline was to carry up to 525,000 barrels of diluted bitumen per day, meaning that up 220 oil tankers a year would have to navigate the waters of the Great Bear Rainforest to export the diluted bitumen to foreign markets.

The waters off the B.C. north coast are a significant salmon migration route. Millions of salmon come from the more than 650 streams and rivers along the coast. The impact of a simple oil spill would be catastrophic. The commercial fishery on the north coast catches over $100 million worth of fish per year, more than 2,500 residents along B.C.'s north coast work in the commercial fishery, and the fish processing industry employs thousands more.

The beauty of this region and the abundance of the salmon, whales, and other marine mammals have made it a world-renowned destination for ecotourism. The tourism industry has played a major role for employment, economic growth, and opportunity in B.C.'s coastal communities. Business in this region has worked hard to promote its location as a major tourist destination.

The west coast wilderness tourism industry is now estimated to be worth over $782 million annually, employing 26,000 people full time and roughly 40,000 in total. B.C.'s north shoreline is dotted with sport fishing lodges, as fishing enthusiasts take part in the world-famous fishery. People are amazed after spending even a day kayaking, bear watching, or enjoying a guided tour on B.C.'s northwest coast.

We know the importance of the coastline on the north coast. I want to turn now to the south coast, and how the people in the south of British Columbia on Canada's west coast find the amazing ocean economy and potential of the marine ecosystem just as important as that of the north coast. They are concerned about a similar project, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion.

To give a little background information, this expansion project would include building a new pipeline and constructing 12 new pump stations, 19 new storage tanks, and three new marine berths at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burrard Inlet, which is near my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam and Anmore and Belcarra. Most of the pipeline oil would be destined for the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, where it would be loaded onto oil tankers that would navigate past Vancouver, the Gulf Islands, and through the Juan de Fuca Strait before reaching open ocean. The expansion would mean a sevenfold increase in oil tanker traffic from the Westridge terminal, from around 60 oil tankers to more than 400 per year.

I will give a quick update on that proposal, because it is very much a concern to many in British Columbia and in Canada.

Kinder Morgan has met less than half of the 157 required National Energy Board conditions. One-third of the final route has not been approved. Now the company is begging for relief on many conditions and wants to delay detailed route hearings. What this tells us in Parliament is that they are very concerned about what is happening on our coast.

Our coastal economy, community, and marine environment are very important. Salmon and whales are critical to our way of life, to west coast Canada, and to British Columbia. People are speaking out. They are very concerned. Yes, they want to find an economy that works, but one that works in tune with keeping our salmon, whales, and marine environment as intact as possible. Projects such as the northern gateway proposal and the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain proposal would have a direct impact on that economy and on those features that make us British Columbians and keep us Canadian.

In conclusion, we welcome the Liberal government finally taking action to defend the north coast from oil tanker traffic. However, we are concerned that the loopholes in the legislation might be enough to drive an oil tanker through. Therefore, the government must adopt the amendments. The bill does nothing to protect the coast from spills of refined oil, and the government needs to work on that.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, we certainly will be supporting Bill C-48. We have some concerns, and we have spoken about those concerns. However, the minister speaks of safety and protection of B.C.'s north coast. The minister mentioned the oceans protection plan in his speech. We have concern with this plan, in that there is no way to clean up toxic dilbit. I am wondering if the minister could elaborate on his oceans protection plan as to what technology exists to clean up toxic dilbit.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, Canadians are blessed with some of the most spectacular coastlines on the planet. Canada boasts the world's longest coastline, over 243,000 kilometres from the Pacific to the Arctic to the Atlantic. In addition to offering exceptional economic development, tourism, and recreational opportunities, Canada's vast coastal waters are home to rare species and precious ecosystems. Our coasts are very special places, particularly for indigenous peoples who have occupied these areas since time immemorial.

Bill C-48 recognizes that with these gifts provided by our natural coastal spaces, we also assume tremendous responsibility. We have a duty to protect our marine heritage for present and future generations. That responsibility includes safe and clean marine shipping, which is essential to our country's economic growth. Make no mistake, marine transportation is fundamental to Canada's economic well-being. Delivering our products to global markets and receiving goods from other countries is vital to the livelihood of Canadians.

The environmental and social aspects of marine transportation are also very important. Freight transportation in these sensitive waters must be done in an environmentally sustainable manner. Canadians expect us to strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

This is why the oil tanker moratorium act is so important to Canadians and to this government. Once in effect, this legislation would help protect the pristine waters off British Columbia's northern coast. Let me briefly summarize the key components of this bill, one of the many progressive steps we are talking under the $1.5-billion oceans protection plan.

The oil tanker moratorium would prohibit oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of crude or persistent oils as cargo from stopping, loading, or unloading any of these oils at ports or marine installations in northern British Columbia. I am referring to products such as partially upgraded bitumen, synthetic crude oil, petroleum pitch, and bunker C fuel oil.

Vessels carrying less than 12,500 metric tons of crude or persistent oil as cargo would also be permitted to stop, load, or unload in the moratorium area. This would allow northern communities to receive critical shipments of heating oils and other products they require. For many communities without road or rail access, the only way to receive products, like liquefied natural gas, propane, gasoline, or jet fuel, is by ship.

The proposed moratorium area extends from the Alaskan border in the north down to the point on B.C’s mainland adjacent to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, including Haida Gwaii. This moratorium will complement the existing voluntary tanker exclusion zone, which has been in place since 1985.

A key concern is the transfer of crude oil or persistent oil from larger vessels to smaller ones. This bill would prohibit ship-to-ship transfers.

Anyone caught trying to elude the moratorium would face stiff fines. The legislation includes strong penalties reaching up to $5 million.

Equally important, the bill includes flexibility for amendments. For example, products could be added to or removed from the list of banned persistent oils based on science and environmental safety. Environmental safety would be the main consideration for any additions or deletions to the product list through the regulatory process. Once adopted, this legislation would provide a high level of protection for the Canadian coastline around Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound.

Transport Canada officials and I have been working with marine stakeholders, as well as indigenous and coastal communities to make sure this happens. We have consulted extensively with a wide cross-section of Canadians on how to improve marine safety in Canada and successfully implement the proposed moratorium.

Since January 2016, we have held roughly 75 engagement sessions to discuss the moratorium, including 21 round tables. Over the same time, my department has also received more than 80 letters and other submissions on the moratorium. In addition, approximately 330 people have provided submissions or comments on Transport Canada's online engagement portal.

As parliamentarians know, the oceans protection plan includes more than just new measures to improve marine safety and responsible shipping, and to protect Canada's marine environment. It also includes a commitment to create new partnerships with indigenous and coastal communities. Indigenous peoples must have meaningful participation in the marine shipping regime. They must have a seat at the table.

This makes practical sense. Indigenous peoples along the coast have valuable traditional and local knowledge. They are also often best placed to respond to emergencies. Recognizing this, I held round table and bilateral meetings with first nations on the north and cental coasts of British Columbia to understand their perspectives on the moratorium.

As my hon. colleagues are undoubtedly aware, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities also held public hearings on the legislation. I was particularly encouraged by the level of support for the bill at the committee hearings by witnesses representing indigenous peoples, and I would like to thank the various groups that took the time to meet or write and express their views with either me or members of the committee.

I think it is important to note that there were some groups who would have liked the moratorium to be implemented in a different way or who spoke out against certain elements. We listened to their views and concerns, and we have determined that the right balance is achieved by the proposed legislation which takes a precautionary approach.

We also met with environmental non-governmental organizations, and they had the opportunity to express themselves. We also met with industry representatives, as the industrial sector has a direct stake in these issues. Representatives of the shipping sector participated in a number of meetings, and provided letters to me. I received correspondence from the Business Council of British Columbia as well. In addition to the participation in round table meetings, representatives from the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta took part in regular bilateral discussions on the moratorium and marine safety.

We listened carefully. We listened to stakeholders and Canadians, and their comments formed the basis of this bill. We took careful note of the opinions of Canadians who are directly affected by the proposed moratorium. We are aware that some groups or individuals will think that their concerns were not taken into account, but we believe that this bill strikes a fair balance.

The moratorium's parameters are also informed by and based on science. For instance, the moratorium would apply to products known to be the heaviest and that persist the longest when spilled. Crude oils and a range of persistent oils pose the greatest threats to vulnerable marine mammals and ecosystems.

One does not need to live on Canada's west coast to appreciate the need for a new approach to securing prosperity for Canadians, an approach that protects and preserves the bounty that nature has bestowed upon us. The legislation before us does more than address the needs and concerns of Canadians living in B.C.'s coastal communities; it advances the interests of the entire country.

The oil tanker moratorium act would mean much tougher laws for shipping and marine transportation, to reduce the adverse impacts of vessel operations on our environment and to better protect Canadians. As importantly, this legislation clearly demonstrates that we can make meaningful progress on both economic and environmental fronts for the betterment of all Canadians. We can ensure the safe, efficient, and secure transportation of goods that create jobs and prosperity while safeguarding the waters that are the very source of life.

I encourage my hon. colleagues to make the oil tanker moratorium a reality, something that has been proposed and discussed by the Canadian public and in the House of Commons by all parties for years. It is long past time for this necessary and worthy legislation.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I would suggest that Bill C-48 would do absolutely nothing for the preservation of British Columbia's environment. This is a symbolic bill. Ships, including U.S. tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington state, would continue to be able to travel up and down the coast just outside the 100-kilometre limit.

Further, when we talk about Canadian oil production, Canadian oil is extracted and transported under some of the safest and most environmentally strict regulations in the world. I truly believe preventing our Canadian oil resources from reaching customers in other countries only serves to proliferate the use of oil products extracted and transported in a less safe and less environmentally friendly way.

This is a strange contradiction we see, and I really believe the NDP's view on Canadian oil is that the NDP's opposition to its defeat is the supposed greater goal of protecting the world's environment.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-48 at report stage, which the government has called the “oil tanker moratorium act”. I would assert that this title is misleading, as is the bill to which it is attached.

In my previous speech in regard to Bill C-48, I made clear how this not about banning the currently non-existent oil tanker traffic in the Dixon Entrance, nor will it affect the tanker traffic that is currently traversing only 100 kilometres off the northwestern coast of British Columbia. Furthermore, nowhere else in Canada is there a ban of this sort.

The Canada West Foundation, in its submission to the committee studying this proposed act, put it succinctly. It said:

There are no restrictions on tankers carrying crude and persistent oils from stopping, loading and unloading at ports along any of Canada’s other coastlines, particularly the East Coast or internal waterways, like the St. Lawrence River, where oil tankers regularly travel. Implementing Bill C-48 will send a clear message that it is okay to have oil tanker traffic when it supports refinery jobs in Montreal, Sarnia, Quebec City and Saint John, but not when it supports jobs in Alberta and Saskatchewan tied to the export of western Canadian oil to Asia.

The Conservatives will not participate in the fantasy that the bill has anything to do with transportation, of which I am the shadow minister. This is precisely why my colleague for Lakeland, who is our shadow minister for natural resources, has taken point and led the discussion surrounding the bill before us.

Despite objections, it is clear that Bill C-48 is about banning pipelines to tidewater in northern B.C. Of course, the Prime Minister cannot very well pass a bill in Parliament that bans pipelines in one part of British Columbia while supposedly championing another pipeline in the south—thus the charade.

The government should be forthright with Canadians by bringing forward the bill that the Liberals actually want, which is one banning pipelines in northern British Columbia. That way, they would find out what Canadians really think about their ideological opposition to Canadian oil. Of course, they will never do that. The government does not have the courage to take this to Canadians with the facts laid clear, because they know that their ill-conceived ideas would be absolutely rejected. In fact, I know of one group of Canadians in particular who do not support the government's de facto ban on pipelines in northern British Columbia, and that is the over 30 first nations who supported and stood to benefit from northern gateway.

When the Prime Minister intervened in the arm's-length, non-political review process and cancelled the northern gateway project, these first nations were taken completely by surprise. In committee we were told that they were excited to hold a significant stake in this important project and secure a better economic future for the members of their bands through the jobs and the financial strength that comes with natural resource development.

It was estimated that over two dozen first nations invested millions in legal fees to reach agreements with Enbridge to share in the prosperity that northern gateway would bring. However, instead of a generational wealth-generating project, these bands were left empty-handed because of the Prime Minister's political decision.

The Prime Minister claims that consultation with first nation stakeholders is a priority. However, the underhanded cancellation of northern gateway shows that the government's claim is demonstrably false.

Many first nation groups do support our oil and gas sector. Eagle Spirit Holdings, for example, is led by the Chiefs Council, which is composed of over 30 first nation communities. We also heard in committee that their goal is to create an energy corridor in northern Alberta and British Columbia that would change the lives of thousands of their band members.

Eagle Spirit was proposed as an alternative to northern gateway a pipeline that would be owned and managed directly by first nations, with stricter environmental standards than even the highest government recommendations. This project would be the greatest boon to communities along its route.

In addition to the thousands of jobs and millions of dollars that the project would generate on a continuing basis, Eagle Spirit would run power lines and fibre optic cable along its path, increasing the quality of life for everyone in the area.

However, now there is a significant stumbling block for Eagle Spirit, and it is this very bill. That is why the Chiefs Council has taken it upon itself to challenge the oil tanker moratorium bill. I will quote from an article:

The Chiefs Council represents over 30 communities engaged in the First Nations-led Eagle Spirit energy corridor proposed from Bruderheim, Alberta to tidewater in northern British Columbia. Its members have unextinguished Aboriginal rights and title from time immemorial and continuing into the present, or have treaties over the land and ocean of their traditional territories. Having protected the environment as first-stewards of their traditional territories for millennia, the Chiefs Council is vehemently opposed to American ENGOs dictating government policy in their traditional territories—particularly the illegal imposition of the Great Bear Rainforest and the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act proposed by the Liberal Government.

Further on the article states:

We have, and will always, put the protection of the environment first, however, this must be holistically balanced with social welfare, employment, and business opportunities. These government actions harm our communities and deny our leaders the opportunity to create hope and a brighter future for their members.

The Chiefs Council is challenging this bill because it takes away their ability to create, in their own words, as I quoted earlier, “hope and a brighter future” for those they represent.

Energy projects are a path to self-sustainability and a better future for many of these bands. Unfortunately, the Liberal government does not agree. There is abundant evidence that the government disapproves of our oil and gas sector. There is the recent revelation that the government is funding protesters against the Trans Mountain pipeline. As well, the government has refused to use its full power to get Trans Mountain built, and the Prime Minister made comments to the French media recently, bemoaning his inability to phase out the industry faster.

It is clear that the government cares more about signalling its progressiveness, and I used that term loosely, to the rest of the world than it does about results. I say that because if the Liberals cared about reducing carbon emissions worldwide and pursuing policy that is best for the environment, best for women, and best for minorities, they would be championing Canadian oil and gas worldwide whenever possible. No country has the environmental record that Canada has. No country has our commitment to clean production. Of the large oil-producing nations in the world, only the United States and Norway can touch our record on human rights.

Our oil is ethical, safe to transport, and it can change the lives of thousands of first nations band members who want to pursue that hope and a brighter future. Instead of championing Canada, the Liberal government is allowing the industry to be strangled by a lack of transportation, over-regulation, and overtaxation.

It may come as no surprise that I will not be supporting this bill. I urge all those in this place to join me in voting against this bill to support the rights of economic self-determination for first nations groups like Eagle Spirit.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

There are two motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-48. Motions numbers 1 and 2 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 and 2 to the House.

The House proceeded to the 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.

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, today we will continue with debate on the NDP opposition motion.

Tomorrow, we will take up report stage and third reading debate of Bill S-5, the tobacco and vaping products act.

On Monday, we will commence report stage debate of Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act.

Next Tuesday will be an allotted day.

On Wednesday, we will consider report stage and third reading of Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act.

Last, discussions have taken place between the parties, and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, following Question Period on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole in order to welcome the athletes of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic and Paralympic Games; a) that the Speaker be permitted to preside over the Committee of the Whole from the Speaker's chair and make welcoming remarks on behalf of the House; b) that the names of the athletes present be deemed read and printed in the House of Commons Debates for that day; c) only authorized photographers be permitted to take photos during the proceedings of the Committee; and, d) when the proceedings of the Committee have concluded, the Committee shall rise.

Trans Mountain Expansion Project

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to participate in this important debate about pipelines. I will be sharing my time with the excellent member for Calgary Midnapore, who I know will have a lot to say with respect to her riding as well.

This is a subject on which Conservatives have been relentless in this Parliament. I want to salute the work of my colleague and neighbour from Lakeland, our shadow minister for natural resources, who is leading the charge tonight and always, as well as the members for Chilliwack—Hope and for Portage—Lisgar who served in the role of shadow minister for natural resources earlier in this Parliament.

In addition to this emergency debate, we have moved and forced votes on two opposition motions which specifically dealt with the subject of pipelines. The first one dealt with energy east and said the following:

That, given this time of economic uncertainty, the House: (a) recognize the importance of the energy sector to the Canadian economy and support its development in an environmentally sustainable way; (b) agree that pipelines are the safest way to transport oil; (c) acknowledge the desire for the Energy East pipeline expressed by the provincial governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick; and (d) express its support for the Energy East pipeline currently under consideration.

That was an opposition motion put forward by the Conservatives, and I was pleased to join every single one of my Conservative colleagues in supporting that motion. However, 100% of members of other parties, including every single member of the government, opposed that motion, including Liberal members from Alberta who had just claimed that they would fight for pipelines, but when it counted, they stood up and voted against energy east.

More recently, we put forward another motion. We thought we would give them another chance. Here is what we said:

That, given the Trans Mountain expansion project is in the national interest, will create jobs and provide provinces with access to global markets, the House call on the Prime Minister to prioritize the construction of the federally-approved Trans Mountain Expansion Project by taking immediate action, using all tools available; to establish certainty for the project, and to mitigate damage from the current interprovincial trade dispute, tabling his plan in the House no later than noon on Thursday, February 15, 2018.

What a statement of confidence in the pipeline process that would have been from this House of Commons. Again, every single Conservative voted in favour of this motion, but every Liberal and every New Democrat opposed that proposal. They had a chance to vote for action on Trans Mountain. Every single one of them voted against.

We have not only had pro-pipeline proposals debated in this House, but Bill C-48 was the government bill to make the export of our energy resources from northern B.C. impossible. That is further blocking the northern gateway pipeline. Every single Conservative voted against Bill C-48, but every single Liberal and New Democrat voted in favour. As much as a few members tonight want to wrap themselves in bitumen, something as simple and fundamental as their voting record paints a different picture.

All of the Liberals voted against energy east, in favour of blocking the northern gateway, and against a motion to force action on Trans Mountain. All the MPs across the way should not tell us what they believe. They should cast their votes and then we will know what they believe.

The member for Edmonton Centre recently said in this place, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Clearly, he never does.

If the government is sincere about pipelines, then it should start voting for them. Our commitment to pipelines did not just start in this Parliament. The Stephen Harper government oversaw the building of Trans Mountain's Keystone pipeline, of Enbridge's Alberta Clipper, of Kinder Morgan's Anchor Loop pipeline, and of Enbridge's Line 9 reversal. We also approved the construction of the northern gateway pipeline.

Now let us be clear. Up until now at least, it has not been the government building pipelines. It has been up to the government, partially through the NEB, to review applications approving or rejecting them, and to establish the conditions that allow them and other commercial activity to succeed. When they were in government, the Conservatives approved every single pipeline that came forward. We established the conditions in which the private sector put forward proposals and we approved those proposals after appropriate review, but we also made sure that that review was appropriate and it was not just a review process that simply bogged these things down in sort of eternal consultations.

Some critics wish that more pipelines had been built, but they have a hard time demonstrating how we could have built pipelines that were never proposed. If the infrastructure minister and others who are making this point are available to pose the question, I ask them to say how they propose we would build pipelines that had not been proposed.

Again, Conservatives approved every single pipeline proposal that came forward. We built four. We approved a fifth. We ensured that every project that was proposed succeeded. I am very proud of that record.

Conservatives have voted for pipelines. We have approved pipelines. We established the conditions under which pipelines were built. We got it done.

What about the Liberal government? It killed one pipeline, the northern gateway pipeline, directly. It killed the energy east pipeline indirectly by piling conditions on it that were designed to make it fail. Let us be very clear. These were conditions that were built to fail. They were put in place and left in place and were clearly designed to make future pipeline construction impossible.

At the same time, for political reasons, the government wants to try to have its cake and eat it, too. It wants to oppose pipelines but to be seen as supporting them at the same time, at least in some political markets.

The government approved the expansion of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline on the basis of interim principles. However, it is clear that the government has a dangerous agenda when it comes to pipelines, and that is to stop as many as possible. If this pipeline is built, it wants to make sure that it is the last one. If the government refuses to take the steps necessary to allow the pipeline to proceed on its own and resorts to either letting it die or nationalizing it, the government will have created conditions in which it will be very hard to imagine this type of critical, nation-building infrastructure being built in the future. That is the Liberal government policy.

Whoever would invest in an industry where projects were blocked by lawless protestors, in some cases lawless protestors who are members of Parliament, and some national governments block them outside of their jurisdiction and then projects are ultimately nationalized? Do these sound like the kinds of conditions that you, Madam Speaker, as a private sector investor, would find attractive?

We need to establish attractive conditions for those investments, which the government is not doing. The government must establish conditions in which vital projects, and not just this one, can be built with private dollars. It should defend all pipelines. It should vote for them. It should make the clear and obvious case for them, which is that pipelines transport vital energy resources efficiently and with a lower energy impact than the alternatives.

The government should stop talking out of both sides of its mouth. It should stop voting against pipelines, and it should start proceeding.

I would like to make a separate point, as well, about energy policy. That is that the crisis we face at this point is the result of a failed strategy by the government and by some other governments. Again, perhaps it is a strategy that is failing by design. The strategy invites us to look at energy policy as if it were some sort of hostage situation. If energy-producing jurisdictions make concessions, the argument goes, they will be able to move forward with energy development. Just pay the carbon tax, and that will buy the necessary goodwill to get progress on pipelines. Just a little more carbon tax, a little more sacrifice, and then John Horgan and Denis Coderre will release the hostages and support pipeline construction.

One does not need a Nobel Prize, even a fake one, to know that this strategy has failed. We do not want to negotiate with hostage takers anymore. The carbon tax is unaffordable to many Albertans and to people across this country. The federal government is trying to impose it even beyond its jurisdiction. Subnational governments are showing a lack of respect for the constitutional division of powers by trying to stop pipelines, and our national government is showing a lack of respect for the constitutional division of powers by trying to impose the carbon tax.

Objectively, it has not worked. It has not delivered social licence, that nebulous and immeasurable thing. The carbon tax has delivered poverty and misery. It has not delivered social licence, and it has not delivered a pipeline.

The bizarre thing about the government is that its rhetoric actually plays the hostage scenario both ways. It tells those on the right and in the centre that they have to accept the carbon tax to get a pipeline, then it tells those on the left that they have to accept the pipeline to get a carbon tax. If it is going to play this out, then it at least has to decide which is the hostage and which is the ransom.

This is all obviously ridiculous. We should build pipelines because they are in the national interest. We should oppose the carbon tax because it is not. The two are not linked in anyone's mind but the government's, as the current crisis demonstrates.

Our history shows us, right back to John A. Macdonald, that nation-building infrastructure is vital for our success, that every country needs the ability to access and engage in commerce with others. The government does not understand the importance of vital nation-building infrastructure. It is building walls instead of pipelines between provinces. That has to stop.

Under Sir John A. Macdonald, it took a Conservative to build nation-building infrastructure. It may well take a Conservative government again before we can finally build the nation-building infrastructure that will allow our energy sector to succeed.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the18th report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, in relation to 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. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with an amendment.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

If I may say so, our new access to information law, Bill C-58, does move towards proactive disclosure of certain things but doesn't touch on this at all.

My effort was to ensure that since we have the regulation-making powers of the Governor in Council under this particular bill in clause 24.... At this point the only thing the Governor in Council is empowered to do by regulation is to amend the schedule by adding or deleting any oil or class of oils. Expanding that to ensure that the Governor in Council can make regulations to facilitate public access to information, I think this is very helpful.

I know we're looking at Bill C-48 and not Bill C-58, but I am of the view of the Information Commissioner that Bill C-58 is legislation that takes us backwards and that will make it harder to access information. Anything we can do under this bill to make it easier for the public and first nations communities to have access to that information proactively....

Certainly there's no harm in this amendment, and I think you could ask your officials whether it does any damage. You can keep your fingers crossed and hope the public's going to be able to get at it, but I've said for years—it's a good line, so I'll say it again—that Canada's freedom of information acts have tended to, for years, be freedom from information. I don't think they're getting better, so anything we can do in this bill to create more access to the information that first nations have wanted on a timely basis and that environmental law groups have wanted on a timely basis....

Maybe the officials could tell me how it does any harm. The most I've heard them say so far is that we don't need it because it's redundant, and that's not something I believe.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. May. It's always a pleasure to have you here with us.

It is inadmissible, and I'll read out the rationale, as you've just said. Bill C-48 formalizes a crude oil tanker moratorium on the north coast of British Columbia. The amendment seeks to extend the application of the bill to the entire coast of British Columbia. It is my opinion, as chair, that the scope of the bill as agreed at second reading is limited to British Columbia's north coast. Therefore, the amendment is out of order. Consequential amendment PV-6 is also inadmissible.

(Clause 4 agreed to)

(Clause 5 agreed to)

(On clause 6)

We have amendment NDP-5. Mr. Cullen.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Forgive me, but I need to put on the record an objection to the process, to the fact that this committee passed a motion that deprives me of the right I would ordinarily have to present these amendments at report stage. I know that you individually did not intend to increase my workload, deprive me of my rights, and pass a motion that essentially requires me to be here, rather than giving me an opportunity, but I place my objection on the record and move to put forward the amendment, which is deemed to have been moved because I have no rights here, except for the motion you passed that makes me be here. I apologize for complaining about the nature of the manipulation.

The amendment I'm putting forward deals with the issue of the size of the vessel. You've certainly heard testimony from West Coast Environmental Law, Pacific Wild, the Sierra Club of British Columbia, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, and the Haida and the Heiltsuk nations, which have questioned the 12,500 metric ton threshold.

As you've just heard from our colleague, Nathan Cullen, that threshold is far larger than the spill that caused so much damage just recently, within the last year, the Nathan E. Stewart spill, which was a real threat to the Heiltsuk community and nation. Here, we're looking at the evidence of Transport Canada's report that in order for vessels to provide resupply shipments to the north coast, 3,200 metric tons is an appropriate limit on the size of the vessel.

I do want to say, by the way, that overall, I welcome Bill C-48. To give just a tiny bit of history, this bill essentially does what we had in place since 1972 through a voluntary moratorium on the shipment on the north coast of B.C., which the federal government and the British Columbia government had accepted—until the recent Conservative government.

Legislating the north coast tanker ban is welcome. I'll make other efforts to expand it, but overall, I certainly welcome this piece of legislation. I would much prefer, as would the communities along the coast, to ensure that the allowable shipments are held to 3,200 metric tons in bulk. My amendment goes to every place where you see 12,500 metric tons and changes it in each location to 3,200 metric tons.

Thank you.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Can I have some clarification, Chair, through you to the legislative clerk? It's more for my own edification and an understanding of why amendment NDP-1 was admissible but NDP-3 is not. They both deal with the notion of refined oil products that are not included in Bill C-48. We had deemed these both admissible simply because they were adding a category of products that were contemplated but were simply omitted from the bill.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

While understanding my colleague's point, this bill is explicitly and nominally to protect the coastal waters of British Columbia. That's the idea. You wouldn't invoke a moratorium on a certain transport of goods.... Well, you could, for other reasons, but my assumption all along has been that the reason we're banning and seeking to have a moratorium on these products moving in this way on the coast is the risk that's posed. This is the Prime Minister's declaration. This is the statement that I take at virtue.

If colleagues will also cast forward, we have some amendments that would lower the threshold of certain sizes of vessels that are also going to be permitted under this. This hangs with the idea of why we're doing this in the first place. Oil spills will continue to happen even with the passage of Bill C-48. I feel pretty confident in saying that, because whatever size of vessel is going to be allowed to go through.... We've seen it just this weekend. We saw it almost a year ago to the day this weekend. Spills will continue.

Even if Bill C-48 had been in place, these tankers—smaller tankers, barges—that move through the area will continue, so again, having spill response, it seems to me, is not harmful to the prospects of this legislation. It can do no harm, so why vote against it? That's essentially my argument.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Here's what I'm understanding. If a clause like this proposed new clause 2.1 says it's “to encourage and improve oil spill prevention and response on the north coast of British Columbia”, does that contravene the intention of Bill C-48? Does it work against the act as a moratorium on the usage and passage of large marine vessels?

Essentially, Chair, I'm wondering if it's harmful. Sometimes we have additive amendments, and this is deemed in order, so it's not outside the scope of the bill. I understand the central intent of the bill, but if new clause 2.1 doesn't work against that intent and only enhances, then I'm wondering what the specific concern might be from our officials or from government members, if they're planning, as I suspect, to vote against it.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

We only have a certain number of amendments that we deem to be important on Bill C-48. I know that my colleague, Madam May, has some, and I think there might be one from the Liberals as well.

First of all, part of our amendments came directly from witness testimony that we heard at committee in reviewing Bill C-48, the north coast tanker ban. Part of it is also informed by the more than 10-year-long campaign that has been sought in the riding I represent in northwestern British Columbia, where most of this bill applies, in consultation with first nations leaders, environmental organizers and everyday citizens who have been concerned about the threat of tanker traffic on the north coast.

Amendment NDP-1 adds refined oil products to the ban. The nature of what can and cannot be shipped is at the heart of what any tanker moratorium would be. When you get into the specifics over the various materials that are shipped around the world today, you can get into the weeds a bit, if you will, Madam Chair, but we wanted to prevent refined oil spills because we have seen what those incidents can look like.

If you'll recall, colleagues, there was the Nathan E. Stewart incident, the tugboat that ran aground and sank near Bella Bella just about a year ago. There was a recent incident just in the news this weekend. The spills of those refined products, according to many experts who work in the field, can be just as bad or even sometimes worse than what's contemplated under Bill C-48.

We have other subsequent amendments to include this that would make the bill whole if amendment NDP-1 were to pass.

I look forward to my colleagues' interventions and support on the amendment.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call to order the 84th meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities of the 42nd Parliament.

We have before us, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, 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 witnesses today, from the Department of Transport, we have Natasha Rascanin, Jennifer Saxe, Emilie Gelinas and Joseph Melaschenko.

We will do clause-by-clause consideration.

Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1, the short title, is postponed.

(On clause 2)

We have amendment NDP-1.

Mr. Cullen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much to all of our witnesses. I think that was very valuable information. We appreciate your taking the time to come and visit us today.

Before I adjourn the meeting, just for the information of colleagues, Tuesday we will do clause-by-clause consideration on Bill C-48. We will start immediately following the speeches. Hopefully, the clerk will have us in a meeting room on the Hill so that we won't have to lose too much time. We will continue until we have it finished. Hopefully, we'll have it finished on Tuesday.

Thank you again to the witnesses.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Marina Spahlinger, Manager, Regulatory and Stakeholder Relations, Canada, Royal Vopak]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

On behalf of Royal Vopak, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide comments regarding Bill C-48.

We are an international tank storage company with a 400-year history and a strong focus on safety and sustainability.

As an infrastructure and service provider, we ensure efficient, safe, and clean storage in the handling of bulk liquid products and gases for our customers around the world. Our purpose is to store vital products with care. We currently operate 66 terminals in 25 countries, with a combined storage capacity of 35.9 million cubic metres. Four of these terminals are located in Ontario and Quebec, and we recently expanded our business to British Columbia, where we have a 30% interest in a new propane export terminal that is currently being built. Including our joint ventures and associates, we employ a work force of over 5,500 people globally.

Canada is a beautiful country, and we feel privileged to be doing business here. We appreciate Canada not only for the business opportunities it presents but also for continuously striving to be an environmental leader. We certainly enjoy Canada's pristine environment and we perfectly understand why you want to protect it.

That said, many of our terminals around the world are located in or near pristine natural environments, and our experience has shown that economic development and environmental protection can go hand in hand.

Let's consider the economic context of this moratorium. According to Natural Resources Canada, Canada was the sixth-largest energy producer in the world in 2016, yet 97% of oil and gas exports from Canada were sent to the U.S. The National Energy Board projects that net exports of Canadian energy will continuously increase until 2040. However, domestic petroleum consumption in the U.S. is expected to remain relatively flat over that same time frame.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that China and India will drive a 39% growth in liquid fuels consumption in non-OECD countries from 2015 to 2040, and that's due to rapid industrial growth and increased demand for transportation.

The moratorium as it is currently proposed would cut off a direct route to take advantage of this Asian market. This will continue to expose Canada to steep discounts on energy products that it can only sell to the American market. This raises the question of why Canada would expose itself to such a serious economic risk, particularly when you look at other economic consequences of such a decision, such as forgone tax revenues or employment opportunities.

As it stands, the moratorium is not supported by an independent scientific risk assessment that justifies why crude oil or persistent oils are included in it. This creates uncertainty for us and leads us to wonder what other items could be included in the future.

Additionally, there is no end in sight for the proposed legislation, as it does not include an end date. It is safe to say that this moratorium, if implemented, would set a worrying precedent that could make it riskier to conduct business in Canada.

Seven initiatives are currently being conducted by the Government of Canada to increase marine safety that we hope are being considered as part of the development of this legislation. These include, for example, the creation of lower-impact shipping corridors in the Arctic and aerial response planning pilot projects to help Canada adopt a regional risk-based marine preparedness and response system.

At the very least, we respectfully ask that Bill C-48 be amended to include an end date to the moratorium, as well as the process and the criteria for the inclusion and removal of items from the list of persistent oils.

Madam Chair, Vopak is keen to contribute to both economic growth and environmental protection. We would therefore be happy to engage in further discussions and share our expertise, should that be of any use.

Thank you again for the opportunity to talk to the committee.

[Peter Xotta, Vice-President, Planning and Operations, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority]

Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

Thank you for the invitation to make some comments. While the oil tanker moratorium act does not directly impact Canada's largest port from an operational perspective in Vancouver's Lower Mainland, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is pleased to provide our perspective and to respond to any questions the committee may have.

For context, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, like other Canadian port authorities, is established by the Government of Canada pursuant to the Canada Marine Act and is accountable to the federal Minister of Transport. Our mandate is to facilitate Canada's trade objectives by ensuring that goods move safely while protecting the environment and considering local communities.

With regard to Bill C-48, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority assumes that government understands the potential economic impact for such a moratorium, given that there are very few suitable locations, particularly on the west coast, for movement of petroleum products, as was articulated by my associate from Prince Rupert.

Notwithstanding the fact that any future proposals would be subject to government's rigorous environmental and regulatory review process, this moratorium could create pressure on the southwest coast of British Columbia to develop capacity for future energy projects. In turn, that pressure could constrain capacity for other commodities that must travel through the lower gateway of the port of Vancouver, such as grain, coal, and containerized consumer and manufactured goods. Supply chains are complex, with multiple participants, and it's important to understand that other ports could not necessarily easily pick up the slack for one commodity or another.

Turning to the matter of tanker safety, I want to point out that tankers have moved safely into and out of the port of Vancouver for decades. Our related procedures go above and beyond the baseline requirements, and we revisit them regularly and update them. I'd be happy to go into more detail on that.

Even with the moratorium, the risk of spills from vessels with less than 12,500 metric tonnes of oil requires excellence in spill response. The port authority echoes its submission to the tanker safety panel of 2013, noting that the government has taken significant strides to address recommendations raised by that panel and by contributors like the port of Vancouver.

The oceans protection plan goes a long way to addressing our concerns. We're aware that the government is aggressively moving to ensure the Canadian Coast Guard is adequately funded to respond to and manage spills in local waters, including being trained and resourced to provide comprehensive leadership.

We also recommended that local communities and individuals, including aboriginal peoples, must be involved in spill response plan development, oversight, and response, and fisher personnel and their vessels must be incorporated into a response strategy, particularly in remote locations, to provide an additional level of support. We're certainly pleased to see government acting in this regard also, through the oceans protection plan.

We reiterate the need for strategic placement of appropriate spill response equipment in locations of higher risk, which would lessen response times and improve response capabilities. The announcement of new Coast Guard stations on the west coast is an important step in the right direction, if they are in a position to provide such response.

The port is also optimistic that government will continue to implement the recommendations of the tanker safety panel. We believe there is a good level of understanding that the moratorium is only part of the puzzle in protecting our precious coastlines.

Lastly, the port authority encourages the committee to consider the work of unbiased voices, such as the Clear Seas Centre for Responsible Marine Shipping, an independent research centre that promotes safe and sustainable marine shipping in Canada. Clear Seas has now been established for over two years and is well positioned to provide support to government in the event that it may need to consider future policy changes with regard to Bill C-48.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment. I look forward to your questions.

[Ken Veldman, Director, Public Affairs, Prince Rupert Port Authority]

I'm happy to. Thank you for inviting me here today.

I'll be focusing on the legislation's potential impacts on both current and future port operations and Canadian trade.

Measured by the value of trade that it facilitates, the Port of Prince Rupert is the third-largest port of Canada, and its volumes employ over 3,000 women and men in northern B.C. Competitive Canadian trade gateways not only add value to the industries, which use them for market access, but are significant economic generators themselves.

With respect to creating a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on B.C.'s north coast, we understand that protection of the marine environment is of paramount importance to Canadians. The environmental, cultural, and economic values associated with it are enormous. PRPA shares those values and considers environmental protection of lands and waters within the port to be a key element of its mandate.

It should be noted that the navigational approaches to and from the port are among the safest in Canada. This is a result of several factors, including relatively low marine traffic volume, uncongested and unrestricted marine approaches, a deep natural harbour, and short inland water transit times from the Triple Island pilot station. The low level of navigational risk has been quantified and validated by third parties.

Navigational risk is further mitigated by positive steps taken by PRPA, including investment in shore-based radar, navigational aids, real-time navigational data, and best-in-class practices and procedures that clearly describe rules to marine carriers for safe access to and from the port.

With that as context, I'd like to focus on the proposed schedule of products found in Bill C-48.

The list found in the schedule is very broad and has not been accompanied by demonstrable evidence as to why items have been selected for inclusion. There are potentially several trade opportunities that may be negatively impacted beyond the core objective of bitumen. In fact, the legislation has the potential to eliminate existing supply chains and proposed marine services, as well as unintentionally impact future Canadian imports and exports through Prince Rupert, which would have significant economic consequences for the country.

For example, the inclusion of slack wax, a feedstock that's used to create petroleum wax products for Canadian manufacturing, impacts a service and existing capital plant and equipment that has been successfully operating in the Prince Rupert harbour for decades without incident. A vessel that transports slack wax only discharges a portion of its cargo in Prince Rupert, usually below the 12,500-tonne threshold being proposed. However, the total volume carried by that vessel would be impacted by the moratorium, and this could eliminate the service from the port.

The legislation also does not recognize the potential for port services that handle, but are not exporting, heavy oil. For example, a proposed marine fuelling service that includes a 12,500-tonne bunker fuel storage barge in the harbour is currently undergoing an environmental assessment. The capability to fuel large marine vessels at anchor in the port is a critical strategic service that the port needs as it strives to grow Canadian trade. An arbitrary storage limit is a potential hindrance to the development of these kinds of services.

The committee should also be aware that the production of refined petroleum and natural gas liquids is forecast to expand in Canada. In the case of refined petroleum products, while the bill's schedule omits several refined products, it also includes many of the products of the same production process, such as heavier oils and lubricants. The inability to market and maximize value for those heavier products would negatively impact the total economics of the refinery. Similarly, the inability for a future liquid bulk terminal to offer a full slate of refined and natural gas liquids would negatively impact its investment case as well.

Lastly, Transport Canada also notes that amendments to the schedule could be considered, following a regulatory review that would primarily assess whether the ability to clean up a spill has improved. While these criteria are rational to include, the exclusion of criteria specifically related to the empirical risk of an incident spill is a significant oversight. In an extreme example, conditions could be created that eliminated all risk of an incident, yet a product would still be banned under the moratorium because of the challenges of cleanup. Given the strategic attributes of Prince Rupert and our advantage of being arguably the safest port on the west coast of North America, this is a significant oversight in the legislation.

We have the recommendations that follow for amendments to Bill C-48.

Number one, the legislation's schedule of commodities should be reviewed to ensure a full understanding of the trade, economic, and operational impacts of their inclusion.

Number two, the review should be based on demonstrable evidence for their inclusion and include robust consultation with industry and marine transportation experts.

Lastly, number three, the legislation should contain language that requires periodic quantified assessments of the risk of marine incidents in order to provide an improved context for the regulatory process of reviewing the schedule on an ongoing basis.

Thank you.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm calling to order meeting number 82 of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, on 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.

I'm very happy to welcome the officials here today to help provide the committee members with some very valuable information. From the Department of the Environment, we have Heather McCready, director general, environmental enforcement; Michael Enns, executive director, environmental enforcement; Marc Bernier, director, environmental science and technology laboratories; and Carl Brown, manager of emergencies science and technology section.

We also have, from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Gregory Lick, director general, operations. I have to acknowledge, since we're celebrating Navy Day and the Coast Guard, that Mr. Lick has received an award for his long-standing career and achievements and dedicated service to the Coast Guard. Congratulations, and thank you for your service.

We also have, from the Department of Natural Resources, Christine Siminowski, director of the Canadian oil, refining and energy security division, energy sector, and Kim Kasperski, director, environmental impacts, at CanmetENERGY.

Thank you all very much for being here today.

Ms. McCready, who would like to go first?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for their testimony. It's been very interesting in the last couple of meetings to hear from aboriginal groups about their concerns and support, or non-support, for this particular legislation.

I want to clarify, Madam Chair, that I do not consider these to be consultations, in the sense of consultations and accommodation required under section 35 of the Constitution and under decisions of the Supreme Court and other courts of this land. This is a legislative committee made up of members of Parliament who are not part of the government. We are not part of the executive branch of government, and we certainly do not represent the crown here. The duty to consult and accommodate with aboriginal peoples rests with the crown, in particular the Governor in Council, the cabinet, the Prime Minister, and the Government of Canada. Since we do not represent the Government of Canada or the crown, I don't see these as consultations as required under Canadian law.

I wanted to clarify that, to make sure that the government understands that they can't hijack this process because they have avoided their responsibility to consult and accommodate with aboriginal peoples as part of Bill C-48. I make that point before I ask the witnesses further questions.

It was interesting to hear the testimony in the last two meetings. We had first nations witnesses who came before us at the last meeting indicating that they were against Bill C-48, and our witnesses today are clearly in favour of it.

I want to take a step back from your particular positions on Bill C-48, and talk instead about the process that led to Bill C-48. I think that's where I and others have concerns. That concern centres around the duty on the part of the government, the crown, the cabinet, and the Government of Canada, to consult and accommodate with first nations bands up and down the B.C. coast, as well as those first nations bands that would be affected along the interior corridors where oil pipelines might be built.

I want to know what consultations, specific meetings, the government held before it introduced Bill C-48 on May 12, with each of your groups that were specific to federal legislation introducing this tanker ban?

[Grand Chief Stewart Phillip]

I indicated in my previous remarks about the long ongoing battle to protect our communities from, as I described it, predations of the fossil fuel industry vis-à-vis pipeline ruptures and tanker spills. That's why we so readily supported Bill C-48 offering that measure of protection to the northern communities, but it's a no-brainer that there's a denser population along the south coast. The Juan de Fuca Strait, the Burrard Inlet, and the Fraser River Estuary, and certainly all of the people, deserve a similar measure of protection.

The thought of moving tankers through Burrard Inlet that is incredibly heavily congested just doesn't make any sense. We're expected to undertake all the risks for very little benefit, if any at all. The governments have to be willing to take on the responsibilities for making these hard decisions. That's why the vast majority of British Columbians are opposed to these heavy oil projects and the risks attached to them.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll probably be splitting my time with Mr. Donnelly who has smarter and better questions than I do.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Mr. Hill, it's good to see you. I hope your families are well.

Let me start with you, Mr. Hill. In Gitga'at territory there has been some conversation with some of your neighbours about the exemptions that exist within this bill and some concerns that have been raised. There has also been the suggestion that if we could implement this tanker ban in such a way that first nations would play a joint decision-making role, a joint implementation role with the federal government.... Words like reconciliation are thrown around a lot in this town. Do you think this would be a helpful aspect if the committee changed Bill C-48 to allow for that, to imagine that, to give first nations a seat at the table in implementing the tanker ban in a meaningful way?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You mentioned, I think, that 118 different groups make up the union. On an issue like Bill C-48 is there dissent amongst the groups and, if so, how do you reach a position as a union? Is it a majority vote? Is it a consensus that emerges after discussion or what's the process?

[Grand Chief Stewart Phillip]

My response to that is, as Mr. Hill has pointed out, we've been involved in the ongoing struggle to protect our territories from the industrialization, the predations, of the fossil fuel industry for a very long time. These are not new issues.

The Enbridge northern gateway battle was a decade. It attracted 19 lawsuits, similar to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline project, which also is facing 19 lawsuits.

These are deeply emotional, very volatile issues, and we've been very clear in our right, our fundamental right, our fundamental human right, to be able to protect the health, safety, and well-being of our indigenous peoples. That's what we've been doing for a very long time.

We were quite happy with the announcement that Bill C-48 was forthcoming, but again I point out that there are millions and millions of people along the southern coast—the Juan de Fuca Strait, Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River Estuary—who would be absolutely devastated by a catastrophic tanker spill or pipeline rupture.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today. I think it's a very important conversation we're having with you folks, and, indeed, all of the witnesses we've heard from over the past number of weeks.

In testimony last week, we heard that the government did not properly consult as per section 35 of the Canadian Constitution with those first nations communities that were here last week.

I will throw this out to both of the gentlemen who have given opening remarks to find out if your communities or the communities you represent, Mr. Phillip, were properly consulted before Bill C-48 was tabled in the House.

[Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs]

Good afternoon to members of the committee.

On behalf of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, I'd like to read a brief statement.

Heavy crude oil pipeline and tanker projects pose an unacceptable risk to the health, safety, and livelihoods of indigenous nations throughout British Columbia and contribute to the negative environmental and health impacts experienced by indigenous peoples downstream of the tar sands, and of all people throughout the world, as a result of accelerating global climate change.

The Supreme Court of Canada has held that the crown's legislative power can and should be used to uphold the duties to indigenous peoples, and that both the federal and provincial governments have an obligation to uphold the honour of the crown.

My recommendations are as follows.

One, the UBCIC, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, has stated its strong support for the passage of Bill C-48, oil tanker moratorium act.

Two, the UBCIC supports the proposed amendments from West Coast Environmental Law concerning clause 6, ministerial exemption. It is the position of the UBCIC that the provision allowing exemption orders should be removed from Bill C-48, or at the very least circumscribed, for example, through engagement with indigenous peoples that satisfies the minimum standards laid out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, on time limits, public notice requirement, and opportunities for public comment.

Three, the UBCIC recommends that the committee seek further information from Transport Canada regarding the rationale for the 12,500-tonne threshold for the bill's prohibitions and consider whether the threshold ought to be lowered.

Four, the UBCIC recommends that the committee expand the moratorium area to include all sensitive marine habitats, especially where increased tanker traffic will bring increased threats to killer whales, in the form of noise pollution and declining marine environment, impacting the survival and well-being of killer whales and other vital aquatic species, including wild salmon.

As part of our package, we have a number of supportive Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs' resolutions that were passed by our chiefs and assembly: resolution 2017-15: protection of water, salmon, and health from diluted bitumen; resolution 2017-04: protection of orca whales and habitat; resolution 2011-54: support for the save the Fraser declaration, the coastal first nations tanker ban, and the indigenous laws banning crude oil pipeline and tanker shipments through B.C.; resolution 2010-11: opposition to the Enbridge pipeline project.

In conclusion, as an editorial comment, again we strongly support Bill C-48, but would suggest that the same level of protection be afforded to the more densely populated southern coast of British Columbia with respect to the same threats, for example, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline project and the Burrard Inlet and Fraser River Estuary.

Thank you.

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

Fair enough. You can be for or against Bill C-48 and still have some legitimate comments about the consultation regarding when it should take place.

It seems to me that further consultation might have taken place on the schedule itself. You mentioned in your comments that diesel fuel, gasoline, jet fuel, and so on will be allowed. If I know industry, the tankers that will carry diesel fuel, for example, are going to start to get a whole lot bigger.

I understand that you want to have comments and consultation on the regulation of it all, but shouldn't that all be put in the bill itself? When it's presented in an upfront way, a transparent way, you can have your comments beforehand on diesel and the fact that it's going to be unlimited. What are your thoughts on that?

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

Thank you very much.

For a bill such as C-48 to even reach the floor of the House of Commons, does consultation need to take place with affected communities such as yours, or can the government of the day bypass true consultation on a bill like this? What are your beliefs?

Either one of you can go ahead.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to say that from the past few sessions we've held on Bill C-48, one of the biggest concerns that has been brought to my attention is the impact on economic development for individual areas. I'm going to try to concentrate on those areas.

As evidence was presented to the committee, witnesses from Aboriginal Equity Partners and the Eagle Spirit Energy Chiefs Council expressed great concern about the high rates of poverty in many first nations communities. In their view, the proposed moratorium would deprive their communities of the economic benefit offered by the oil transportation projects, and undermine their efforts to become more prosperous and less dependent on federal government, or any level of government support for that matter.

My question to the folks here today presenting is, one, what are the main barriers to economic development in your community? What are you facing presently? Two, what role, if any, do you consider economic diversification to play in securing the future economic well-being of British Columbia's first nations communities?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

One of the other issues that you mentioned was that you think Bill C-48 should extend to a transport ban and not just the loading and unloading at ports. One of the issues that was raised by a witness we heard previously was that there's a certain legal difficulty because there are disputed waters between Canada and the United States. Certainly, the U.S. would take the view that we wouldn't have jurisdiction to regulate in this area where there is currently the voluntary ban. Is there a workaround that you see around this potential difficulty of legislating in disputed waters that another nation lays claim to?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

If I could return back to you for a moment, Peter, and this may apply to you as well, Marilyn, the Haida have set up joint decision-making tables with the federal government around Gwaii Haanas and some other initiatives. It would be helpful, as an amendment to Bill C-48, to have joint decision-making or joint management over something like the tanker ban because you've talked about exemptions and the power of the minister to deem certain traffic admissible and go through the ban. If we amended this bill to allow for joint decision-making between the north coast nations and the federal government, would it provide any assurance about how such a tanker ban would actually be implemented?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Why is it so important for the feds to come in as a partner on that impact assessment? Why is that so critical? Aside from the immediate costs, why do the assessment? Why is it so critical?

As well, should things like that be included in Bill C-48 if we're amending this bill?

[Chief Marilyn Slett]

We would like to see Bill C-48 pass. We support the bill. We propose—and we said it in our five minutes here—that there be some consultation on the regulations, and we would like the opportunity to go through that consultation with the crown. For things like financial obligations, paying for impact assessments, traversing through our waters, and when and where, we believe further consultation is required on the regulations.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Okay.

Is that true of the Heiltsuk Nation as well, that you're entirely in support of Bill C-48?

[Peter Lantin]

Yes, I think we said generally speaking we support Bill C-48. Getting into the details for us is the concern around the definition of “refined oil”. There has been a lot of discussion in this area around, never mind crude oil, let's talk about refined oil. For the Haida Nation, those two things we look at in the same light. As they transit into our territory, if it's refined oil or crude oil, either-or is going to be devastating to Haida Gwaii. In our opinion, we support the moratorium generally, but we believe that it could go further and include refined oil, large quantities of refined oil.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Okay.

I think one of the witnesses told us, Madam Chair, they were in support of Bill C-48, but I thought I heard there were some concerns you had with it, or some conditions on that support.

[Peter Lantin]

No. Like I said, he came to Haida Gwaii also in the summer of 2016, and then we had another video conference with the minister I think a few months ago. Again, it was all in generalities, it was never in regard to Bill C-48 specifically.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Lantin.

Was that the only meeting you held with the federal government, the minister, before the introduction of Bill C-48? Was that January 2016 meeting the only meeting that you had with the government before the government introduced that bill in the House of Commons?

[Peter Lantin]

Not specifically to the actual bill itself. Back in January 2016, Minister Garneau convened a meeting in Prince Rupert of all of the coastal nations. Right after the Liberal government was elected he fulfilled that promise to come to the north and engage us on shipping in general, but the moratorium was conceptually alive at that time. There have been a few more visits from Minister Garneau into Haida Gwaii, where everything I've laid out in terms of our position was also articulated to the minister as well. In general, yes, there's been consultation, but not specifically in regard to Bill C-48, although we have had quite a bit of discussion with the minister.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that answer.

For the Haida Nation, I'm wondering if there were consultations or meetings between the federal government and the Haida Nation with respect to Bill C-48 before it was introduced by a minister of the crown in the House of Commons.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I understand that. Thank you.

So there were no meetings or consultations on Bill C-48 before its introduction in the House of Commons earlier this year. Is that correct?

[Chief Marilyn Slett]

We're not aware of consultations specifically with the Heiltsuk on Bill C-48, but we do want to express that we have supported the moratorium.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to ask questions of both the Haida Nation and the Heiltsuk Nation regarding the consultations that led to the introduction by the government, by the minister of the crown, of Bill C-48 in the House of Commons.

Maybe I'll focus first on the Heiltsuk Nation.

I'd like to know if the government consulted you, had meetings with you, before Bill C-48's introduction in the House of Commons.

[Peter Lantin, President, Council of the Haida Nation]

Good afternoon to everybody back east, and greetings from Haida Gwaii. My name is kil tlaats ‘gaa Peter Lantin. I am the president and official spokesperson for the Haida Nation.

Generally, the Haida Nation supports Bill C-48, but we propose changes to strengthen the bill to protect Haida interests and rights. I'll begin by providing some context to our submissions.

In the Haida language, Haida Gwaii means “the islands of the people”. Haida oral traditions tell the origins of these islands and our origin from the oceans of Haida Gwaii.

Our territory includes the islands and the surrounding waters, which include the entire Dixon Entrance; half of Hecate Strait, north and south; Queen Charlotte Sound halfway to Vancouver Island; and westward into the abyssal ocean depths, including the 200-nautical mile limit of the exclusive economic zone.

The Haida Nation has worked with Canada and the Province of B.C. to protect sensitive areas within the Haida territory. This includes the Gwaii Haanas marine area, which has been called and “one of the world's great ecological and cultural treasures.” Other protected areas include Sgaan Kinghlas - Bowie Seamount marine protected area, jointly designated with the Government of Canada. As well, we manage marine areas with the Province of B.C. under both the Haida Gwaii marine plan and land use plans.

The Haida protected areas protect a diversity of habitats and numerous species, including marine mammals, seabirds, fish, invertebrates, and microalgae. These areas are essential for the health and well-being of Haida citizens and Haida culture and are vulnerable to shipping, underwater noise, and the introduction of aquatic invasive species and oil spills. The Haida territory and Haida protected areas are well-known to the Government of Canada.

For those reasons, the Haida Nation joined other indigenous nations and environmental organizations to oppose the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline project that would have seen the transport of crude oil through Haida territorial waters. Together we overturned the federal approval of the project.

The proposed moratorium is an important first step towards achieving long-term protection from the risks of oil tankers and oil spills. We propose the following changes that could help strengthen the proposed bill. I will provide some proposed amendments from the Haida perspective.

First, there are plans to construct oil refineries and to transport refined oil products on the north coast. In the event of a spill, these projects carry great risk to ecosystems, communities, and the economy. The moratorium must be expanded to also ban the transport of large quantities of refined oils, such as gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel oil.

Second, further measures are required to keep large vessels at a safe and sufficient distance offshore from the west coast of Haida Gwaii. At a minimum, the area of the moratorium must apply to the current voluntary tanker exclusion zone.

The risk of harm to Haida Gwaii is largely driven by the absence of emergency towing vessels. A dedicated tug located in Haida Gwaii to provide emergency towing to vessel traffic transiting Haida territorial waters is therefore our third proposal.

Fourth, we urge the federal government to pursue international marine organization sensitive area designations to apply to all shipping to complement regulatory measures.

Fifth, the Haida Nation and Transport Canada must prioritize and complete our work of updating the Pacific places of refuge contingency plan.

Sixth, we have negotiated with Canada and B.C. collaborative management agreements covering the entire terrestrial and portions of the marine areas of Haida Gwaii. These agreements, upheld by the Federal Court of Canada, provide the federal government the unique and powerful opportunity to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in a way that genuinely respects and implements reconciliation.

Seventh, a broad power to set limits or conditions on tankers, coupled with timely and sufficient access to information, will allow the management bodies under the Haida agreements to regulate the transport of essential oil products for communities through Haida territorial waters. The Heiltsuk Nation will speak further about this amendment.

We support West Coast Environmental Law in requesting an amendment to limit ministerial exemptions to the moratorium in case of emergencies. We also support the submissions of the Sierra Club of B.C. regarding expanding the moratorium to include decreased tonnage thresholds and to ban the transport of oil products, not just the loading and unloading.

In conclusion, the Haida Nation understood that the federal government had committed to ban crude oil tankers transiting and transporting oil products through the north coast. As drafted, the bill does not go nearly far enough to protect the Haida and other communities of the north coast from the devastating impacts of an oil spill. Our proposed amendments will help strengthen the moratorium to provide real protection to Haida Gwaii and the north coast.

Hawaa.

Thank you.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call to order this meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, we are examining 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.

Good afternoon. Welcome, invited guests. I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

For witnesses on this panel, we have from the Council of the Haida Nation, Peter Lantin. From the Heiltsuk Nation, we have Marilyn Slett and Reg Moody-Humchitt. We have two by teleconference. We will start with Mr. Lantin.

Go ahead, sir.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This testimony today is pretty explosive. I was not aware that there was such a lack of consultation and accommodation on the part of the Government of Canada and the crown in advance of the introduction of Bill C-48. The testimony today that we've heard from this panel and the previous one is very important and valuable to members of this committee, and hopefully to the House of Commons as a whole.

My understanding on the duty to consult and accommodate is that there's a three-part test that the crown goes through to determine whether there's a duty. The first is whether the government knows that there's a right that exists. It's clear that there are treaty rights that exist here. The Nisga'a Nation has a right over its territory, clearly defined in a negotiated settlement and in legislation that was passed some 15 years ago by the Parliament of Canada. The second test is whether the government's decision has an impact on the traditional territory of the band, which includes traditional hunting, fishing, and trapping territories, but also includes directly held reserve lands. The third is whether the government's decision has a potential to impact on the treaty rights and constitutional rights of the aboriginal peoples in the area.

It seems to me that, clearly, Bill C-48 does have that impact because it prevents the Nisga'a Nation and other first nations in the area from developing those economic projects on their own directly held reserve territories in the way that they had planned to. It also seems to me that the scope of the government's duty to consult and accommodate with respect to Bill C-48 is huge. We're not talking here about building a minor road. We're talking about billions of dollars in economic development that could accrue to aboriginal bands along the route and aboriginal bands on the coast.

I don't think this is a small matter. This is a huge issue. One of the questions that's rattling around in my head as I hear this explosive testimony is whether there's going to be court action here because of the government's failure to consult and accommodate in advance of the introduction of this Bill C-48.

[Gary Alexcee]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Calvin.

I come here today to support Lax Kw'alaams in the Tsimshian first nation against having this tanker ban.

I'll give you a few dates of why we're so against this tanker ban. In 1763 a royal proclamation was signed by King George III that gave recognition of the first nations lands and their right to plan what should be there. In 1960 the right to vote for first nations was very joyous among all the first nations. In 1968 we had the Davis plan, which completely changed the fishing industry of that day as we knew of it.

Today, without the meaningful consultation that has not been carried out with the first nations and with the B.C. Council of First Nations and Alberta, this is totally against what we want. There is no scientific reason for stopping the north coast projects. If there is, we haven't seen it. Therefore, we say that the Vancouver project of Kinder Morgan must be stopped also if you're going to force this Bill C-48 upon us.

With no consultation, the B.C. first nations groups have been cut off economically with no opportunity to even sit down with the government to further negotiate Bill C-48. If that's going to be passed, then I would say we might as well throw up our hands and let the government come and put blankets on us that are infected with smallpox so we can go away. That's what this bill means to us.

I further support the Tsimshian Lax Kw'alaams community to have this bill taken away so they, too, among the other 120 first nations in British Columbia, can sit down and have a way of life where they can at least govern themselves and be responsible for what they have in their lives.

Today, the way it sits, we have nothing but handouts that are not even enough to have the future growth of first nations in our communities of British Columbia.

Thank you.

[Eva Clayton]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional territories of the Algonquin first nations.

We appreciate the committee inviting us to speak with you today about the Nisga'a Nation's position on Bill C-48. You've heard my team's introductions.

As you are all no doubt aware, the Nisga'a treaty was the first treaty with indigenous peoples in Canada, and perhaps in the world, to fully set out and constitutionally protect our right to self-government and the authority to make laws. Our treaty area covers 26,000 square kilometres of our traditional territory, the Nass area in northwestern British Columbia and we own approximately 2,000 square kilometres of land in fee simple, known as Nisga'a Lands, shown in purple on the Nass area map that you have before you.

When our treaty came into force on May 11, 2000, after more than 113 years of struggle, the Indian Act ceased to apply to us, and for the first time our nation had the recognized legal and constitutional authority to conduct our own affairs. Our treaty includes detailed environmental assessment and protection provisions applying to the entire Nass area, which has opened the door for the joint economic initiatives in the development of our natural resources. It is in the context of seeking respect for our modern treaty that we come before you today to express our concern about Bill C-48.

The details of the proposed moratorium were announced late last November after what can only be described as a general overview of various options for the geographic content, geographic extent of a potential ban on oil tanker traffic, the type of product and vessel that may be covered by the ban, and potential opportunities for enhanced ocean protection initiatives.

In the weeks that preceded the introduction of Bill C-48, we urged that the moratorium not be enforced before further consultation took place and that the moratorium should not cover our treaty area.

Much to our surprise, Bill C-48 was introduced before we had been offered an opportunity to review the detailed approach that the government decided to take, nor were we able to comment on the implications of the proposed legislation on the terms and shared objectives of our treaty even though the area subject to the moratorium includes all of Nisga'a Lands, all of the Nass area, and all coastal areas of our treaty. This lack of engagement with us and the failure to assess the implications of our treaty is contrary to the expectations of the assessment of modern treaty implications, a process set out in the 2015 cabinet directive on the federal approach to modern treaty implementation.

Clearly, engagement on this issue fell well short of what would be expected between treaty partners. The Nisga'a Nation does not support the imposition of a moratorium that would apply to areas subject to our treaty, because Bill C-48 flies in the face of the principles of self-determination and environmental management that lie at the heart of the Nisga'a treaty.

We aspire to become a prosperous and self-sustaining nation that can provide meaningful economic opportunities for our people. This aspiration is reflected in our treaty, which sets out the parties' shared commitment to reduce the Nisga'a Nation's reliance on federal transfers over time. The Nisga'a Nation takes this goal very seriously. However, it stands to be undermined by Bill C-48.

Our future prosperity and the ability of our people to enjoy a better quality of life requires the creation of an economic base in the Nass area that meets the requirement of our treaty. This is the first priority of our government.

In the 17 years since our treaty came into effect, we have successfully negotiated many environmentally sound agreements in the mining, hydroelectric, and liquefied natural gas sectors. We were the first indigenous nation to conclude an agreement with TransCanada to run a natural gas pipeline over 200 kilometres of treaty lands.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Chair, this is a pretty significant issue that has been brought to our committee's attention. This northern gateway project was a $7.9-billion project. As I understand it, the Aboriginal Equity Partners were at minimum offered a 10% equity stake. They were offered the commitment to recruit aboriginal Canadians into senior management positions on this project. They were offered economic opportunities and jobs in the construction itself. That was at minimum. My understanding is that this equity stake may very well have instead found its culmination in a partnership that would have seen aboriginal peoples, Enbridge, and oil suppliers each owning one-third of this project, and seeing for the first time in the north a significant aboriginal ownership and investment of this pipeline.

Could you speak to the lost opportunities that your communities are facing as a result of decisions taken by the government not only in respect of the northern gateway project but also in respect of Bill C-48?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing in front of us today to talk to us about your concerns around the duty to consult and accommodate. I think it's important to have your views on the record.

The government has a clear, constitutionally defined responsibility as outlined in section 35 and also outlined in court decisions from the Supreme Court in recent years about a very specific duty to not only consult but to accommodate. It seems to me that didn't happen, Madam Chair, in this instance on Bill C-48.

The duty to consult and accommodate doesn't simply mean having a meeting with aboriginal peoples whose treaty rights are affected by this project. It goes far deeper and is far more specific than that. For example, the government cannot act unilaterally in any regard. It needs to consult on what studies need to be done to assess the negative impacts on aboriginal peoples along the route, and it needs to consult with aboriginal peoples before information is taken. There are many other very specific requirements that the court has outlined in various decisions.

Other than the meetings that you've mentioned, it doesn't seem to me that a lot of those proper consultations and accommodations were made ahead of the introduction of Bill C-48. For example, did the government ask you what studies it needed to undertake to assess the negative impacts on your communities if Bill C-48 were to proceed?

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our guests for being here and providing testimony.

I want to speak about ministerial discretion, so I'll direct my first question to Mr. Swampy. Subclause 6(1) of Bill C-48 allows the minister, by order, to exempt identified oil tankers from the ban on any terms and for any period of time.

Subclause 6(2) says that the Statutory Instruments Act does not apply to such exemption orders, which removes requirements that such exemption orders be published and made easily available for public inspection.

Do you have any concerns about this broad ministerial power?

[Elmer Ghostkeeper]

Therefore, I'll end by saying that we strongly recommend that this parliamentary committee ensure that Transport Canada uphold the crown's constitutional obligations and the government's own stated principles and undertake deep consultation with our communities before implementing Bill C-48. We believe that, by working in partnership, we can enhance protection for the beautiful B.C. north coast area, while also allowing a viable aboriginal-led oil transport project that will benefit all Canadians.

Thank you.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call the meeting to order of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, we are studying 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.

Welcome to our committee, members and witnesses. We would like to start off with the Aboriginal Equity Partners, Mr. Dale Swampy, coordinator, and Mr. Elmer Ghostkeeper, steward. We also have from the Lax Kw'alaams Band, John Helin, the mayor.

Whoever would like to start off, you have five minutes. I'll try raising my hand when you're getting close to that time. If you can get your comments in within that time, we'd appreciate it so that the members can ask their questions.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all our witnesses for appearing today and giving us your testimony.

I first want to ask Mr. Hage a couple of questions about the territorial issues around the area in question in Bill C-48.

My understanding is that the United States is not a member of the Convention on the Law of the Sea and so does not recognize our sovereignty—or any nation's sovereignty—beyond the 12-mile limit. We, however, are a party to that UN accord and we have a different position on that. Could you talk a bit about that issue in that area of Canada's coastal waters?

[Misty MacDuffee, Biologist and Program Director, Wild Salmon Program, Raincoast Conservation Foundation]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to be about five minutes and 30 seconds, but I might talk a little faster because I'm nervous.

Thank you, again, for this opportunity to speak in favour of the oil tanker moratorium act.

As you know, or may even have experienced, British Columbia's north and central coast, along with Haida Gwaii, comprise a unique environment that is increasingly uncommon not just in Canada but in the world. It is an archipelago where lush forests and granite buttresses greet the sea, where grizzlies dig for clams in sight of the open Pacific, where wolves swim to distant islands in pursuit of seals, where the ethereal calls of killer whales are used to pursue salmon migrating thousands of kilometres to freshwater rivers of a forest, and where the summer sun sets on the blows of feeding humpback whales that are surrounded by thousands of shearwaters, auklets, and gulls, all in pursuit of tiny fish that spawn on a sandy shore or on the giant kelps that buffer the fragile coast shoreline.

All this is to say that this assembly of iconic animals makes the B.C. coast qualitatively different from most other exceptional places in the world. Distinctively, these animals are tied to the sea within a food web that knows no boundary between terrestrial and marine. Raincoast's two decades of published science studying coastal species confirms the knowledge that first nations have held for millennia. The coastal environment is an indivisible blend of land and ocean. What befalls the ocean, befalls the species of the land. It is no place for oil tankers.

Three recent academic papers by Raincoast are directly pertinent to the bill before you. First is a paper derived from our 10,000 nautical miles of surveys through the waters that Bill C-48 addresses, a region we refer to as the Queen Charlotte Basin. The paper, “Quantifying marine mammal hotspots” is a response to the overwhelming evidence that humans are contributing to rapid declines in marine species, particularly in coastal areas. This reality dictates the urgent need to identify important places for marine species, places where ocean processes and high species abundance interact to create hotspots.

We found that southeastern Haida Gwaii, outer Queen Charlotte Sound, the Scott Islands, Caamaño Sound, Calvert Island, Aristazabal Island, Chatham Sound, and Dixon Entrance are all places of exceptionally high marine mammal abundance. These areas all lie within the waters identified in Bill C-48.

A second paper on spills and marine mammals evaluates the consequences of potential oil exposure on 21 species of B.C. marine mammals. All marine mammals are inherently vulnerable to oil spills because they live their lives at the air-water interface where oil contact, inhalation, or ingestion can all occur.

We found that British Columbia's killer whales, Steller's sea lions, and sea otters ranked very high in terms of vulnerability to oil spills. Their elevated risk above other marine mammals is due to their small populations, their slow reproductive rates, their specialized diets, and the tendency for large percentages of the population to group together in space and time.

Our third paper on marine birds and chronic oil pollution, along with the book, At Sea with Marine Birds, by Dr. Caroline Fox, identifies marine bird species considered to be at elevated risk of extinction and those with a pronounced vulnerability to oil spills. Marine birds in this region are vulnerable to oil spills in any volume, large or small. Bill C-48 reduces the threat of catastrophic oil spills to at-risk marine birds and their habitats.

Lastly, Bill C-48 addresses the rising problem of underwater shipping noise disrupting the communication and feeding of cetaceans, and the growing threat of ship strikes. As on the east coast, Pacific shipping is a growing concern for large baleen whales like fin, sei, humpback, and the handful of critically endangered North Pacific right whales that inhabit these waters.

Over the last decade, Raincoast has tried to express what this maritime commons means to the people of British Columbia. Simply, it is a coastal archipelago that is priceless and irreplaceable, immeasurable in monetary terms.

We've also articulated the unequivocal evidence of decadal-scale biological changes that marine systems and species are undergoing, the ecological debt, and the perils of hidden consequences. But we held hope that the proposed industrialization of British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Basin was a step too far. My presence here is proof that it was.

As we codify a moratorium on oil tanker traffic into law, whales hunted to near collapse a century ago are returning to their historic feeding grounds. Bill C-48 honours the ecological legacy of this coast and the first nations people who existed with this landscape since time before memory. We will continue our work to ensure that this priceless and irreplaceable coast continues its evolutionary journey, and we will mark Bill C-48 as an essential step in determining that future.

Thank you.

[Robert Lewis-Manning, President, Chamber of Shipping]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to offer a few observations and a recommendation on this important legislation.

My comments are provided from the perspective of commercial shipping, marine transportation and, more generally, international trade. The Chamber of Shipping represents interests of shipowners, their agents, and service providers responsible for over 60% of Canadian international trade by ship. Some of our members also move bulk liquids and products of all types, including petroleum and chemical products, on both the east and west coasts.

Marine transportation includes everything from people in ferries and cruise ships to bulk commodities such as grain that is exported to Asia, to larger container ships moving goods that Canadian companies sell globally, and manufacturing goods that Canadians use in their day-to-day lives. Needless to say, marine transportation and its many spinoffs benefit and touch Canadians in their day-to-day lives.

I've been involved personally with marine conservation initiatives on all three of Canada's coasts and on the Great Lakes, and I am a member of the national Species at Risk advisory committee. As a former senior officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, I was also responsible for monitoring and coordinating surveillance in support of coastal protection. The Great Bear Sea on the north coast of British Columbia is indeed one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world and has enormous cultural significance to the people who live there, and it contains important resources for British Columbia's economy. Protecting it should be a priority, and in that respect, I doubt that anyone would question that goal.

Protection of our coastal environment goes hand in hand with being able to build trust with both Canadians and our international shipping customers. Furthermore, the ability to protect our coastal environment responsibly will also ensure the continued competitiveness of our trading gateways at a time when competitive pressures, especially from the United States, are increasing. This region is also an important trading gateway for Canada. It includes the country's fastest growing port, the Port of Prince Rupert, in addition to a number of smaller ports that afford future opportunities.

Within this context, there are three aspects of the proposed legislation that I would suggest are worthy of consideration by the committee. The first is the process and study that supported the identification and the list of scheduled commodities. The schedule was somewhat of a surprise when it was announced in May of this year, and until only recently the study that supported the decision to limit the scheduled commodities was also unavailable.

The study appears to have lacked some consultation with shipowners and operators, who currently move some of the products included on the proposed schedule. If the dialogue would have happened, those leading the study would have learned that most shipowners do not ship small quantities of a single product in a single sailing but frequently have cargo left on board that is destined for other ports. In this manner, a shipowner leverages efficiencies through multiple orders of a single or similar product. Limiting the quantity of scheduled commodities to 12.5 metric tonnes could result in unintended consequences, such as increased freight charges or a complete disruption in the supply chain.

Secondly, careful consideration should be given to whether the legislation is inconsistent with Canada's commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. The intent of article 9 of this convention is to ensure that all ships, unless operating in a manner prejudicial to peace, good order, and security of another country, shall be provided innocent passage.

Article 24 reinforces this requirement on a coastal state, demanding that it shall not impose requirements on foreign ships which have the practical effect of denying or impairing the right of innocent passage. Furthermore, articles 194 and 211 also empower a nation to protect its marine environment and to harmonize, as much as possible, such laws and regulations with neighbouring states and international regulations more generally.

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, this legislation establishes a precedent in Canada for managing our national supply chain and is another layer of complexity in the already multi-faceted supply chain, thereby making Canada a more complex country in which to operate. While the bill intends to embody the precautionary principle, it has not provided and is not providing a constructive framework for properly reviewing the maritime transportation supply chain of B.C.'s north coast.

I would like to make one simple recommendation. The proposed amendments to another piece of government legislation, namely Bill C-55, an act to amend the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, also embodies the precautionary principle. In the way that Bill C-55 takes a precautionary approach and then demands analysis and an evidence base to support a longer-term management plan, we heartedly recommend that the oil moratorium act also contain language that would require a risk assessment to be conducted at minimum every five years, such that it could inform the regulatory process of scheduled products.

In this manner Bill C-48 would take a similar approach to that of Bill C-55, a harmonized approach. It would be grounded in an evidence-based analysis that would engage affected stakeholders collaboratively and would also provide a responsible legislative framework that could be sustained over the long term.

Thank you, again, for this opportunity, and I welcome any of your questions.

[Robert Hage, Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I should say that I've timed my remarks. They're five minutes and 30 seconds, so perhaps you would grant me the other 30 seconds.

During my 38 years in the Canadian Foreign Service, I have had the opportunity to work in the department's legal bureau, including a period as director general for legal affairs. I was also a representative for Canada at the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea.

I have written two articles relevant to the committee's work for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The first is the “Legal Aspects of an Oil Tanker Ban: Bill C-211”, which I wrote in 2012; and “Risk, Prevention, and Opportunity: Northern Gateway and the Marine Environment”, which I wrote in 2015.

Bill C-211 was the last of five Liberal or NDP private members' bills between 2007 and 2011 to legislate an oil tanker ban on B.C.'s west coast in an area north of Vancouver Island. I wrote that this “opens a Pandora's box of issues involving the United States, including Canada's historic claims to these waters, the Alaska Panhandle boundary, the passage of nuclear submarines, innocent passage, and fishing rights.”

All five bills ban tanker traffic in the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound, an area under Canadian legislation known as fishing zone 3. The key issue is the nature of the Alaska boundary, called the A-B line, adjacent to Dixon Entrance. Canada claims that the 1903 British-American arbitration, which delimited this boundary, created both a land and maritime boundary. The U.S. position is that the A-B line is a land boundary only and does not demarcate an ocean boundary. It has claimed a territorial sea south of the line, thereby creating a disputed maritime area where each nation has arrested the fishing vessels of the other.

Since the 1890s, Canada has maintained that Dixon Entrance is part of the historic internal waters of Canada. Canada has made similar claims for Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. While the previous bills banned tankers sailing within the defined waters of fishing zone 3, Bill C-48 prohibits tankers carrying crude oil from entering or leaving ports in the same area.

In focusing on the use of Canadian ports, the government has avoided a confrontation with the United States over the status of these waters. A May 12, 2017, media report quotes Minister Garneau's response to reporters' questions about why Bill C-48 does not ban tankers simply passing through Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, or Queen Charlotte Sound. Minister Garneau replied that “such passage is allowed by international law, but it is effectively stopped under a voluntary tanker exclusion zone that the U.S. and Canada agreed some 30 years ago.”

However, for years, Canada has claimed these waters to be internal waters of Canada, where passage is governed by Canadian law and not international law. The U.S. maintains that its rights indeed are governed by international law and has sent numerous diplomatic notes in that regard.

The rather odd result under the bill is that tankers carrying crude oil can still ply these waters as long as they do not enter or leave from a Canadian port. The legislation also does not apply to tankers transporting refined oil. It does not apply to B.C.'s southern waters, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca or the Port of Vancouver-Burnaby, the site of the Kinder Morgan tanker terminal.

Enbridge's Northern Gateway project was cancelled by the government, and the government always has the right to deny any future proposal for a terminal. This raises the question of why such legislation is required at all. The only pipeline and terminal project that the moratorium act affects is the proposed Eagle Spirit Energy corridor, which initially would build an oil pipeline across first nations traditional lands from Fort McMurray to a terminal on Lax Kw’alaams coastal lands, north of Prince Rupert.

In the 2015 article, I looked at Alaska's experience involving its native people and petroleum development. The United States government created 12 regional profit-making native corporations designed to give indigenous peoples the means to ensure their financial independence through their corporate ownership of large tracts of land and the opportunity to develop that land. The results have been very positive. One corporation on the north slope is the state's largest Alaskan-owned corporation, with over 10,000 employees. Another, on the Gulf of Alaska, designed, built, and operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, along with one of the world's largest spill preparedness and response organizations.

While Canada has not created similar native corporations, I believe the proposed Eagle Spirit Energy corridor on traditional first nations territory mirrors this partnership approach, with indigenous peoples very much in the driver's seat. It is paradoxical that this tanker legislation puts an end to a first nations project, which they see as an important move towards reconciliation.

I thank you for your attention, and I'm pleased to respond to any questions.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Now I have a question for the West Coast Environmental Law Association representative.

In an open letter, your organization expressed support for Bill C-48. You also, however, questioned the 12,500-tonne threshold.

Could you comment on that and provide any recommendations you have?

[Caitlyn Vernon]

I can speak to that again.

The Great Bear Rainforest is the world's largest intact coastal temperate rainforest. The agreements that have been formed between first nations, industry, government, and environmental groups have been recognized globally. We don't need industrial sacrifices to support our economy; we can find ways for communities to thrive and prosper within ecological limits. All of these agreements that have been recognized, that have been signed, depend on a healthy marine environment. The salmon literally provides food for the trees. The bears depend on the salmon. The edge between land and sea is permeated; it's not a firm boundary. Everything depends on everything else, and so the integrity of the ecosystems of the Great Bear Rainforest, which is truly a global treasure, depend on a healthy ocean and depend on bills such as Bill C-48, and I would argue even more strongly, on prohibiting refined oils and articulated tug barges like the Nathan E. Stewart which also have an impact on the rainforest.

I don't know if either of you wants to say something else.

[Gavin Smith, Staff Counsel, West Coast Environmental Law Association]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the committee.

The West Coast Environmental Law Association also strongly supports Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. We've prepared a written brief, which I understand has yet to be translated. In that brief, we make a number of points, but I'm going to focus particularly on one of those right now, which is the clause 6 exemption provision that allows the minister to exempt oil tankers from the bill's prohibitions.

However, I will note that in our written brief we also address issues such as a recommendation to create a regulation-making power for appropriate public disclosure of monitoring enforcement information under the bill, as well as a recommendation about seeking further information from Transport Canada on the 12,500-tonne threshold when the oil supply study that Ms. Vernon mentioned indicated that supplies to communities are currently in the amount of approximately 3,200 tonnes.

I'm happy to answer questions on those, but I will focus on clause 6 and in particular recommend three amendments to clause 6, which we say would preserve its sensible purpose of allowing for the provision of necessary oil supplies during dire emergencies while adding three crucial safeguards to protect the purpose of the bill and the public's access to information, each of which I'll address in turn.

First, we recommend that clause 6 explicitly limit the use of the exemption provision to circumstances that, in the opinion of the minister, constitute an emergency. Currently under clause 6, the minister may issue oil tanker exemptions for any reason that the minister believes to be in the public interest or essential for community and industry resupply. The exemption provision is not limited to emergencies, and it could be used to grant oil tanker exemptions for other purposes, including those potentially contrary to the purpose of the bill.

Minister Garneau has been very clear before this committee and in the House that the purpose of the exemption provision is solely and exclusively to respond to dire emergencies. We say that the clause 6 exemption provisions should reflect that in order to ensure that the provision is not used for other purposes.

Second, we recommend imposing an expiry period for oil tanker exemption orders under clause 6 with ministerial authority to order extensions as necessary. We propose an expiry period of one year for oil tanker exemption orders and orders to extend them, although we note there's no magic in that number provided there is an expiry period of a relatively short term.

Currently under clause 6, the minister may order oil tanker exemptions for any period of time without restriction, including potentially long-term or even indefinite exemptions. We say that setting a default term for oil tanker exemption orders would greatly curtail potential use of the exemption provision for long-term objectives that are incompatible with the bill's purpose, and also reflect the reality that, in general, emergencies are not likely to require long-term oil tanker exemptions. At the same time, the ability to order extensions of those orders would provide flexibility to maintain exemptions for longer periods where required.

Third, we recommend adding a simple requirement that oil tanker exemption orders be published in the Canada Gazette. Currently, legal requirements for public notice of access to exemption orders are explicitly removed by subclause 6(2) of Bill C-48. That is because the Statutory Instruments Act and its regulations generally require publication of statutory instruments in the Canada Gazette and provide for public access to and the right to copy statutory instruments.

However, those provisions would not apply to an oil tanker exemption order under the bill, because subclause 6(2) says the Statutory Instruments Act does not apply. The apparent rationale is to ensure that exemption orders can enter into effect quickly with a minimum of procedural requirements during an emergency. We don't propose disturbing that approach. Rather, we simply recommend adding a requirement to publish the orders in the Canada Gazette to ensure that the public has proper notice of such exemptions.

In summary, the clause 6 exemption provision could, if used to its full extent as currently drafted, allow wide-ranging and long-term exemptions from the bill's oil tanker prohibitions to be ordered behind closed doors without appropriate public review, potentially gutting the very purpose of the oil tanker moratorium act. We fully understand that this is not the minister's intention. He has been very clear on that point. However, given that, as the minister stated to this committee, the purpose of the bill is to preserve the pristine north coast for posterity, we say, then, that the bill's provisions must stand the test of time. This requires firm prohibitions that cannot be easily circumvented in future through the use of a broad exemption power.

The three amendments that we propose to section 6 would achieve this goal, providing ample flexibility for oil tanker exemptions when necessary, during emergencies, while eliminating uncertainty about whether the exemption provision could, in future, be used for purposes other than that, and potentially those contrary to the spirit of the bill.

Thank you.

[Caitlyn Vernon, Campaigns Director, Sierra Club of British Columbia]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-48.

Sierra Club BC strongly supports this oil tanker moratorium act. However, to truly protect the coast and all who depend on it, we believe the bill needs to be strengthened in four key ways, outlined in our written brief, which I am told you will be getting very shortly: limiting the ministerial exemption to emergency circumstances; including refined oil under the scope of the bill; decreasing the tonnage threshold to 3,200 tonnes, which, according to a recent Transport Canada report, is the maximum needed for community fuel supply; and expanding the geographic scope to prohibit vessels above 3,200 tonnes from transporting crude or refined oil through Hecate Strait, Dixon Entrance, and Queen Charlotte Sound.

We believe these amendments are necessary, because oil spill cleanup is effectively impossible, and because B.C.'s north coast, the Great Bear Rainforest, is a unique and special place, truly a global treasure worth protecting.

Some years ago, I was invited to a feast at the Gitga’at Nation in Hartley Bay. The table in the big house was loaded with food from the ocean, food you can't find in a grocery store: smoked eulachon, sea cucumbers, and sea lion. The seaweed was particularly good, so I asked around to see if I could buy some to take home. The next morning, a woman came up to me and gifted me a big bag of seaweed; she wouldn't let me pay. In return, she said, I could help them stop the tankers.

It's difficult to overemphasize how the narrow waterways of the north coast are the breadbasket, livelihood, and culture to coastal communities. This is a place where you can watch a spirit bear catch a salmon, catch a whiff of a sea lion colony, and come eye to eye with the coastal wolves that eat seafood. Even on land, the globally recognized Great Bear Rainforest depends on a healthy ocean. The bears eat barnacles, and the trees actually grow bigger in years with good salmon runs. There is nowhere else on earth like it, so we commend the government for introducing Bill C-48.

This bill is an important step in preventing oil spills. In the case of a spill, what industry considers a success—10% to 15% recovery in accessible locations in good weather—is really a disaster for the communities and ecosystems left behind. While improving our spill response capacity is a good thing, having a bigger mop doesn't actually prevent the spills from happening in the first place.

In October of last year, the Nathan E. Stewart ran aground in Heiltsuk territory. This was an articulated tug barge that transported petroleum products between Washington state and Alaska. Fortunately, the fuel barge was empty. Even so, the sinking of the tug spilled over 100,000 litres of diesel, contaminating important harvesting and cultural sites. The response was slow, uncoordinated, and completely ineffectual for the conditions. Booms broke, and waves crashed over the booms. Fisheries are still closed. The Nathan E. Stewart provides a sobering reminder of the challenges of spill response in remote locations, and that social, economic, and environmental impacts can be very severe from even a relatively small spill of refined oil products. Note that I am not talking about just crude oil or persistent oil, but also the impacts of refined oil spills.

There are two refineries undergoing environmental assessment in northern B.C. that would result in supertankers carrying refined oil. These non-persistent oils are acutely toxic to marine organisms. The risk of an oil spill was a key motivating factor in why so many municipalities, first nations, unions, regional districts, businesses, and individuals over the years spoke out against Enbridge's Northern Gateway proposal, and why coastal first nations have declared a ban on tankers in their territories.

This government has broad-based public support for a tanker ban. However, the expectation is that the bill prohibit all tankers, not just some tankers. As I have outlined, this can be done through amendments that continue to allow for community fuel supply while prohibiting articulated tug barges, as well as tankers, from carrying refined oil.

While Bill C-48 focuses on the north coast, it must be mentioned that oil tankers also pose a huge risk to the communities, the economy, and the wildlife on the south coast of B.C., and that LNG tankers are a safety hazard. True coastal protection would ban oil and gas tankers, both north and south. Then, instead of investing in spill response, we could support the wild salmon economy and expand renewable energy production that could generate jobs without damaging our climate or putting our coast at risk of spills.

Thank you.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I bring to order the meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in this 42nd Parliament. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, we are looking at 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—its beautiful north coast.

Thank you very much to our witnesses.

We will start with Friends of Wild Salmon.

Mr. Nobels.

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

I know it's your position that you would be outside the schedule and therefore exempt from Bill C-48, so maybe you don't want to say this right now, but inside the bill, is there any issue with how you would actually prove that you shouldn't be put in the schedule?

I know the minister made comments back in February when you made this announcement, that they were still working on the criteria regarding how that would be done. Has there been any discussion since February on how you would be able to prove out this product so you wouldn't find yourself on the schedule?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, I want to give some clarification to some comments that Mr. Chong made earlier with respect to Bill C-48 and dealing with disputed marine borders. Bill C-48, just to be clear, does not deal with disputed marine borders. It's a land-based moratorium. I think that was made clear at the last meeting.

I do want to congratulate CN for taking a forward-looking approach, for looking at not just the moratorium we're dealing with and, of course, the possibility of it then moving forward, but also at taking it steps further than that and coming up with new products and new approaches to the impact of this moratorium.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

If you will permit, I'd like to split my time with Madam Block. I have a comment. I don't have a question.

My comment concerns the international aspect of this bill, which I don't think any of our witnesses have talked about, so I want to put this on the record. Bill C-48 concerns boundary waters for which we are in dispute with the United States. It involves the disputed waters around the Alaska Panhandle and also the waters around the Dixon Entrance, as well as issues concerning innocent passage, freedom of navigation, and the like.

The United States is not a party to UNCLOS, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and it's also a global maritime policing power, through the U.S. Navy, that has always been very clear about its determination to protect flag rights. Since the 1890s Canada has claimed these waters, both Dixon Entrance and Hecate Strait, believing they're internal to Canada. That's a position I support, but the U.S. doesn't recognize our sovereignty here.

As I understand it, the Government of Canada's foreign policy priority right now is protecting NAFTA, and I believe the Government of Canada should have a whole-of-government approach in ensuring that every resource of the Government of Canada is used to fighting for and protecting NAFTA, which is so vital to the approximately one-fifth of the Canadian economy that relies on trade exports to the United States. One of the things I have a concern about with this legislation is that it potentially will provoke the Trump administration while at the same time we're trying to get their attention and their support for the protection of Canadian jobs and Canadian interests in NAFTA. In that context, I think it's important for us, as members of Parliament, to put this on the record.

I think this is not well timed, and I don't believe it fits into what I believe should be a whole-of-government strategy to focusing every aspect, every department, every minister, and every part of the Government of Canada on the single biggest need, which is to protect our interests in NAFTA and to ensure that we can convince the Trump administration to come around to our point of view.

[Greg D'Avignon, President and Chief Executive Officer, Business Council of British Columbia]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, standing committee, for the invitation to present today.

My name is Greg D'Avignon, and I am the CEO of the Business Council of British Columbia. We are in our 51st year. We are an organization of 260 firms that have assets and operations in the province, including leading firms in every sector of the economy, including our post-secondary institutions.

My comments today are really reflective of two key areas. One is related to the context of global and domestic energy demand and innovation and the role that Canada can play in meeting our obligations from an environmental and marine protection perspective. The other has to do with seizing the opportunity to export Canadian products to the benefit of the economy and the peoples of British Columbia and Canada.

These objectives were articulated in a submission in September 2016, but they bear repeating for the committee today. As the committee is aware, the International Energy Agency in its latest report showed that the global demand for hydrocarbons continues to grow and is projected to grow by one-third until 2040. Energy demand will be satisfied by a global mix of energy products, including renewables, but for decades to come it will involve primarily energy sources based on fossil fuels.

Canada, in our view, can choose to shut itself off from this demand and these market realities and forgo the benefits, including investment, taxes, jobs, and innovation that flow from our energy sector, which comprises today 10% of our GDP and most recently up to 25% of the capital investment in Canada as a whole, or we can choose to participate by contributing lower-greenhouse-intensive oil and natural gas products based on our baseline approach and innovations, as you heard about a moment ago, and drive change globally through a Canadian impact.

This is a unique proposition, particularly in British Columbia where we have the ability and today are integrating electrification in the upstream and downstream natural gas and oil production. These efforts are reducing by as much as half the carbon intensity of a barrel of oil, compared with the average in the U.S. The irony is that Canada today imports over 400,000 barrels of U.S. oil, while landlocking our Canadian product.

Canada's high environmental standards play a role in this, and Bill C-48 helps to strengthen it. Frankly, however, we have concerns with respect to our ability as the fourth-largest oil producer in the world, and given the innovations in electrification taking place in the market, to actually take advantage of the opportunities we have. The legislation in its persistence levels and schedule preclude both the innovations around the CanaPux, which we heard about earlier, and the opportunities that will arise out of natural gas production, which will include the production of light tight oil, condensate, and methane.

The British Columbia Business Council's concern is that the public narrative has not actually captured the voices of all indigenous peoples either. While many indigenous communities have the right to oppose the ability to ship, particularly diluted bitumen, from their traditional territories, the committee has heard from a great number who would like to seize those opportunities in environmental, traditional, and sustainable manners. This includes the supply chain through British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.

Ironically, the oil industry and the energy sector in Canada is among the highest employers of indigenous peoples, creating self-determination, financial independence, and jobs for the future of those communities.

The opportunity for us in Canada is to seize these markets, to build on our innovation, to drive down the carbon intensity of our products, and, most importantly, to make sure that we create economic and cultural opportunities for all Canadians through the energy abundance we enjoy in Canada.

I'll conclude with some suggestions. While we are not in support of Bill C-48, we recognize the government's interest in moving forward with the legislation. Therefore, we would suggest the following. First, despite our views on the potential negative and unintended consequences of the legislation, permitting the export of products of less concern and less persistence than diluted bitumen through our northern deepwater ports must be recognized. Initially, the conversation on this legislation started around diluted bitumen, and, unfortunately, it has captured a much broader array of products and opportunities than was originally envisaged.

Second, reviews within the next 12 months of the legislation being passed and seeking royal assent should focus on the persistence level of products aimed at increasing the precision of in-out definitions, particularly given the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association's independent study on this topic, which is targeted for completion in 2018.

Third, the technology developments and other response capabilities should be reviewed within 24 months of royal assent of the legislation, particularly through the oceans protection plan and some innovations we heard about earlier, such as the CanaPux, to see whether the legislation continues to remain relevant.

[Kathryn Moran]

My main point is that Bill C-48 doesn't change anything that's now existing in terms of our tanker traffic on the coast. It doesn't impact the small communities in terms of needing oil, but we do see significant traffic of car carriers and cargo. Those are the ones that are most at risk.

[Kathryn Moran]

I thought I'd bring the ocean to you since you're talking about the ocean.

I'm appearing today representing Ocean Networks Canada. I'm the president and CEO. I've been in this position for five years. Prior to coming to Victoria, I served for two years in the U.S. as an assistant director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, serving under President Obama's science adviser, John Holdren. During my secondment there, I was selected to be on Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's eight-member science team that oversaw shutting down the flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon.

At Ocean Networks Canada, I lead an exceptional team that operates the world's leading ocean observing systems. Ocean Networks Canada delivers the Internet-connected ocean by observing and monitoring primarily the west coast but also assets on the east coast and in the Arctic. These are observatories that continuously gather data in real time for scientific research, but they are also important in helping communities and managers make decisions and, for example, in informing decisions such as those you're making today with regard to Bill C-48. These decisions are really important to protecting the ocean now and in the future.

The locations, as you know well, that would be most impacted by an oil spill accident are our oceans and coastlines. At best, coastal oil spill cleanup tools recover less than 10%, sometimes up to 15%, of the oil spilled, which everyone agrees is a pretty dismal record. These facts alone provide support for the intention of Bill C-48.

Seven years ago, the blowout in BP's Deepwater Horizon opened up that spouting spigot of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, marking the beginning of the world's second-largest oil spill. We all watched oil spew from the spigot on 24-7 cable news. I was watching it as we were trying to shut it down. That lasted for months, with feelings of both aversion and shame. After months of work, the spigot was shut, but not before almost five million gallons were spilled. Now, this is totally different from what we're talking about here in terms of tankers, but just bear with me as I talk about these other accidents.

Over 20 years earlier, the Exxon Valdez spilled 42 million litres of crude oil in offshore Alaska, which remains today one of the most devastating spills because of its remote location, the type of oil spilled, and the negative impact on the area's rich biodiversity. Most coastal waters in B.C. resemble those in Alaska where the Exxon Valdez spill occurred. They are remote, the waters are relatively cold, slowing down the breakdown of crude oil, and they consist of many narrow inlets and channels characterized by large tidal ranges and strong tidal currents. These waters are similar to those in B.C. that are home to seabirds; salmon, and other harvestable fish species; sea otters; seals; and resident migrating whales, most notably gray, humpback that are increasing in numbers, and both orca and transient orca whales.

To pause there for a moment, in response to the Exxon Valdez, the tanker industry has done considerable work in reducing accidents with tanker spills, which I'm sure you've heard from other people appearing before you. There were many lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez, which have reduced the risk of tankers going aground in these kinds of waters.

Let me talk about, most recently, the tug Nathan. E. Stewart, which foundered and sank along the rocky coast of B.C. Although the fuel barge it was powering was empty, the tug itself carried 220,000 litres of diesel fuel, and thousands of litres of petroleum-based lubricants. The result is that the pristine coastline and the Heiltsuk First Nation have been negatively impacted, and that impact is still being assessed. We don't know the full impact of that, but certainly the first nation is claiming that there was a significant negative impact.

How could these accidents have happened? When I worked on the BP accident, I was stunned at how the oil industry assured us—as they do today—that their technology advances allowed for safe development and transportation of oil and gas even in the most challenging environments. The simple answer is that each of these disasters was caused by a combination of human error, weak regulations, and a paucity of oversight that relies on robust monitoring.

I think Bill C-48 begins to strengthen the regulation gap and is a positive move forward. It supports, perhaps for the first time, Canada's use of the precautionary principle outlined in the London 1996 protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter.

Ocean Networks Canada recently completed—

[Janet Drysdale, Vice-President, Corporate Development and Sustainability, Canadian National Railway Company]

Good afternoon.

My name is Janet Drysdale, and I am vice-president of corporate development and sustainability at CN. I am making this opening statement on behalf of both CN and our research partner InnoTech Alberta, which is represented via teleconference by managing director Ross Chow. We appreciate the opportunity to appear today to add our perspective to your study of Bill C-48.

CN is the only railway that services the ports on the north coast of British Columbia. The Port of Prince Rupert is an important and rapidly growing part of CN's network, and over the past 10 years it has become a key gateway for Asian goods moving to the North American market. In addition, we serve the port of Kitimat, also on the B.C. north coast.

CN currently moves intermodal traffic, coal, grain, wood pellets, and lumber through terminals at Prince Rupert, and we are in active discussions with customers interested in moving a variety of other export products through the port. We also operate a rail barge service out of Prince Rupert, which serves the Alaska Panhandle. CN does not currently move any product to the B.C. north coast for export that would be affected by the provisions of Bill C-48.

For the past three years CN has been working with InnoTech Alberta to develop a process to solidify bitumen. InnoTech is part of the Province of Alberta's research and innovation effort and is an industry-leading expert in the fields of energy and the environment. Together, CN and InnoTech looked at many different ways to solidify the entire barrel of bitumen, with no refining involved. Frankly, nothing worked.

However, in reviewing the numerous methods we tested, we realized that if we combined several processes, we could create the solid, transportable product we were seeking. Through this research, we have now developed a patent-pending process to successfully solidify bitumen.

The process involves adding polymers to the bitumen to form a stable core and then creating a polymer shell around the bitumen-polymer blend, enabling us to create something that loosely resembles a hockey puck. Importantly, the bitumen-polymer blend is easily separated back into its bitumen and polymer components. The process does not degrade the bitumen, and the separated polymer can be subsequently recycled or reused in the solidification process. We have named the product “CanaPux”.

The key point for this committee is that CanaPux will not require tank cars for movement by rail, and the product will not move in ocean tankers to end markets. CanaPux will be transported much as are any other dry bulk products, such as coal and potash, in gondola cars on the railway and in the hull of general bulk cargo ships. At ports, CanaPux could be transported to ships utilizing existing bulk-loading infrastructure.

From a safety and economic point of view, CanaPux do not require diluent in order to be moved. As I am sure you are aware, diluent—or condensate, as it was referred to earlier—is a lighter, more volatile petroleum product used to dilute bitumen in order to make it easier to move in pipelines.

Unlike pure bitumen, the inclusion of the polymer ensures that CanaPux float in water, making recovery in the case of a marine spill straightforward. I do have a sample with me, if anyone is interested in looking.

To date, we have successfully proven the chemistry and the concept of CanaPux. In addition, we continue to work with InnoTech on scientifically confirming the environmental aspects, including its fate in the environment, as well as the GHG life cycle.

Of course, we also need to demonstrate the commercial viability. In other words, we need to show that we can create CanaPux at high speed and high volume. This is essentially a straightforward manufacturing question, and CN is currently leading the development of a pilot project that will answer that question. The pilot will allow us to demonstrate the technology to interested producers and global refiners. It will also allow us to quantify the actual costs involved and will create scalable engineering work that can be used to commercialize the technology.

We believe the pilot will demonstrate that CanaPux is a safe and competitive way to move bitumen from western Canada to offshore markets.

We briefed various officials from numerous departments in the federal, Alberta, and British Columbia governments before moving forward with the patent process.

Given that CanaPux would move in freighters rather than tankers, it is our understanding that the movement would be permissible under Bill C-48, thereby allowing the safe movement of bitumen while extending market options for Canadian producers. We believe that, given the environmental properties of CanaPux, this is appropriate.

Environmental protection of our coastlines is extremely important. Market access for Canada's rich natural resources, which provide economic opportunity for all Canadians, needs to be balanced with that protection.

CN and InnoTech are very proud to have taken the lead in the development of CanaPux. We believe that the safety and environmental benefits of the product will be of great benefit to Canadians.

We thank you for the opportunity to comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. Block.

To our witnesses, thank you very much for helping us out today as we continue on with our study of Bill C-48.

We will suspend while we switch our video conference folks around and our witnesses.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today.

I don't have as much time as my other colleagues did, so I'll get right to the point. Given that this bill, Bill C-48, as was discussed in our last meeting and confirmed by departmental officials, does nothing to change the voluntary agreement that was put in place in 1985, and given that this current government has killed the northern gateway pipeline project, do you believe there is a pressing need for Bill C-48 today?

This is to either Ms. Brown or Mr. Bloomer.

[Chris Bloomer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association]

Good afternoon. Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I'm Chris Bloomer, president and CEO of CEPA, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association. We represent Canada's 11 major transmission pipeline companies. We transport 97% of Canada's natural gas and crude oil production. Our members have delivered oil and gas products with a 99.99% safety record for over a decade, a record we consistently improve through collaborative initiatives such as our integrity first program.

Our members are committed to public accountability, environmental stewardship, transparency, and continuous operational improvements through the application of management systems and evidence-based practices. We're global leaders in pipeline operations, technology, and innovation.

Although the approval of two pipelines by the federal government was a positive step for Canada, the cumulative effects of the many policy and legislative changes that directly and indirectly impact our industry are of deep concern and will determine whether or not we will be competitive in the future. This includes, but is not limited to, the potential for a complete overhaul of the system regulating and assessing major projects for interprovincial pipelines, the extent of proposed methane emissions reductions regulations, ambiguity about how indigenous people will be included within regulatory frameworks, and the fact that even recently approved pipelines are subject to further reviews and additional consultation requirements.

The proposed oil tanker moratorium act, Bill C-48, is yet another change that will compound uncertainty and negatively impact investor confidence in Canada. In his mandate letter, the Minister of Natural Resources was directed by the Prime Minister to introduce “new, fair processes” that will ensure that decisions for energy projects “are based on science, facts, and evidence, and serve the public’s interest”. This is the foundation from which we reasonably expect the government to legislate on critical matters of national importance like market access.

If passed, Bill C-48 will ban the shipping of crude oil to or from ports located on the northern British Columbia coast, restricting market access for one of Canada's high-value resources. This is perplexing given that Canada currently imports approximately 400,000 barrels a day of foreign oil into our eastern ports. CEPA strongly believes that, given the profound impact of this bill, more thought must be given to scientific analysis and achieving a broader consensus. Currently, Bill C-48 does not do this, despite claims to the contrary. Bill C-48 appears rushed, and CEPA is concerned about its content and disregard of Canada's world leadership on maritime safety.

For example, the low-carbon condensate from the Duvernay and Montney plays are of great economic and environmental significance and contribute to the government's strategic goals for wealth and job creation. However, Bill C-48 is unclear on whether they could be included in the definitions for banned oil products. The lack of clarity on this is alarming, especially given the inherent global opportunities that condensate represents for Canada.

Canada's history with marine oil transportation also contradicts the need for this bill. A 2014 Transport Canada report noted that, between 1988 and 2011, significant work by the government had improved the protection of marine safety. Since the mid-1990s, Canada has not experienced a single major spill from oil tankers or other vessels in national waters on either coast.

Additionally, this government has announced $1.5 billion in funding for a national oceans protection plan to strengthen Canada's leadership as a world leader in marine safety. It is fair to ask the question: what are the safety gaps this moratorium is supposed to restore?

In conclusion, the consequences of potentially drastic policy changes for future energy projects have instilled uncertainty within the regulatory system, adding additional risks, costs, and delays for a sector that the Prime Minister publicly acknowledged has built Canada's prosperity and directly employs more than 270,000 Canadians.

The approach to policy-making represented by the development of Bill C-48 contributes to this uncertainty and erodes Canada's competitiveness.

Thank you.

[Nancy Bérard-Brown, Manager, Oil Markets and Transportation, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers]

Good afternoon dear members of the committee.

My name is Nancy Bérard-Brown. I am speaking to you on behalf of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

I sent copies of our brief and of our presentation to the committee, as well as copies of the comments we submitted to the Honourable Minister of Transport in 2006. The documents are in both official languages.

Prior to introducing the oil tanker moratorium act in May 2017, Transport Canada undertook very brief consultations. CAPP did not support the proposed moratorium because it is not based on facts or science. There were no science-based gaps identified in safety or environmental protection that might justify a moratorium.

It is worth noting that Canada has an outstanding record on marine safety due to its stringent regulatory, monitoring, and enforcement regime and good operating practices deployed by industry. Canada has extensive experience in moving crude oil and petroleum products by sea.

The federal government has been a leader in ensuring that Canada has a world-class marine safety system that continues to evolve over time. Many safety measures have been implemented over the last number of years.

The government set up an independent tanker expert safety panel to review the Canadian regime. That panel concluded that the regime is fundamentally sound and it made some recommendations, which were all endorsed by the federal government. The national oceans protection plan launched by the Prime Minister will continue to ensure that Canada remains a leader in marine safety.

The bill as it stands would prohibit maritime access for a large range of hydrocarbon products. The moratorium would close the most economical route toward Asia, in addition to sending the message to the community of investors that Canada is not open for business.

Our production of oil and natural gas continues to increase. Canada has to expand its energy markets beyond the United States. The very broad definitions in the bill could exclude future condensate shipment opportunities from natural gas deposits that are rich in liquids and light hydrocarbons in the first stages of development.

Results have been very promising up till now.

My comments today will focus on the various definitions of oil and the need for science-based research.

As written, the regulations would prohibit the transportation of crude oil, persistent oil, or a combination of both.

First, the definition of crude oil is very broad and essentially includes all hydrocarbons. On the other hand, a list of persistent oils included in the moratorium is provided in the schedule. Having a “persistent oil” and a “crude oil” definition is confusing. If an oil product is not listed in the schedule, that does not necessarily mean that it could be transported, because it may fall under the definition of “crude oil”.

CAPP, respectfully, would recommend that the bill include only one definition of persistent oil, which links to a schedule that can be modified by regulation. Alternatively, CAPP would recommend that the crude oil definition be amended to say something like “any liquid hydrocarbon designated by regulation”.

The concept of persistent and non-persistent oils is very important, as it informs the response required in the event of a spill. The distinction is based on the likelihood of the material dissipating naturally. As a rule, persistent oils contain a large proportion of heavy hydrocarbons. They dissipate more slowly and require cleanup. In contrast, non-persistent oils are generally composed of lighter hydrocarbons, which tend to dissipate quickly through evaporation.

I would like to note that in the schedule, “condensate” is defined as a persistent oil in accordance with the ASTM D86 method. While distillation thresholds have been broadly used to define persistence, there are other key physical properties that should be considered in determining persistency.

Of note, definitions of persistent oil do vary. For example, Australia relies on standards that refer to API gravity and viscosity, in addition to alternative distillation.

Of note, western Canadian condensate is a unique, light hydrocarbon, which has very different properties and behaves differently from heavier crude oils. The timeline for condensate persistence in a marine environment is often hours or days.

CAPP would recommend that alternative definitions of persistent oil and thresholds be explored further. CAPP is also seeking consideration for alternative treatment of condensate from the list of persistent oil products.

The safe and reliable transportation of all of our products is critical for our members.

More scientific analyses are needed in order to better understand the changes and behaviours of various oil types. The industry is meeting that need. Our association and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association have commissioned a study which should be completed in 2018.

We recommend that the federal government undertake a science-based risk assessment related to oil tanker movements along the British Columbia north coast.

We also recommend that you examine scientific research regarding the fate and behaviour of oil products under the Oceans Protection Plan.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm calling to order meeting number 77 of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament.

Welcome, everyone. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, we are studying 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.

We have witnesses today. From the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, we have Nancy Bérard-Brown, manager. We also have, from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, Mr. Bloomer, president and chief executive officer; from the City of Victoria, by video conference, Councillor Ben Isitt; and from the City of Burnaby, Mayor Derek Corrigan.

We welcome all of you. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today.

We'll open it up with Ms. Bérard-Brown.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Yes, and I understand that. Could we have included the force of that voluntary exclusion in Bill C-48? If we hadn't, why didn't we?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Is there any reason it wasn't included in Bill C-48 since it seems to have been working and everybody's fine with it?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Right, but the voluntary exclusion of big tankers coming down that coast, or the big tankers going up, that's not part of Bill C-48?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'd just like to follow up on that, maybe from the other side, and forgive me again, I'm new to this and haven't heard any other testimony. You say there's this voluntary exclusion area outside of Haida Gwaii.

Even if it has been working for umpteen years, I'm just wondering, is there a reason why it wasn't included in Bill C-48 because it sounds like this is something on top of that voluntary exclusion?

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

That was what I was asking, though. If I have a supertanker with 318,000 metric tons of light diesel oil that's allowed under C-48, can I drive my boat up and down? Can I do that?

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

Doesn't Bill C-48 allow for that? Doesn't it allow for diesel fuel to come up—

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

Light diesel fuel, gasoline.... I notice in your example you list light diesel oil and that's allowed. If I have a supertanker full of 318,000 metric tons, can I pick that up, if I'm a Canadian tanker, in Valdez and work my way through and deliver it to California? Under Bill C-48 will I be allowed to do that?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Is it likely that Bill C-48 would direct investment and traffic away from Canada and into the United States?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

When the minister was sitting in that seat, I was attempting to get some history, as well as reasoning, behind this bill. I think he was very clear in response to my questions on why we're bringing this to the table.

However, I want to dig a bit deeper into the weeds with respect to a lot of what has been identified throughout Bill C-48. How is this region different from other parts of Canada where tanker traffic is currently permitted?

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

A comparison of the voluntary tanker exclusion zone and the proposed moratorium area under Bill C-48 reveals that the voluntary tanker exclusion zone is larger.

Will the voluntary exclusion zone remain in effect once the bill is passed?

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

I'd like to get a clear sense of the real impact Bill C-48 will have, using an example. If an oil tanker carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of crude oil entered the moratorium area, what exactly would happen?

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister. I applaud the intention of the bill, especially knowing that it's designed to protect the incredible biodiversity of the Great Bear Rainforest region, Gwaii Haanas. There's a long-term New Democrat private member's bill, among others, so we're really glad to see it coming forward.

A concern, though, is that Bill C-48 doesn't do anything to prevent the kind of disaster we saw a year ago in Heiltsuk territory, the Nathan E. Stewart barge spill, because it specifically excludes refined oil products from the ban.

Even if they were included, the 12,500-tonne threshold is high enough to allow them to pass through some of B.C.'s most sensitive waters. Disasters like the Nathan E. Stewart show that we need better regulation and enhanced investments in spill prevention and response in the region.

My question is two-fold. First, why should large petroleum tanker barges be excluded from the bill, given the risks that we know already exist in the region? Second, is there a scientific case to exclude refined oil products from this legislation?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here this afternoon.

Minister, since 1985 there has been a voluntary tanker exclusion zone, the TEZ, in place along British Columbia's coast. The TEZ ensures that loaded tankers carrying oil from Valdez, Alaska, to U.S. west coast ports transit west of the TEZ boundary to protect the shoreline. Therefore, Bill C-48 will simply be formalizing the status quo with respect to what's been occurring in that area. This has existed since 1985 and has not had any discernible negative impacts on international marine trade.

Here's my first question. In your opinion and that of the consulted stakeholders who you've spent a lot of time with, including first nations, will the moratorium provide an important added level of protection to measures already in place?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair and esteemed members of the committee, I am pleased to be here with you again today to speak about a third bill that advances my mandate priorities.

I'm sure I hardly need to remind you that we Canadians enjoy some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. Among the many beautiful places in our country, the stretch of rainforest along British Columbia's northern coast is unique. There is nothing quite like it. The thought of this pristine ecosystem being fouled by oil pollution is simply intolerable.

That is why I am here today to speak to the proposed legislation intended to preserve and protect these coastal areas—namely, Bill C-48. I'm happy to outline the rationale for Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. The comprehensive measures of the proposed legislation are the result of extensive consultations with Canadians. While there continue to be differing perspectives, what we did hear loud and clear is that the transport of both crude oil and persistent oils by sea should be prohibited near the pristine coasts of northern B.C.

The proposed moratorium would cover all ports and marine installations in the area encompassing northen B.C. and extending from our border with Alaska in the north down to B.C.'s mainland adjacent to the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Tankers with more than 12,500 tonnes of crude or persistent oil as cargo would be prohibited from stopping, loading, or unloading at ports or marine installations in this area.

The definition of crude oil in the proposed legislation is based on the one in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which is familiar to the shipping industry. Persistent oils are heavier and stickier. Because of this, they tend to break up and dissipate more slowly, and if they are spilled, they are more likely to cling to birds, wildlife, and shorelines. Examples of persistent oils in the moratorium schedule include partially upgraded bitumen and synthetic crude oil. We may consider changes to the list of targeted goods if a review of the scientific evidence and innovations in the transportation of oil or cleanup technology show that changes are justified. The safety of the environment will always be the main consideration, and any changes would have to be made through a regulatory amendment.

We recognize that many communities in the area of the proposed moratorium are not accessible by road or rail and depend on oil to be brought in by ship. To ensure the resupply of these communities and their industries, this act would allow individual shipments of less than 12,500 tonnes of crude oil to continue.

To reinforce how seriously we take this matter, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act also includes reporting requirements and strict penalties for violations.

All tankers capable of carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of oil would be required to report on the cargo they are carrying, or picking up, within the moratorium area. This information would have to be submitted 24 hours before the tanker calls at a port or marine installation.

I want to reassure shippers that the reporting burden would be kept to a minimum, because we are aligning the new requirements with existing reporting processes.

The only additional requirement for shippers would be to report the specific type of oil they are carrying and the amount of oil that would be loaded or unloaded at a port or marine installation in northern B.C.

With respect to enforcement, Transport Canada already has marine inspectors who enforce existing marine legislation. These inspectors would enforce the proposed Oil Tanker Moratorium Act to ensure compliance.

The powers these inspectors would have under this act would be similar to the authorities they have under existing marine legislation such as the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.

Inspectors would have the authority to board an oil tanker and take samples, or conduct tests, to verify compliance with the act. If a marine inspector had reasonable grounds to believe the law had been violated, the oil tanker could be detained.

Again, I want to emphasize that the safety of the environment is our top priority in advancing this legislation. Lest anyone doubt that, let me note that we would support this moratorium with an enforcement regime that could result in fines for violators of up to $5 million.

These strong measures against potential oil pollution are what Canadians want and expect.

Canadians helped us set the parameters of the oil tanker moratorium act. In 2016, I undertook an extensive series of engagement sessions, and met with stakeholders with clear views on a proposed moratorium. I talked to coastal and inland indigenous groups. I also met with environmental organizations, marine and resource industries, and representatives of affected communities. I met with colleagues from provincial and municipal governments as well. People across Canada logged on to our website to comment on the proposed oil tanker moratorium. I listened to their views on improving marine safety in Canada and formalizing an oil tanker moratorium.

It's clear that Canadians share certain goals—to keep our economy strong and protect the environment. We understand that marine safety is a precondition to sustainable economic development.

Madam Chair, this legislation complements our government's larger national strategy to promote marine safety and coastal protection under the $1.5-billion oceans protection plan, which we announced in November 2016. As part of this plan, we are investing in new prevention and response measures, based on the latest oil spill cleanup science and technology.

Madam Chair, and members of the committee, this legislation is long overdue. Canadians have been asking for this for years. Fortunately, it is not too late. Once passed by Parliament, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act will provide an unprecedented level of environmental protection for British Columbia's north coast.

The oil tanker moratorium will allow us to preserve this precious ecosystem for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations. We have an opportunity now to accomplish something of historic importance. And we should grasp that opportunity.

And so I urge this committee, and my fellow parliamentarians, to support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would now be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call to order the meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, 42nd Parliament, meeting number 76, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 4, 2017, 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.

Appearing today we have departmental staff, and we have Minister Marc Garneau here for the first hour.

Minister Garneau, welcome. I'll turn the floor over to you.

The Environment

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the second petition, many petitioners are calling upon the government to go farther than Bill C-48, which is is currently before the House, with respect to a tanker ban on the north coast of B.C. The petitioners ask that a ban on crude oil tankers extend through B.C.'s entire west coast.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our hon. colleagues for their speeches and their interventions in the House today, and on Bill C-48.

I listened to the debate intently, and heard it over and over again. It is very similar to what we have heard from the government time and again, whether it was on Bill C-55, which was earlier today, on the marine protected areas, or electoral reform, or the tax measures that the government proposed earlier on and is now backtracking on. It is very interesting. It comes down to consultation. It comes down to the fact that this has nothing to do with really banning tankers on the west coast, but has to do with slamming shut anything to do with a pipeline to get our product from the Alberta oil sands to the west coast and to get our product to other markets.

I should be really clear that there are approximately 4,000 ships or vessels each year that go in on the east coast, in terms of oil or petroleum-based tanker traffic. On the west coast, oil or petroleum-based tanker traffic represents less than 1% of the vessels that are arriving and departing off the west coast ports which is about 200,000 vessels each year, using 2015 numbers.

It was about 1,487 vessels total for 2015. It is interesting, and I know that other speakers have mentioned this, that it is okay for over 4,000 vessels each year, to go in through the east coast with over 600,000 barrels a day of foreign oil from some of the worst contributors of human rights violations in the world. It is okay for us to be reliant on foreign oil, but far be it for us to be self-sufficient and actually be able to get our product to market on the west coast.

This is really about shutting down the opportunity of the pipeline that was going through my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, one that had a lot of first nations' support. A lot of first nations became equity partners in this program that could have lifted some of our most vulnerable communities up. Instead what we are seeing is that those opportunities have gone away. Just recently, the Hereditary Chiefs' Council of Lax Kw'alaams, which is a community that would have been impacted by this, came out publicly and said, and there have been many who have been mentioned as well:

....we categorically reject interference of outside environmental NGOs (especially those foreign-based) who appear to be dictating government policy in our traditional territory.

That is talking about why we are moving so quickly to implement this tanker moratorium.

Canada has the largest coastline, over 243,000 kilometres. We also have some of the most stringent safety standards. I want to talk about some of those safety standards that we have. We have marine inspectors who board oil tankers that ply Canadians waters to make sure that they have double hulls. We do that because, as has been mentioned before, of the terrible, disastrous incident that happened with the Exxon Valdez in 1989. After that, the global oil shipping industry made a 25-year phase-out plan that banned single-hull ships. As of 2010, there have been no single-hull ships, massive tankers that have been shipping oil, plying the waters of Canada. There have been no single-hull tankers. We have marine inspectors who go out and check that.

Again, a lot of times the Exxon Valdez incident is used to shut down pipelines or have tanker moratoriums. It is used to anger and facilitate a lot of opposition in these areas.

Interestingly, the Liberal government approved Trans Mountain or Kinder Morgan. It said that it approved it, but we have not seen anything about it. That will facilitate 900,000 barrels of oil per day to that west coast port that is right among communities, and an interior passageway, and that is okay. However, to have an economic development project in the northern part of our communities, one that was critically important and had national interest, was nixed.

I look forward to the next nine minutes or so that I have to speak the next time that this debate comes up.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to be up here tonight to speak about the crude oil tanker moratorium on B.C.'s west coast. I was asked a little while ago if I would speak on Bill C-48, and I jumped at it and said that I would like to speak about Bill C-48 and the moratorium on the tankers.

This moratorium act would not be protecting the west coast. Let us face it. It would not be protecting Canadians and would not be helping our aboriginal neighbours. If we really look at what this is all about, it is about the Prime Minister making a promise during the last election that he would stop shipment of oil from Canada and would put a moratorium on tankers on the west coast. He did a mandate letter and told his Minister of Transport to make sure to get policy out there. Thirty days later, he has come out with Bill C-48 that would stop the movement of tankers along the west coast. Who suffers? All Canadians. What we need is more debate and more consultation, especially with the aboriginal community because they have already told us that.

I want to go back a long time. I was a young lad of about five years of age, and I was staying with my grandparents as my parents were living in Edmonton. I stayed with my grandparents out on a farm in northern Alberta in a community called Two Hills. I loved being out in the field with my grandfather. I worshipped my grandfather.

I was out there running around in the field and my grandfather was working, discing I believe, if my memory is correct. He hit a big rock and it jammed between the discs, and he stopped. I was just a little five-year-old but I ran over to help, and I watched as my grandfather struggled to pull that rock from between the discs. Anybody who has been in the farming community knows what discs are. They get pretty sharp because they are turning in the ground all the time.

As he yanked on it, the rock came out, and his hand hit the disc on the other side and he put a big slash on the side of his hand. The blood gushed out. I hope nobody is queasy out here. I said, “Grandpa, look what happened.” He reached down, grabbed the fresh black earth, and he pressed it into the wound on his hand. I looked at him and said to him that he could not do that because it was dirty. He stopped what he was doing, looked at me, sat on the hitch of the tractor, called me over there, and he put me on his knee. He reached down. The bleeding had stopped. He pulled the earth and said that there was nothing more pure than Mother Earth.

Then he proceeded to tell me that the earth gave him the food that we ate. He proceeded to tell me that the jack pine at the end of the farm was where we got the lumber to build his house and barn. He told me about using common sense and only working the crop for a certain portion. He told me about selective logging that morning when I was five years old. I remember him telling me about living off the land, and the land giving him a product that he could sell to buy tobacco, because he always had a cigarette in his mouth. He received money from the grain he sold from the land. He said that the earth was energy and it gave us an opportunity to live and prosper. I always remembered that, and I love nature. I know I am kind of rambling on here. However, at that time, as a five-year-old, he told me to love nature and I have loved nature ever since.

I was very fortunate at the last election that my party assigned me to the environment and sustainable development committee, and I was given the opportunity to learn a lot more about this great country of ours. I learned about the need to protect spaces across Canada and about the Aichi agreement: 17% of our land mass by 2020 and 10% of our sea coastal waters by 2020. I do not think that they are obtainable, but they are realistic and we need to work and strive toward that.

I hear a lot from the government about science based, that we need to rely on the scientists to tell us what to do in our great country. In the Ukrainian language we call our grandfather “gido”. My gido was a very smart man. He knew everything that he needed to know to survive. He put it in very simple language, so I will quite often step aside from listening to the academics and go to the people on the land. Some of the smartest people on the land who I know of are our aboriginal neighbours. Many times, I have gone to different powwows and listened to the people living on the land, Petitot landing and Taylor landing, for example. These are very wise people. They have worked the land. Trappers are other people who know the land. They have spent 40 or 50 years on it. They know about the environment.

We have aboriginal equity partners in the pipeline project that was to go across northern B.C. to take oil products from Alberta to Saskatchewan and parts of B.C. They are suffering because of the government's policy to stop the pipeline. The government could not stop it because it met all of the environmental rules and regulations of the National Energy Board. The only way it could do that was to come out with a moratorium to stop any ships from going in there to pick up the oil. The aboriginal people will tell us they were not properly consulted.

I believe some may have read this before. It is not just the B.C. coast. According to the Assembly of First Nations chief, Perry Bellegarde, 500 of the 630 first nations across Canada are open to pipelines and petroleum development on their lands. Going back to the aboriginal equity partnership, a specific example was 31 first nations were equity partners and held 30% of the financial position in the northern gateway pipeline project. This was before it was cancelled due to the fact that there was no use having a pipeline if the ships could not get to the pipelines to ship the worldly products.

Communities like Prince Rupert, Terrace, Kitimat, and Smithers have struggled over the years with hard economic times. They have had a hard time prospering, like other parts of Canada, especially Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the northeastern part of B.C.

They have seen a decline in forestry. Why? Was there a decline in the market? No, there was a decline because of the pine beetle destroying a great portion of B.C.'s pine forests. Those pine beetles wandered into Jasper National Park and Banff National Park. If people drive through the park, which is not part of my riding, they will see a great portion of the park is brown now. There are no more green trees. The pine beetles have devastated them. What is worse is the pine beetles got mad at the park and left. They are now moving into the pine forests of Alberta. In fact, the latest statistics to come out show that from last year to this year, the amount of trees being affected in Alberta is tenfold.

The communities are struggling. The northern gateway pipeline would have been good for those communities. It would have been great for their economy and it would have helped the aboriginal communities grow and prosper in the future, to give their youth new goals, ideas, and places to go. It would have helped in education. They lost billions because of the moratorium on ships. If they do not have the ships, there is no use having a pipeline to the coast.

My riding is called the Yellowhead. Oil and gas is very important to my riding. It is very important to me and to my family. My son-in-law has a small company that works directly in the oil patch. It is kind of related to fracking and other types of ventures. He employs close to 100 people. He makes a very good living from the oil patch, and the 100 people working for him make a very good living from it.

The proceeds of the oil patch, whether in Alberta or Saskatchewan or northern British Columbia, bring a tremendous amount of revenue to this great country of ours, Canada. A lot of that revenue is spent here in the central part of Canada.

The Yellowhead is known as a major transportation corridor. Highway 16 runs right through the centre of my riding from the east to the west. In fact, the Yellowhead Highway is known across Canada as a major transportation corridor. It goes from Prince Rupert to Winnipeg. I have travelled it from the west to the east and from the east to the west many times, and the pipeline was to follow a great portion of that highway through British Columbia. Northern gateway would have been beneficial to all Canadians if it had been built, but it was not built, because the moratorium on shipping on the west coast would not allow ships to go to a port that could have had a pipeline to it.

I have also been to communities such as Prince Rupert, Terrace, Kitimat, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, Queen Charlottes, Masset, and Stewart. I have been to every one of those communities personally. I have been very fortunate in my working career to have lived on the west coast. I have partied and lived with the aboriginal communities on the west coast and throughout the interior of British Columbia. I have sailed from Mexico to Alaska on the west coast. I love the beauty of the west coast of Canada and the United States. I have been to the Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound, the Dixon Entrance. I am a pilot. I have flown from Mexico to Alaska. I have landed on many of the pristine coastal beaches of British Columbia. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I have been so fortunate in life to have had the opportunity to travel to many of the inlets and beaches to meet many of the local people.

One thing I have learned from my travels is that, yes, we need to protect our coastal waters. It does not matter whether they are on the west coast of British Columbia or the east coast of Canada or the Arctic. We need to protect them.

As I said, I have been fortunate. I have also travelled extensively on the east coast and in the Arctic. I cherish the beauty of all of Canada and recognize that we need to protect all parts of Canada, but I also realize that Canada is country with an abundant supply of many different types of energy. Whether coal, oil or gas, our natural tree products, mining, aluminum etc., this country from coast to coast to coast is abundant in natural resources. These natural resources have been instrumental in making Canada one of the world's most economically viable countries and one of the best countries to live, bar none.

When I meet young people in my riding of Yellowhead, I ask, “You have won the lottery?” They say, “What do you mean?” I say, “You were born in Alberta. We have an abundance in Alberta. We have an abundance of oil and gas energy. We have an abundance of coal. We have an abundance of agriculture. We have an abundance of forestry, and we are a tourist location for worldwide travellers.” I tell them that there are so many different fields and occupations in Alberta that they could enter and prosper in. However, that is very true of a lot of our provinces. Any member from any riding here can probably stand and brag about the quality of his or her specific riding, but it would all end up with Yellowhead being the greatest riding in Canada. I have said that a few times, though it might require a bit of debate.

The west coast of British Columbia is beautiful, breathtaking, but so is the east coast of Canada, the Maritimes. They are all breathtaking and beautiful. The Arctic is breathtaking and beautiful.

Bill C-48 would put a moratorium on shipping oil on the west coast of Canada. We ship oil to many other destinations. We are probably one of the few countries in the world that would not require any importing of oil to this great country of ours, because we can produce enough in house, and that is exactly what we should be doing. When we have a large, diversified country like Canada that stretches thousands of miles from coast to coast to coast, it makes one wonder why we have to import as much oil as we do.

I was astounded when I looked at a graph recently from Canada's statistics in long form. That is why it took a little while to get it here, because it is a lot to read. I was astounded to see the amount of oil we bring into this great country of ours.

This is the daily number of barrels we bring in, and these are 2016 statistics: Saudi Arabia, 86,741 barrels; Norway, 41,858 barrels; United Kingdom, 9861 barrels; Colombia, 5,314 barrels; Kazakhstan, 19,200 barrels; Algeria, almost 85,000 barrels; Nigeria, about 74,000 barrels; Ivory Coast, around 12,500 barrels; and the United States 265,000. That is what we import into Canada on our east coast. The ships come from the southern United States across the ocean into the St. Lawrence, on the east coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in our beautiful maritime provinces. How can we do that? It is unsafe. According to the Liberal government, it is not safe to have tankers on the west coast, but it is safe to bring in $12.7 billion a year of oil on the east coast. Why is it safer on the east coast than it is on the west coast? I cannot fathom that logic.

Many years ago, a former prime minister, by the name of Trudeau, left Alberta. He was on a train, and I think he put his finger out to check the wind. Now we have his son who is Prime Minister, and it would almost appear that there is another testing of the wind. I hate to say that someone out there does not want to see Alberta, Saskatchewan, or even B.C. prosper from our natural resources of oil and gas. That is a shame.

Since 1985, ships have been sailing up and down the west coast of British Columbia. They have been sailing under a mutual understanding agreement to stay off the west coast shore at least 100 kilometres.

I have studied that route because, as a police officer, I also patrolled the west coast. I was stationed there for a number of years. If we look at the average, it is probably closer to 150 kilometres off of the west coast of British Columbia. It is under a mutual understanding and agreement. There have been no problems since the start of that agreement, and I see no need why we need a moratorium today to stop shipping on the west coast of British Columbia.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to participate in this debate today on behalf of the official opposition. I think it is extremely important that further study be conducted on Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. Further study would also be consistent with the government's claims that they encourage wide consultation with Canadians across the country to share their ideas on how we can work together to create a stronger marine safety system and better protect our coasts.

I do want to stress the fact that this legislation is of great national importance. Bill C-48 is an act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia's north coast. It is important to recognize that this legislation will have an impact not solely on local communities, but also nationally and certainly in my home riding of Calgary Midnapore. As a result, Canadians should have the opportunity to present their concerns, and having the transport committee engage in hearings is one way to make sure that happens.

Further to that, I want to refer back to comments my colleague from Lakeland made in her speech on Bill C-48. As she pointed out, following the general election in 2015, the Prime Minister sent a mandate letter to the Minister of Natural Resources, directing him to ensure that, "decisions are based on science, facts, and evidence, and serve the public's interest".

However, just over three weeks later, on November 13, 2015, mandate letters from the Prime Minister to at least three ministers directed them to work together to formalize a moratorium on crude oil tankers off British Columbia's north coast. As my colleague questioned, “One wonders quite reasonably how it could at all be possible that there was sufficient time in 25 days to ground this directive on the results of comprehensive assessments of existing environmental and safety records, standards, outcomes, and gaps; a comparative analysis of marine traffic rules, enforcement, and track records on all Canadian coasts and internationally; and thorough local, regional, and national economic impact studies.”

The answer is that there just was not time. Clearly, there was not time to consult with stakeholders such as first nations, local communities, industry, and experts. With today's motion, we are here asking for those steps to be taken.

I want to read a portion of an email of many emails I received last week.

A Calgary writer states that the Prime Minister has introduced Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, “...to ban oil tankers off B.C.'s northwest coast to Parliament over the objections of coastal and inland first nations. Tankers off Canada's east coast importing 759,000 barrels a day of foreign crude are apparently okay with the government and the Prime Minister, as are another 400 tankers per year through Vancouver's busy inner and outer harbours, under the Second Narrows bridges, under the Lions Gate bridge, past Stanley Park, through the Gulf Islands and narrow Haro Strait, and down the length of the Salish Sea past the provincial capital of Victoria and through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This is all apparently okay with the Prime Minister, but not for tankers off Prince Rupert, the safest and best port on Canada's west coast!”

This bill is, of course, not really about transport standards, marine traffic, or protecting the safety and ecology of B.C.'s northern shore. It is a poorly disguised move by the Liberals to further limit Canadian oil development and transportation, and not the only instance that we have seen of this lately with the cancellation of energy east. In complete contradiction to his claims of wanting to consult Canadians, this is just one more example of the Prime Minister's own explicit goal to phase out the oil sands.

Once again, I am going to reiterate the comments made by my colleague from Lakeland earlier this month.

As she pointed out, “the unbiased, non-partisan Library of Parliament's legislative summary states explicitly that the debate around the tanker moratorium stems from the Conservative-approved northern gateway pipeline project”. This project would have had oil transported from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, B.C. After forming government, the Liberals told the National Energy Board to cancel the project. Now, by putting in place a ban on tanker ships in this region, the Liberals will permanently prevent any other opportunities for pipelines to transport world-leading Canadian oil to the Prince Rupert and Kitimat areas. As a result, Canada will not be able to expand our customer base by taking advantage of the rapidly growing Asia-Pacific region.

As I stated at the start of my speech, Bill C-48 is not a piece of minor legislation. It will negatively impact all of Canada with future consequences for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians employed in the energy sector across the country. Energy is the biggest private sector investor in Canada's economy and oil and gas is Canada's second biggest export with 97% imported by the United States. My colleague outlined some of the direct benefits Canadian oil and gas provides across the country including 670,000 direct and indirect jobs in this country. Deliberately limiting export capacity potential and thereby putting a ceiling on production would be detrimental to the livelihoods of Canadians everywhere and certainly in my riding of Calgary Midnapore, and, as we heard from the previous speaker, Alberta as a whole

As global oil demand continues to increase in the years and decades ahead, reaching tidewater in all directions for Canada's oil and gas should be a pressing priority for the Liberals. It makes no sense to delay, hinder, or equivocate on this point from an economic, environmental, or moral perspective in the global context.

The Liberals claim they are concerned about the environment, however, similar to the small business tax suggestions, their actions prove the opposite. By taking Canada out of the equation in terms of oil, the Liberals are allowing oil- and gas-producing countries, whose standards, enforcement, and outcomes are inferior to ours, to prevail. Additionally, they are opening up the market to corrupt regimes with abysmal environmental and human rights records, where energy development benefits only a select few. The government does not seem to realize that in Canada, energy development benefits every community with jobs and with revenue for multiple levels of government.

Between 2000 and 2014, for example, on a net basis Alberta's individual and corporate taxpayers shipped an estimated $200 billion-plus to the federal government and a major source of that revenue was from oil and gas. This money helps ensure that all Canadians have access to similar benefits and programs. To paraphrase, oil and gas revenue in Canada pays for benefits and programs for all Canadians. It is important that the members across the way hear that message. In case they want to open themselves up to even more factual evidence, a 2014 WorleyParsons study compared Alberta's environmental and regulatory systems with similarly sized oil- and gas-producing jurisdictions around the world, and found that Alberta was among the best. My province of Alberta was near the top of the list for the most stringent environmental laws and at the top for the availability of public information about the environmental performance of the oil and gas industry.

The study confirmed that Alberta is unmatched on the compliance and enforcement scale. Unfortunately, the Liberals' decisions are largely politically based, rather than being based on science, evidence, or consultations, or reaching conclusions in service of the broad national public interest.

I am again going to paraphrase my colleague, the official opposition shadow critic for natural resources, as she also pointed out in her speech that the result of the constant Liberal and leftist barrage of attacks on Canadian regulators and energy developers along with their changes to rules with new red tape and added costs is that energy investment in Canada has dropped dramatically.

Since the Liberals were elected, the policy uncertainty and additional hurdles during an already challenging time for prices, costs, and competitiveness have caused the biggest two-year decline in Canadian oil and gas investment...since 1947. This year alone, there is a projected 47% drop in oil and gas capital from 2016 levels.

She went on to say that one-sixth of total energy workers in Canada had lost their jobs since the Liberals formed government.

This number is reflected in the vacancy rates out of Calgary this morning. The resulting lost investment is equivalent to the loss of about 75% of Canada's auto manufacturing and nearly the entire aerospace industry. The current government continues to make ideological decisions which hurt Canada's economy.

My Conservative colleagues and I know this tanker ban is not in the best interest of all Canadians. Nor is it necessary. Tankers have safely and regularly transported crude oil from Canada's west coast since the 1930s. There have not been any tanker navigational issues or incidents in about 50 years in the port of Vancouver. Instead of putting forward regulations to allow for the safe passage of all vessels through Canadian waters, the bill deliberately and specifically targets one industry. It is really all about Liberal politicking.

Another fact I would like the Liberal members to acknowledge is that conventional oil and gas, oil sands, and pipeline companies are among the largest private sector investors in alternative energy technologies, like wind and solar, in Canada. When one sector thrives so does the other.

We on this side of the House value the responsible development of natural resources in all sectors in all provinces to benefit all of Canada. We therefore request further input from Canadians on Bill C-48.

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

Mr. Speaker, it really is a pleasure for me to rise today in our House of Commons to speak in defence of Canada's energy sector, a sector that is very important to me personally and very important to my constituency. It is our energy sector that brought my grandfather to Alberta. He was there during the first national energy program. Unfortunately, now we are living through what looks very much like the second iteration of the national energy program. I will speak to that a little bit later on.

The energy sector is deeply important to me as well as to my constituency. My constituency is called Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, but it covers Canada's industrial heartland. It is a hub of energy-related manufacturing.

It is interesting to hear some members, such as the leader of the Green Party, suggest that somehow we have to make a choice between upgrading energy-related manufacturing and pipelines, when, in fact, people in the energy sector in my region say that we can and we should look for opportunities to do more of both. We need those pipelines to export, regardless of whether we are exporting final product or an earlier-stage product. There are opportunities, as well, to develop our upgrading and refining capacity, certainly. We see those opportunities being developed in my constituency, directly in our industrial heartland.

It is the policies of the government, such as its carbon tax, its attack on small business, and the general uncertainty around the regulatory environment, that are killing not only the transportation section of the energy sector, not only the extractive sector, but also the value-added and upgrading section of the energy sector.

There was an American journalist named Michael Kinsley who once quipped that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. I think this is an interesting quote. That 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, oftentimes some of these one-off comments are dismissed as gaffes or mistakes, or we are told, “Don't worry, the tweet was deleted; he offered a clarification”, or whatever the case may be.

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, we have, in this House, the Minister of Democratic Institutions, who, ironically perhaps, sits right beside the Minister of Natural Resources. She tweeted, in 2012, “It's time to landlock Alberta's tar sands.”

That is pretty offensive language, but this came from someone who is now a minister in this government, saying, “It's time to landlock Alberta's tar sands.” The clarification was issued. The tweet was deleted. However, now this person is sitting in cabinet, and it makes people wonder what her views are with respect to Alberta's energy sector. Actually, we do not really have to wonder, because she has told us what her views are with respect to the energy sector.

We had the Prime Minister say, more recently, that it is time to phase out Canada's oil sands. He made a comment once that he thinks Canada does not do well when we have people from my part of the country in key leadership positions.

These kinds of comments that are very derogatory towards Alberta, and in particular suggest an opposition to energy development and a desire to landlock our energy resources, are sometimes characterized as mistakes or gaffes. However, I think, actually, that they are quite revealing. They are gaffes in the sense that there are moments when the curtain slips and the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet actually say things they really, truly believe.

What was the agenda the minister in question had in mind when she said, “landlock Alberta's tar sands”? Of course, we say oil sands, but that is the quote.

We had two new pipeline projects within Canada, and there were other pipeline expansion projects. There was the pipeline through the United States, the Keystone XL, but two new pipeline projects to tidewater were proposed within Canada, one going west and one going east. At the time of the last election, the pipeline going west, the northern gateway pipeline, had been approved. The pipeline going east, energy east, was in process. If they were trying to do what the minister said she wanted to do, which is landlock our energy resources, I guess they would have to come up with a way of killing these two pipeline projects. The Liberals have done it. Today, one of those projects has been killed directly; one has been killed indirectly.

We have a tweet from a minister in 2012 that the objective is to “landlock Alberta's tar sands”, and here we are five years later. The Liberals are in government and she is cabinet, and it has happened. We had a gaffe where the agenda was revealed, and now the agenda has come to fruition. Unfortunately, the Liberals have taken steps to landlock our energy resources. We have seen this, and it is hard to deny that this is happening.

I want to highlight a number of other examples where the Prime Minister made comments that were perhaps explained away or qualified, or referred to as a slip of the tongue or a gaffe at the time, but revealed something fundamental about the way in which he sees the world. He said in an interview during the election that, in his view, many small businesses are ways for wealthy Canadians to avoid paying taxes. That is what the Prime Minister said. I do not know how many people took that comment seriously. However, with the punitive measures that have since been proposed toward small business, it looks like the Prime Minister believes we should go after and punish small businesses because they are a way for wealthy people to avoid paying taxes. That seems to be the Prime Minister's view. He expressed that view in an interview with Peter Mansbridge during the last election, and now he is undertaking punitive measures against those businesses.

He also said that he admires China's basic dictatorship, and he has gone on to pursue policies with respect to China that concern many Canadians. He has gone on to govern this country in a particularly autocratic way, trying at every possible turn to limit the input of the opposition members. We had two opposition speakers in the traditional period allowed for this debate before Liberals shut it down. We are only now able to have further conversations about this legislation because of a motion we are putting forward on an aspect of the committee's study, and travel related to that committee's study.

In each of these cases, where these gaffes or comments from the Prime Minister or from ministers were portrayed as a mistake, they revealed something quite fundamental to what appears to be the world view of the Prime Minister and members of the government.

Again, a comment was made by a minister saying that they wanted to landlock Alberta's energy resources, and effectively they have killed the two new pipeline projects proposed to tidewater within Canada. The bill that is being considered in terms of committee study at the moment is Bill C-48, which deals with tanker export from northern British Columbia. As soon as the government took office, Liberals instituted a ban on energy oil export from northern B.C. They have killed the northern gateway pipeline, and now they are formalizing this through legislation, which they are calling the oil tanker moratorium act.

Let us be quite clear, though, about what this legislation would and would not do. Once we lay it out, it will be quite obvious to members that this is only about killing off energy exports in the west. It is not fundamentally about tankers, because tankers take oil in and out of the country, and between different jurisdictions along our coast. There are oil tankers that come into the St. Lawrence. There are oil tankers that bring oil in and export oil off Canada's east coast. Certainly, if there were ever a spill from an Alaskan oil tanker carrying American oil, it would not discriminate. It would not somehow fail to touch the Canadian coast, and yet what the government is proposing would only deal with oil produced in Canada, and the ability to export it out of northern British Columbia specifically.

I would take the view that we should do everything possible to ensure good safety standards and to do away with any risks of a negative environmental impact, but ultimately recognize that by taking a leadership role and setting those standards and then benefiting from them economically through the export of Canadian oil, we really achieve a win-win situation. If the alternative is the export of other countries' oil, the non-development of our energy resources and, potentially, a greater environmental risk insofar as we are missing an opportunity for setting standards for our own oil exports, that alternative policy pursued by the current government is a lose-lose situation. It is a loss for the economy certainly, but also a loss for the environment.

At least we have to give the Liberals credit for acting directly in the case of the northern gateway pipeline. They did not seek to hide it. They said they were going to kill it and they killed it, and they are bringing in legislation that would formalize that. At least they were up front and direct. That is not much of a defence of it. It is the wrong policy. It is bad for jobs. It would kill opportunity in B.C., Alberta, and throughout the rest of the country because we are economically interconnected, but we can say that at least they have been direct about it

They have not been so direct with the energy east pipeline. Many people in the Maritimes voted Liberal, hoping that they would see the energy east pipeline come to fruition, and many members of the Atlantic caucus would have said they were supportive of energy east. Meanwhile, we had other members—and here I refer especially to the tweet by the member for Burlington, the Minister of Democratic Institutions—talking about wanting to land-lock Alberta's energy resources. We had other members with this agenda, the Prime Minister's agenda, of phasing out the oil sands. However, because of how popular energy east was, not just in Alberta but also in Atlantic Canada and many places in-between, they realized they could not kill it directly but would have to pursue some other strategy for achieving their objectives one at a time, which they were actually quite frank about before they deleted the tweet I mentioned.

Consequently, the Liberals introduced all kinds of regulatory hurdles and additional regulatory uncertainty and they tried to build in the idea that a project should be evaluated on prospective down-stream emissions. It would not just be the direct emissions from the use of that particular piece of infrastructure, but the prospective emissions that would eventually derive from it. This is a standard that notably is not applied anywhere else. We do not force aircraft manufacturers to be accountable for the subsequent likely greenhouse gas emissions associated with the use of their aircraft in the future. We do not do this for cars. We do not do this in any kind of manufacturing. We look at the environmental footprint of the manufacturing process, but we do not say that the manufacturers have to be accountable for all of the subsequent downstream emissions. This was a unique, unusual standard, and ultimately turned out to be an impossible one for energy east.

The government's response to the understandable decision of the company, in this case not to proceed with energy east, is to say that it is a business decision. For one thing, it points to oil prices. Companies understand that oil prices go up and down. No company decides to build a pipeline based on the price of oil on Monday, saying the price is good so let us build that pipeline. If it is down on Tuesday, it does not know. Companies are smart and sophisticated enough to realize that oil prices go up and down over time. They have to consider the overall situation, the overall environment, the probability of getting to a yes, and being able to proceed. It is not just about what the price of oil happens to be on Monday. That is a rather ridiculous suggestion from the Minister of Natural Resources.

Then the Liberals say it is a business decision, that Sisyphus just could not push the stone all the way, that it was too heavy for him. The task was set up in a way that success was likely impossible. There certainly was no credible certainty around it. We need a government that actually is looking for ways to get to a yes, to ensure the proper consultation happens, but not set up sort of a Sisyphean task, as in one that cannot be realized. It is clear from the debate in the House that is what is envisioned by the opponents of energy development. They do not want to say that they are opposed to energy east, but they want to kill it directly by coming up with all of these ambiguous, unclear criteria that make success impossible.

It is particularly clear from the exchange I just had with the member for Beloeil—Chambly what social licence is. He said that we had to get to social licence in order to get these things done. I then asked him what social licence would look like, because it surely could not be unanimity. We are never going to get unanimity on any question. People are not even unanimous in the belief that Elvis has died. We are not going to get unanimity on any question.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I talked about some of the consultations and the voices not heard. I mentioned the chiefs council eagle spirit energy project. I made it clear that it was allowed to present but it was not heard. Its comment was that there had been insufficient consultation. This is a first nations group that is ready to create jobs for its people and for other first nations. It is a chance for them to take part in the wealth that the energy industry delivers. The government sat there, thanked it for its comments and said that it was going elsewhere.

The Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia, which is responsible for shipping the oil, commented that the government was not interested in what it had to say.

The BC Coast Pilots, the people responsible for the safety of the marine life off B.C., presented but was told that it was nice, but the government was not willing to hear what it had to say.

That was the problem with the consultations the government had with respect to the small business tax. It said that it heard 2,100 consultations. However, it only listens to those who are willing to provide a Liberal point of view, not to anyone providing a point of view with respect to first nations so they can get jobs for their people. The Liberals are not willing to hear the evidence from the experts in the area because they only want to hear a Liberal point of view.

This is the issue. For two years in the House we have heard how the government has consulted on this and consulted on that, held a round table for this, and held a round table on how to hold a round table. It holds round tables and consults, but does not actually listen. That is the problem with Bill C-48.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the consultation. I think our hon. colleague from Port Moody brought up the fact about listening to the scientists and those who were out there saying that this was indeed the right way to go. We heard earlier on about 75 consultations. Now we are hearing first nations that have a stake in this saying that they categorically reject that the government truly consulted with them and listened to what they had to say. I think the hereditary chief said that. These first nations are in the communities that would be impacted by this decision.

We know this moratorium will cause more concern with respect to the economic viability of the first nations communities, as well as the coastal communities there. It could also put Canada at risk for lawsuits by the U.S., because of the shipping routes up there. U.S.-bound ships would be impacted by this.

Therefore, I want to touch on two points, which are the consultations with the shipping industry and with first nations. Does our hon. colleague feel that some time should be spent listening and fully understanding what the ramifications of passing legislation such as Bill C-48 will be for these communities and the industry?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. I am very pleased because I was intending to speak to this two weeks ago before the Liberals brought in closure on this, but it is part of their whole plan of hypocrisy with their government. They say one thing and they do the other. For years, we heard about no more closure and how evil it is to have constant closure on debate. What they do every single chance they get when they do not like what they are hearing from the opposite side, or before they even hear from the opposite side, is bring in closure. Shame on them, but I am glad that we are able to discuss it today.

I want to correct the record. One of my colleagues across the way, the member for Winnipeg North, constantly talks about there being no pipelines built under the Conservative rule. I just want to correct that. Four were built. They are going to say that none went to tidewater. Three of the four connect to pipelines that go to tidewater. Saying that the TMX anchor that connects into Kinder Morgan that goes to Burnaby is not a pipeline that goes to tidewater is like saying that there are no flights that go from Ottawa to Vancouver because they have to connect through Toronto. They do get there. The reality is that the former Conservative government approved and had built four pipelines during our rule, three of which go directly to pipelines that go to tidewater. Therefore, I just want to correct the roll.

The Prime Minister has stood in the House many times promising to achieve both environmental salvation and unparalleled economic growth. He said his government believes that the Liberals and only the Liberals know how to bring about the true formula to achieve this seemingly oxymoronic balance of economic growth and environmental care. They dismiss the critics in the NDP as excessively environmentalist and they scoff at the Conservatives' concerns about putting arbitrary limits on business and economic development. No, they assure the economic growth and environmental communities, they know what they are doing. What better document to prove this finely calculated balance than Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act?

Let us look at some history. Alberta, being a landlocked province, is paying dearly for the situation of not having more pipelines. Our energy companies apply for pipeline permits to the faraway paradises of British Columbia, New Brunswick, and the gulf states in the U.S. Pipelines, being the safest method of transporting crude, are in short supply in Canada despite the previous government's approval and oversight of the construction of multiple new ones, as I mentioned previously. Frustrated with selling a product under market value for years, Alberta companies placed their hopes in projects such as Keystone XL, northern gateway, Kinder Morgan, and energy east. The gargantuan, bureaucratic pipeline approval process in Canada means that most of these projects had their inception in the late 2000s, before finally becoming topical today.

One by one, project by project has made its way through the National Energy Board, and one by one the projects were demonstrated to be safe. The NEB, in doing its job, attached conditions, sometimes hundreds, to the pipeline approvals but some groups were not happy. Some special interest groups did not like the fact that Alberta might get its oil to market and so began protesting. Sensing an opportunity, the activist Liberals, at the time in third-party status, captured this overblown sentiment by promising to redo the process. If people do not like the process and do not like the decision, the Liberals said, then it must be flawed. The Liberals then began a campaign of discrediting the National Energy Board for following a long-standing process that arrived at decisions that the Liberals did not like. They shamelessly accused the NEB of bias, industry favours, and lack of diligence. For many decades of its existence, the NEB was a harmless and adequate process but suddenly, with Liberal votes on the line, it became a tool of Stephen Harper, the paragon of anti-environmentalism—so said the Liberals—and thus the NEB was his way of destroying the planet.

The Liberals promised to reform the NEB to remove bias and make decisions on evidence. What is one of the first things they did? They ignored the evidence surrounding the northern gateway decision by the NEB and killed it; then, they reformed the NEB in a way that does not make the process any better but does absolutely make our process more bureaucratic, a winning formula to be sure. With a few strokes, the Liberals now watch from the sidelines as pipelines languish. Where once there was hope, we are now left relying on Keystone XL to the U.S., the very same pipeline the Prime Minister, despite his cringe-worthy bromance with President Obama, could not deliver; northern gateway, cast aside by the oil tanker moratorium, which the government wants to codify with Bill C-48; and energy east, of course left to die in the labyrinth of ever-changing rules that only apply to Alberta oil, special interests, pontification, and Liberal indecision. That will be the new NEB.

Kinder Morgan is on its way to the courts thanks to the new government in British Columbia and the lack of enthusiasm from the Prime Minister. It will spend years tied up in court, moving from one hearing to another, until, as I am sure the government hopes, the company finally relinquishes the fight and concedes defeat.

Perhaps if Kinder Morgan had named the pipeline the C Series, the Liberals would be tripping all over themselves to get it built. Oddly, the government does not realize that approved does not mean constructed. Just two weeks ago in this very House, the energy minister stood and claimed that 6,400 jobs had been created already for Keystone, even though it has not been started, and by the way it was approved by the U.S. government, not the Liberal government.

He stood here and claimed that 15,500 jobs had been created for Kinder Morgan already, despite the fact that it has not started and they are sitting idly by while this project is slowly smothered. Like the non-stop bragging about historic levels of infrastructure spending, mere announcements do not mean anything has been accomplished. Until the taps are turned on, the Prime Minister's approval is meaningless.

What should the Prime Minister do? He should champion the project. He should meet with stakeholders, press his claim and make the case for the project to go through. If he can get down to the U.S. and press President Trump for Bombardier, he can certainly do the same by heading to B.C. and pressing for Kinder Morgan.

The current government seems to forget that projects do not magically happen. Budgets do not just balance themselves, and pipelines do not magically build themselves. Most likely, the Prime Minister took a call from Gerald Butts who took a call from some angry activists in British Columbia, who were astonished that the government would ever approve something as dastardly and destructive as the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

This brings me back to Bill C-48. We expect to hear much about how the Liberals have found the formula for protecting the environment while at the same time allowing our natural resource sector to grow. They have consulted far and wide, they say. In the government's press release, the Liberals have held approximately 75 engagement sessions to discuss improvements to marine safety and formalizing the oil tanker ban. It is funny that with a number as low as 75, they have to approximate and cannot count how many they actually did.

The Liberals consulted extensively with indigenous groups, they say, and also consulted with industry stakeholders and communities across Canada. Much like their consultations on electoral reform and the small business tax attack, they only listened to a select few within the Liberal echo chamber.

Here are some other voices from the consultation, though, that the Liberals did not seem to hear. The Chamber of Shipping of B.C. suggested that the proposed moratorium:

...contradicts ...the federal government's stated approach to environmental protection: evidence-based decision making....sends a very harmful signal to the international investment community.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers argued that this proposed moratorium:

....could significantly impair Canada's oil and natural gas resources from reaching new markets....

It added that such a moratorium also prevents Canada from:

....receiving a fair market value for its resources.

The Chief's Council Eagle Spirit Energy Project, a first nations-led energy corridor proposal that has the support of the affected communities in B.C. and Alberta, has stated, on the proposed moratorium, which they say does not have their consent:

....there has been insufficient consultation....

Most interesting is the Liberals' outright ignoring of the fact-based evidence of the B.C. Coast Pilots. The B.C. Coast Pilots, who are responsible for the safe operating of ships off the coast, have some interesting facts. There has not been a single accident or oil spill with an oil freighter off the B.C. coast in over 50 years. That is not something we can say on the east coast where oddly enough we are happy to bring in oil from some of the worst human rights abusers in the world.

The B.C. Coast Pilots have an aggressive and unmatched-in-Canada safety program that has successfully protected our oceans and coastlines. At least a month before a vessel is placed on hire to come into our waters, the pilots do an extensive vetting process that includes all aspects of the vessel: safety records, crew records, past history. Any deficiencies will ensure that the vessel is not hired. This is even before the ship leaves foreign ports to come to our shores.

In addition, in the 96-hour report sent in, the Coast Guard VTS, the vessel traffic services, port state control will have all the necessary information from its last 10 ports of call, and any and all incidents will be recorded, as will all equipment deficiencies, if there are any.

Before the pilot boards, the VTS will have been provided with the deficiencies and the Transport Canada safety inspectors' report. Then, and only then, does the pilot board the vessel and is the final eyes and ears of the inspection process. The pilot will have the final say whether the ship will be put into anchor.

They have other safety standards above and beyond what I have listed, which is why they have an unblemished record with the transfer of oil on the B.C. coast over the last 50 years. That is not something we can say in regard to the east coast. Do we use the same strict measures on the east coast for oil brought into refineries in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Quebec? No, of course we do not.

Also, let us look where we are bringing this oil into eastern Canada from. Six hundred and fifty thousand barrels a day of conflict oil is brought right into Canada off the pristine shores of the east coast. Why is there no ban on the east coast? Why is there a double standard? Is it not a case of pristine coastal shoreline is pristine coastal shoreline is pristine coastal shoreline? I guess not.

The oil that we bring in from Saudi Arabia is from a regime that is often criticized in the House for rights abuses using Canadian-made arms. The Liberals will gleefully hold that country and the oil freighters it uses to a lower safety standard than used on the B.C. coast.

Oil comes from the democratic paradise of Venezuela. This is what the foreign affairs minister had to say about our great oil supplier off the east coast: “Canada denounces and condemns today’s significant and undemocratic action by the Venezuelan regime.... robbing the Venezuelan people of their fundamental democratic rights.” The minister even applied sanctions two weeks ago against the officials responsible for the deterioration of democracy in Venezuela. However, it is okay to allow its oil to come into Canada with freighters using a lower safety standard.

On the east coast, we bring in oil from Nigeria. Human Rights Watch says this of Nigeria: “Many of the grave human rights challenges he promised to address in his inauguration speech remain largely unaddressed and unresolved.” Again, that oil is subject to lower safety standards than on the west coast. Human Rights Watch continues that Angola has suffered during 2016 due to continued government repression.

I want to read a couple of quotes from people in this House about some of the countries we bring oil into Canada from. The NDP foreign affairs critic said of Saudi Arabia that “These cases once again highlight the Saudi authorities’ disregard for human rights.... Canada must stand up for its values and show leadership in defending human rights at home and abroad.” Here we are criticizing Saudi Arabia, saying our government must stand up and show its leadership and Canadian values at home and abroad, at the same time as we are banning the use of oil freighters off the north coast using Alberta oil, the most highly regulated oil extraction in the world. We are banning that, but on the east coast, which uses a lower safety standard for oil freighters, we are bringing in oil from Saudi Arabia, one of the worst human rights abusers in the world. Even our NDP colleague stated this.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs states about Venezuela that “Our government deplores the actions of the Maduro regime.... [A]nd will not stand by as the Government of Venezuela robs its people of their fundamental rights.” She will not stand by while the government robs its people of their fundamental rights, but she will stand by to ensure that they get Canadian money for their oil. The oil industry has been nationalized in Venezuela, so every single day we bring in oil from Venezuela, we are propping up the despotic regime of Maduro. We sit in the House and criticize him, but at the same time we block Alberta oil and ensure that we enrich the thugs of the Venezuelan regime. It is absolutely shameful.

The former leader of the NDP, a man I have a lot of respect for, has said, “It does not make any sense that in Canada right now, we are importing crude oil from insecure foreign sources like Algeria and Russia, and having it refined at Valero's large refinery in Saint-Romuald across from Quebec City.” He was also commenting on the hypocrisy of the Liberals in dealing with Saudi Arabia, selling them arms and bringing in Saudi oil.

He continued, “They can emote about human rights and Canada's role in the world. What we see them...doing is selling...[arms] to one of the most gruesome, repressive regimes on the planet...Saudi Arabia.” It is one of the most repressive regimes, and yet we are happy to buy their oil, give them hard currency, and prop up their despotic regime. Again, why is bringing in oil from serial human rights abusers using lower safety standards for shipping into the east coast okay, but shipping Canadian oil from the Pacific coast using the highest safety standards not okay?

Industry believes that Bill C-48 is too heavy-handed, and first nations groups who stand to benefit from the project did not give their consent to the moratorium. Of course, environmentalist believe that the legislation does not go far enough. Social licence to them is much like the Stanley Cup to the Maple Leafs, something to be dreamed about but we know is never going to happen.

The government does not seem to get it. It writes legislation solely to satisfy foreign-funded special interest groups to chase away investment and jobs from Canada and to punish Albertans and Canadians. This legislation, Bill C-48, is the epitome of typical Liberal policy. It is too focused on special interest groups to look at real evidence, the Liberal government then capitulates, and Canadians are made to suffer for it.

I want to discuss a few letters I received from some Albertans in my constituency. It is no secret that the province has been suffering for a few years between the provincial government's carbon tax, chasing away investment, driving up costs, and driving up taxes, and the Liberal government's carbon tax and pipeline killing rules. Alberta is suffering. We have received a lot of calls to the office about some of the issues.

Since 2014, unemployment has doubled in Alberta. Over 200,000 people are unemployed, 122,000 oil workers have lost their jobs, and unemployment is near a 20-year high. Food bank usage in Edmonton alone is up 60%. According to the CFIB, 45% of Alberta business owners are looking to cut back on staffing. What do we do? We have a government that destroys pipelines and takes away the hope of getting our oil to market. Our communities and families are suffering.

I received a letter from a lady named Sharon who lives in my riding. She says:

The job crisis in Alberta affects my family...negatively. My husband lost his job last July, and is still job hunting. I'm worried because I'm the only one working in the family. It's...tough...now, and I don't know when everything goes back to normal.

I can feel for Sharon. Just last week, we held a town hall in downtown Edmonton because the member for Edmonton Centre refused to do an open town hall. We had a town hall on the business tax attack. We had well over 120 people come out and tell us about their issues. I met a young lady whose husband had just been laid off. She had been laid off as well. They could not find work so their answer was that they would create their own work, create their own jobs and go into business for themselves. Then they sit and look at the Liberal attacks on small businesses and ask us how they can do that. They have lost their jobs in the energy sector, the Liberal government is killing pipelines and killing hope. They want to go into business for themselves but now they are being attacked on that front as well. They asked how they could even hope to thrive in Alberta. It is difficult to understand how, given what the Liberal government and the NDP government in Alberta are doing, they can find help or hope, but I can trust that Albertans will pull through if anyone can.

I met a lady named Kathy who said that her husband worked for a large firm. That firm has is are continuing to lay off thousands, and it is scary living that way. A gentleman named Don contacted our office and said that the Liberal government's lack of a real plan was putting families like his further in debt with no help to recover. It is a struggle to keep up with day to day bills. A lady named Martha said that the continuing lack of employment opportunities were concerning and disheartening. She constantly worries about how she will be able to support her family. It goes on and on and on and on.

What could we do to help? A perfect example would be the superclusters we hear so much about from the Liberal government. Superclusters here, superclusters there, superclusters for everyone. The energy industry, together as a consortium, put in a bid for some of the supercluster funding. We had some of the biggest names in the energy world putting through a package to be one of the named superclusters. They put one through for energy investment, including clean energy investment, and what happened? The government passed them by in order to invest in other areas of Canada.

The government's attack on Alberta must end.

I see that I am out of time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague about the national unity dimension of the whole discussion around pipelines, because some of this has come out recently. It is my belief that we should be able to have these kinds of debates without the Prime Minister, for instance, saying that we should not have this debate for fear of a negative impact on national unity.

We should be able to have this conversation and debate and present different points of view. Most Canadians I talk to are united in believing that development should be able to go forward. Maybe the NDP and the government have a different perspective on it, but certainly we should be able to have debates on Bill C-48, the importance of pipelines, and these sorts of things in the House without raising the spectre of negative impacts on national unity.

If there is anything negatively impacting national unity, frankly, it is the unfair policies of the government toward the west. I wonder if the member would agree with me on that.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member gets a gold star for working middle-class Canadians into his question. However, I again quote from page 1 of the Liberal throne speech on December 4, 2015, which states, “Canada succeeds in large part because here, diverse perspectives and different opinions are celebrated, not silenced.” They are only celebrated if they are the same as the Liberals' preconceived notions. That is the only time they celebrate diversity and different opinions. We can have different opinions as long as they are the same as the Liberals'. They say diversity is our strength as long as they are the same as we are.

Conservatives have a different opinion on Bill C-48, and again and again the government takes away an ability of the representatives of the people to speak. We are temporary occupants here, but we are each sent here to represent about 100,000 people. When Liberals prevent us from sharing the points of view of the people who sent us here, they are not depriving Conservatives of their right to speak, which is what they think they are doing—they think this is just a partisan game—they are depriving the people of Chilliwack—Hope, and all constituents, the right to be heard. This is the House of Commons. It should be respected, and it is time that Liberals started to do it.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities that, during its 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, the Committee be granted the power to travel throughout Canada to hear testimony from interested parties and that the necessary staff do accompany the Committee, provided that the travel does not exceed 45 sitting days.

Mr. Speaker, it is as always a pleasure to rise in the House on behalf of the people of Chilliwack—Hope.

We are going to speak a bit this afternoon to Bill C-48, the proposed oil tanker moratorium act, which the government does not actually want us to talk about. The government moved closure and cut off debate after only two official opposition members had an opportunity to speak to it. They used what the member for New Westminster—Burnaby calls the parliamentary “guillotine” to cut off debate on a bill that is important to people in our caucus and the people we represent.

People all across the country have different views on Bill C-48, but they were not allowed to be heard, so we are going to give them a voice here today in the House by debating this motion to have the committee travel.

Even though the government does not want to hear from the representatives of the people of Canada, we want that committee to go across Canada to talk about this legislation and to the people who will be most impacted by it. That could mean going to Calgary to talk to people who have seen their livelihoods ripped away from them, aided and abetted quite frankly by government policy that is punishing the energy sector. We saw today on the news that the vacancy rate in Calgary office towers is still near 30%. It is a tragedy that the Liberal government has ignored, but we will not let it ignore it. That is why we will be talking about this here in the House today.

The committee could go to northern British Columbia, where members could talk to the aboriginal equity partners, a group of 31 first nations and Métis communities that signed on to be a 33% partner in the northern gateway pipeline project that was killed by the government for no reason other than it went through a forest the Prime Minister liked. This was a completely arbitrary political decision not based on evidence, not based on science, but on the political whims of the Prime Minister and his friends in the PMO.

What did that decision do? It stole $2 billion of prosperity from aboriginal communities in northern B.C. and northern Alberta, which have no other prospect of economic development. They were going to be for the first-time owners of a major trans-provincial pipeline. They were going to have a stake in that, and the Liberal government took it away. Not only did the government take away the prosperity that would have resulted from that project, but took it away for every project that might cross northern British Columbia for the rest of time, by making this oil tanker moratorium come into effect.

The government never talks about how the aboriginal equity partners supported this responsible resource development project, which was approved using the exact same rules this government used to approve the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The Liberals talk about what a great decision that was. They brag about it when they are in Houston. They brag about it when they are in Calgary. They do not come to B.C. and talk about it very much because Liberal members are afraid of the backlash they will receive, but they used the exact same process for the northern gateway pipeline as the Trans Mountain pipeline, but again, this one went through a forest that the Prime Minister might have hiked in a couple of times and he did not want it to go there.

What did that do? I am going to read into the record a statement by the aboriginal equity partner stewards, Bruce Dumont, the past president of the Métis Nation British Columbia; David McPhee, president of the Aseniwuche Wienwak Nation; Chief Elmer Derrick, Gitxsan Nation hereditary chief; and Elmer Ghostkeeper of the Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement, who said:

We are profoundly shocked and disappointed by the news that the Federal Government has no intention of pursuing any further consultation and dialogue with our communities on the important issue of the Northern Gateway Project. We are also deeply disappointed that a Prime Minister who campaigned on a promise of reconciliation with Indigenous communities would now blatantly choose to deny our 31 First Nations and Métis communities of our constitutionally protected right to economic development. We see today's announcement as clear evidence of their unwillingness to follow through on his promise.

The Government of Canada could have demonstrated its commitment by working with us as environmental stewards of the land and water to enhance marine safety. All 31 AEP plus the other affected communities should have been consulted directly and individually in order to meet the Federal Government's duty to consult.

The North Coast tanker moratorium will eliminate significant financial and social benefits committed to our communities through our ownership and participation in the Project.

It is time for governments to stop politicizing projects which take place on our lands - especially projects that are owned by Indigenous peoples.

The Aboriginal Equity Partners is a unique and historic partnership that establishes a new model for conducting natural resource development on our lands and traditional territories. We are owners of Northern Gateway and are participating in the project as equals.

The economic benefits from Northern Gateway to Indigenous communities are unprecedented in Canadian history. As part of the opportunity to share up to 33% ownership and control in a major Canadian energy infrastructure project, the project's Aboriginal Equity Partners will also receive $2 billion in long-term economic, business, and education opportunities for their communities.

Our goal is for Northern Gateway to help our young people to have a future where they can stay in their communities with training and work opportunities. We remain committed to Northern Gateway and the opportunities and responsibilities that come with our ownership. We also remain committed to working with our partners to ensure our environment is protected for future generations.

AEP will now consult with our member communities to determine our next steps.

We have never heard that from the government. The Liberals shut down debate on Bill C-48 so we could not hear it again. The Liberals do not want people to understand the damage they would do to aboriginal economic prospects, to aboriginal prosperity, by shutting down tanker traffic in just one region of the country. The health and prosperity of those communities would be put at risk. We notice this does not apply anywhere else in the country. For Venezuelan tankers coming up the St. Lawrence Seaway, no problem. For Algerian tankers coming in to New Brunswick, it is all good. For U.S. tankers coming in to the Port of Vancouver, no problem. It is only when Canadian tankers might take Canadian oil to sell abroad that there is a problem, that we then have to shut down an entire region to economic development. There is more aboriginal support for responsible resource development and more opposition to this very bill, Bill C-48, that the government does not want us to debate here in this chamber.

Here is a statement on the federal tanker ban legislation by the chief's council of the Eagle Spirit energy project:

As Chiefs from British Columbia and Alberta we are very disappointed with the inappropriate actions taken today by [the] Prime Minister...and the Federal Government by introducing a tanker ban on Canada's west coast. We feel strongly that a blanket tanker moratorium is not the answer. Once again, government and international environmental lobby groups want to make decisions for our communities instead of us letting us make them.

The Government of Canada should accept the analysis of affected coastal First Nations rather than put in place a blanket Tanker Moratorium, especially for First Nations led projects. We believe a First Nations process should be implemented to help determine what resource projects can be developed on our lands and what products can be shipped off of our coast lines.

To be clear; there has been insufficient consultation for the proposed Tanker Moratorium and it does not have our consent. As Indigenous peoples, we want to preserve the right to determine the types of activities that take place in our territories and do not accept that the federal government should tell us how to preserve, protect, and work within our traditional territories.

[The Prime Minister] committed to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which combined with Section 35 of the Constitution means that the Government of Canada has a commitment to achieve free, prior and informed consent of Aboriginal groups in several instances, including for the approval of any projects affecting Aboriginal lands or territories. We will not support projects that endanger our communities and the environment; however, we do believe environmental protection and responsible economic development is possible. This ill-conceived legislation puts the prosperity and the future of our people, particularly our youth, in jeopardy.

Once again the federal government is not respecting nation-to-nation dialogue and consultation and is forging ahead on proposals without the consent of many Indigenous communities. We urge the Prime Minister to live up to the commitments he has made to Indigenous Peoples. The Chief's Council will continue to study this legislation and our options and will have more to say in the days to come.

Again, these are indigenous groups who stand to benefit from responsible resource development on their traditional territories, first nations-led projects. However, the Liberals saw no need to consult with them. They only want to consult with people who agree with their point of view. We have seen that time and time again, and we saw it again in this House. When they did not agree with our point of view as the official opposition, they shut down the debate all together. After only two opposition speakers, they cut off the debate and said this would be better studied in committee, as though the 96 members of Parliament represented in our caucus have no value here. What we saw is the breaking of another promise.

In their throne speech of December 4, 2015, entitled “Making Real Change Happen”, the Liberals said the following on page 1:

Canada succeeds in large part because here, diverse perspectives and different opinions are celebrated, not silenced. Parliament shall be no exception.

In this Parliament, all members will be honoured, respected and heard, wherever they sit. For here, in these chambers, the voices of all Canadians matter.

Once again, that was a broken promise. They obviously did not mean it. That did not last very long.

We want to be heard on Bill C-48, on this tanker ban moratorium, and we want to be heard because of the people this impacts. The Liberals just want to pat themselves on the back and say they did not need to consult with Aboriginal Equity Partners or with Eagle Spirit Energy group. They did not need to consult with them because they had heard enough. They heard what they wanted to hear, so then they stopped listening. That is what they are doing again today. That is what they have done throughout this Parliament. They simply say that they know best and only consult with groups that are going to tell them what they want to hear.

That is why, when I was the shadow minister for natural resources, I asked, through Order Paper Question No. 786, for the government to detail the consultations they had between October 19, 2015 and November 26, 2016, the date they announced they were killing northern gateway. I asked them to include a list of the dates that they met, the location where they met, the first nation and Métis communities present at those meetings, the cost of each meeting, and the summary for each meeting. That was to make sure that they had fulfilled their duty to consult with those groups. What did I get back? In short, I got back that the Government of Canada was not required to undertake those consultations with indigenous groups because they determined it did not impact their section 35 rights. I would say that the aboriginal communities that I have read these letters from certainly feel that their section 35 rights have been impacted, yet the Liberal government does not want to hear from them.

Closure has been forced. They slammed the door on further debate at second reading and sent it off to committee. We say that the committee should travel to hear from Canadians. If they do not want to hear from the representatives of Canadians, which they obviously do not and have made that clear, then maybe we should go from coast to coast to hear from those Canadians who would be directly impacted. They could also talk about the impact they have had, not only on the west coast but on the east coast as well. There has been deafening silence from the 32 Liberal members of Parliament who represent the Atlantic provinces after the actions of the Liberal government helped to kill the energy east project.

The Liberals want us to believe that the spot price of oil on any given day determines the outcome of a 50-year, $55-billion project. That is crazy to think that the spot price today can impact the decision for energy east. Former employees who worked on that project have made it clear that it was the government's interference, the changing regulatory regime, the constant moving of the goalposts, and the shutting down of the review process and restarting it again that caused energy east to back away and give up the $1 billion they had already sunk into the project. They said they were done, that they knew under the Liberal government they could not get this project built.

We saw Liberal politicians dancing on the graves of those energy worker jobs. We saw Denis Coderre celebrating and taking credit for it. Did we see any push-back from the government when that project that would represent 15,000 construction jobs, that would represent $55 billion in GDP to this country, which would have displaced foreign oil from conflict regions of the world, was killed by this regulatory burden? Did we see any push-back?

We saw the government hilariously trying to blame Stephen Harper. That was a new one. Apparently Stephen Harper was not in favour of energy east. I do not quite understand. It blamed Stephen Harper for its killing of energy east. It blamed the spot price of oil, as if TransCanada, the same company that is still building the Keystone XL pipeline, had suddenly decided that the spot price of oil is where it is and it could not build pipelines anymore. TransCanada is still building pipelines. It is building them now in the U.S.

It is like all of the major energy projects that have fled the country or have been cancelled since the government took office. These companies have not left the oil and gas sector, they have left Canada because of the regulatory burden and uncertainty that has been created by the government.

We say that we should go across the country. We should send the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities across the country to hear from Canadians. Even though the Liberals do not want to hear from their representatives here in the House, we want to hear from them. We know there is not universal acceptance of this. We know that the energy sector has suffered in the last two years because of the uncertainty that has been created by the government's regulatory processes. We should go across the country and talk to energy workers in Alberta, in Fort McMurray, on the west coast of British Columbia, and to the east coast folks, who now see their job prospects evaporating thanks to the work of the government.

Again I am reminded of how different the government's actions are from its rhetoric, how every time there was time allocation under the previous government, the members, who are no doubt going to stand up and ask me questions here, would get up and rail about what a horrible thing this was, how this was a deadening of democracy, a terrible precedent, and how they would never do this.

The Liberals did it on the only bill that we told them we wanted to have a substantial debate. We have had five or six bills that the Liberals have passed already in the first three weeks of this Parliament. However, instead of taking that as a good faith gesture, the Liberals telegraphed that they were going to use time allocation this fall, and they have been true to their word on that. That is about the only thing they have kept their promise on, that they were going to limit our debate opportunities.

We have said again and again that we wanted this to be a substantial debate. We had significant interest in our caucus in it. What did the Liberals do? They used the occasion of the Governor General's installation, a half-day Monday, and counted it as one of the days of debate. Then, on a Wednesday, after they invoked a bunch of procedural manoeuvres to cut the day off, we had one eight-minute speech. There were two full speeches and an eight-minute speech at second reading, and that was good enough for the government. It had heard all it needed to hear.

This is, again, what the Liberal government is all about. It wants an audience; it does not want an opposition. When it fears that it might hear something it does not like, the Liberals cut off the consultation process. It cuts off debate in this House.

Canadians are growing tired of it. We are seeing that. We certainly saw it during the small business proposals that the government tried to ram through, which it was unsuccessful at due to the good work of the opposition and business groups across the country.

We are not going to let them do it on Bill C-48. We think the committee should travel across the country to hear the voices of Canadians, even if the government does not want to hear from them.

Business of the House

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by asking the House leader if she could tell us what the business is for the rest of this week and when we return after the Thanksgiving constituency week.

Given that we have been very co-operative over the last two and a half to three weeks and have seen a lot of government legislation move through that period, I am hoping that she will be respectful of some of the bills that we really would like to have ample time to discuss. Bill C-48 was basically shut down after one member spoke to it, which was disappointing. I am hoping that, moving forward, we will be able to press the reset button and that we will be allowed to speak on issues that are important to us.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Madam Speaker, for some time now, from well before the by-election in April that brought me to this place, I have watched with a mix of resentment and regret as the Liberal government engages in what I have come to call “proxy politics” on the issue of pipelines. I say “resentment”, because for many in my province of Alberta and even closer to home in my riding of Calgary Heritage, pipelines are too important an issue to play political games on. I say “regret”, because what the government views as political manoeuvring only is having real and negative effects on the ground in Alberta, jeopardizing the livelihoods of thousands of people whose employment relies on the health of the energy sector.

As I speak today on Bill C-48, I see in its provisions not just the express purpose of its title to ban oil tankers, but also another example of the proxy politics that the government has been playing when it comes to pipeline development in Canada. What does proxy pipeline politics entail? It simply refers to the government's penchant for attaining indirectly, through legislation and politicized bureaucrats and signalling to special interests, what it cannot attain directly because of the political optics involved. This bill is another step by the government toward a goal that it pursues, but does not publicly name, the phasing out of the oil sands.

Bill C-48 would prohibit oil tankers carrying crude and persistent oils as cargo from stopping, loading, and unloading at ports or marine installations in the moratorium area. On the surface, it purports to enhance environmental protection by banning oil tankers from the north coast of British Columbia. However, that is just a greenwashing of the bill's true intent: to convert a vast region of Canada's west coast into a no-go zone for tankers under the pretext of environmental protection. Reading and listening to the Liberals' messaging around this bill, one might assume that an environmental apocalypse was imminent in B.C. That, of course, is not the case at all.

In fact, the Conservative government enhanced protections for the environment in 2014 by creating a world-class tanker safety system. We modernized Canada's navigational systems, enhanced area response planning, expanded the marine safety capacity of aboriginal communities, and ensured that polluters would pay for spills and damages. We did these things because, in contrast to the party opposite, Conservatives understand that the environment can be protected while also growing the economy.

Conservatives believe in fair and balanced policy-making. Liberals, however, would have us believe there is no middle ground. They would have Canadians forget that a voluntary exclusion zone of 100 kilometres for oil tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington State has been in place since 1985. They would also have us ignore how the Alaskan panhandle juts deep into the moratorium zone, meaning that any U.S. community sharing B.C.'s coastline can welcome oil tankers. The Liberals say never mind to the realities on the ground and to the protections already in place. Instead, they craft policies to address hypothetical contingencies that have become even less likely in recent years. Where is the fairness and balance in such an approach?

The bill's inherent unfairness is clear. It is unfair to coastal communities in northern British Columbia, excluding them from even the possibility of oil pipeline projects as a means of economic development and local job creation. This bill is unfair to those aboriginal communities in B.C. that support and seek responsible pipeline development to the west coast as a means to achieving economic independence for their communities. There are many more of those communities than the Liberals care to admit. In fact, according to the chief of the Assembly of First Nations, 500 of the 630 first nations across Canada are open to pipeline and petroleum development on their lands.

The bill is also unfair to the energy companies that take all the risks and make all the investments and do all the work that we require of them to meet our world-class safety regulations, only to discover at the end of the process that it all means nothing when a political, unbalanced, unfair outcome results.

This bill is not balanced. It favours environmental interests and their activists while marginalizing economic stakeholders. The Liberals do this not only in the interests of the environment but also because they are opposed to pipelines, and legislation such as Bill C-48 helps them to achieve their ends.

In November of last year, the federal government directed the National Energy Board to dismiss the northern gateway pipeline project. It cited concerns about oil tankers transporting some of the half-million barrels per day of a petroleum product at Kitimat, oil that would have found new international markets via tidewater. How convenient it is that we now have legislation before us that effectively bars any similar projects in the future. After all, if tankers cannot receive what pipelines send them, there is little reason for a pipeline.

For the government to engage in such reckless spending to fulfill its all-encompassing view of the role of the state shows little understanding of what is needed to fund such largesse. Governments do not create wealth; they only tax the wealth created by others to finance their objectives. Therefore, it strikes me as odd that the Liberal government consistently seeks to smother one of Canada's largest sources of wealth. Alberta's oil sands alone represent a potential $2-trillion boost to Canada's gross domestic product over the coming decade. That would help to fund health care and other social programs and priorities for many years to come. Rather than champion responsible development of a resource beneficial to everyone, the government continues to throw up hurdles.

We have seen the same with the energy east pipeline. The Liberals continue to allow interference during the approval process by bureaucrats who seem intent on moving the goalposts on investors. Allowing the regulator in that case to step outside its mandate to consider upstream impacts of the pipeline sends a signal to opponents of oil and gas development that the process is politically driven and can be disrupted. It does by proxy what the Liberals cannot do publicly for political reasons.

However, there is a cost to such interference. We cannot ask companies to make massive initial investments in the energy sector, to responsibly follow all of the regulations set before them to safely develop such projects, only to have politics change the rules in the middle of the process.

Canada stands in jeopardy of losing future oil and gas sector investments if the Liberal government continues to allow this. We cannot afford to do that, especially considering the debt into which the government is sinking us and the staggering number of public dollars that will be needed to pay it back.

Demand for Canadian oil is strongest in the rapidly growing markets of the Asia-Pacific region. However, the government's response is to ban Canada's gateway to such large markets from transporting our oil. This is not going over well with everyone, by the way.

The Chief's Council Eagle Spirit Energy project, a first nations-led energy corridor proposal that has the support of its affected communities, has claimed there has been insufficient consultation on the ban and says it “does not have our consent.”

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand in the House on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport to support Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. The environment is very important to the residents of the riding of Davenport, so I stand to support this bill.

For anyone who does not get a chance to watch this live, I want to review very quickly what the oil tanker moratorium act would do. The act would formalize a moratorium for oil tankers off British Columbia's north coast. It would do three things. It would cover an area from the northern Alaska-B.C. border down to the point on B.C.'s mainland adjacent to the northern tip of Vancouver Island. That includes Haida Gwaii. Tanker traffic would not be allowed to go in and out of the ports in the northern part of B.C. This would apply to all ships carrying over 12,500 tonnes of crude oil or persistent oil as cargo in this area. As well, the tanker moratorium would complement the existing voluntary tanker exclusion zone, which has been in place since 1985.

If we have a voluntary moratorium, what would this tanker moratorium actually do? The act would expand the current area to include areas such as the Hecate Strait, Dixon Entrance, and Queen Charlotte Sound, off the coast of Haida Gwaii. Also, the voluntary moratorium only dealt with ships that were actually passing through the area. The bill proposes to include all the traffic that goes through the area. We are very pleased with the two changes this bill would put in place.

This is a pristine part of northern British Columbia that from time immemorial we have wanted to protect. First nation groups and community groups along the coastline have been asking governments for many years to protect it. We made the promise years ago that we would do so, and I am very pleased that today we are moving forward by pursuing this bill.

The other thing I want to mention is that the tanker moratorium act would complement the $1.5 billion comprehensive national oceans protection plan. That plan has four priority areas.

First, the Government of Canada will create a world-leading marine safety system that improves responsible shipping and protects Canada's waters. When we talk about world-leading, we mean that the system will meet or exceed the best practices in the world. This area focuses both on prevention and response measures.

Second, the government will focus on the preservation and restoration of marine ecosystems and habitats. This will be done using new tools and research as well as measures to address abandoned and derelict vessels and wrecks.

Third is building and strengthening partnerships with indigenous and coastal communities. The government is helping to build local capacity so that indigenous groups play a meaningful role in emergency response and waterway management.

The fourth part of our oceans protection plan is that the government will ensure that Canada's marine safety system is built on a stronger evidence base, supported by science and local knowledge. I am delighted that this is going into place.

I started off by saying that the environment is very important to Davenport residents. I have always told them that one of the key things we promised as we formed government was that as we looked forward to developing our economy, we wanted to do it in a sustainable way. The oceans protection plan and the oil tanker moratorium act are both part of that plan.

I will now move to my more formal remarks.

In an earlier session, there were some questions about government consultations. Indeed, there has been extensive government consultation. I want to acknowledge the leadership of the member for Vancouver Quadra, who has done such a wonderful job for years advocating for this. I know that there were a lot of consultations at that time, and I am very proud that we continue to engage in additional consultations. We made sure that we reached out to as many groups as possible. We listened and incorporated their views into the bill before us today.

I am very pleased and proud to take part in today's discussion about implementing an oil tanker moratorium on British Columbia's northern coast. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the efforts made by the government and its partners to reach the decision to implement this moratorium. It is important to remember that with this bill, the Government of Canada would be honouring its commitments to Canadians. Formalizing this moratorium and improving marine safety were among the priorities set out in the mandate letter from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Transport.

We believe it is essential to protect the environment, a particularly sensitive environment in the case of northern B.C., while also developing a strong economy. It is just as important to note that the decision to impose this moratorium was the outcome of a vast consultation process.

Our government is committed to pursuing its objectives in the spirit of renewed collaboration. We firmly believe it is essential to maintain and enhance our relationships with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments and with indigenous groups to bring about concrete, positive change. Therefore, we undertook these consultations when the government first announced its intention to adopt a legislative framework to formalize the moratorium.

The first meetings were held in British Columbia, where the minister brought together representatives from first nations, industry, local communities, and non-governmental organizations dedicated to environmental protection.

Discussions were held across the country, including in Iqaluit, St. John's, Montreal, and Calgary, to name only a few locations. It was important for us to bring together Canadians with differing opinions on the moratorium. The government took great care to include various stakeholders from different settings, namely, the marine community, the oil and gas industry, environmental groups, provincial and municipal governments, Canadians from across the country, and of course, first nations.

In total, Transport Canada organized 16 round tables and over 30 bilateral and multilateral meetings to involve Canadians in improving marine safety, which included discussions about the moratorium on oil tankers. With the aim of extending the discussion further and enabling those who were unable to attend those meetings, Transport Canada set up a web portal. Indeed, many letters from Canadians were also forwarded to the department. Overall, nearly 5,000 users visited the online portal. Of them, 330 provided comments or submitted documents. Most of those comments were about the moratorium that is the subject here today.

It is obvious that Canadians wanted to be heard. I can assure members that this was done. We not only listened closely to the concerns of our partners and Canadians about the matter, we took steps to meet their expectations. For example, a number of stakeholders expressed concerns about the moratorium's potential impact on transporting supplies for the communities and industries on British Columbia's coast. Resupply is vital to their welfare. The communities and industries must be able to continue to receive shipments of petroleum products. Therefore, the government ensured that the proposed legislation would allow resupply to continue by setting a threshold of 12,500 metric tonnes of crude oil and persistent oil in a tanker's cargo spaces. The resupply of communities and industries would therefore not be affected by the proposed moratorium.

Some stakeholders pointed out to us that they also wanted to ensure that the moratorium was transformed into action by an act of Parliament. That is exactly what the bill is proposing.

During the Canada-wide discussions, concerns were raised about marine safety. The stakeholders found that the Canadian Coast Guard lacked resources, including salvage tugs. Stakeholders also raised concerns about the time required to respond to an incident. The oceans protection plan will allay their concerns by giving the Canadian Coast Guard a greater role when it comes to patrols and monitoring the marine environment. The Coast Guard is also going to have increased towing capacity.

A number of stakeholders also noted that there could be more involvement from local communities in emergency responses. For that reason, the government is making plans to better coordinate the federal emergency response plan. With greater resource capacity from coast to coast to coast, the government is ready to work with local communities and indigenous groups. New indigenous community response teams will also be established, with training in search and rescue, environmental response, and incident command.

Remember that Canada is a maritime nation that was built on a safe, secure maritime transport system. This government is dedicated to developing a long-term agenda for marine transport that demonstrates that a healthy environment and a sustainable economy go hand in hand.

In short, the moratorium on oil tankers would be a major initiative for protecting the B.C. coast. I encourage all members to come together and support this bill that would protect our environment.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

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

I am pleased and proud to be part of today's debate on Bill C-48, and to discuss implementing an oil tanker moratorium on British Columbia's northern coast.

It is important to remember that with the bill, the Government of Canada is honouring its promise to Canadians. By formalizing this moratorium and including marine safety, the government is delivering on its promise, as set out in the mandate letter from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Transport.

I want to thank our Prime Minister for his commitment to the oil tanker moratorium on the Pacific north coast. I also want to thank the Minister of Transport for taking his thoughtful approach in consulting widely on the bill and delivering on this commitment.

This is one of those times when it is very satisfying to be a member of Parliament.

The House resumed from October 2 consideration of the motion 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 second time and referred to a committee.

Bill C-48--Time Allocation Motion

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague brought up the fact, as I did beforehand, that Bill C-49 passed yesterday through clause-by-clause. It is certainly my hope that Bill C-48 will go through a similar collegial process. There will be that opportunity.

I totally respect the independence of the committee as our government has done from the very beginning, unlike the previous government. I am sure when it does arrive at committee, there will be a similar opportunity to hear witnesses to argue for and against, and eventually go to clause-by-clause. I hope to do all this in a collegial manner.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, over the course of the past two years, we have allowed ample amounts of time for debate. As we know, we are going through Bill C-48, which is on the moratorium. It will go to committee. When it goes to committee, there will be opportunity to debate it. Witnesses will be heard on both sides, I am sure. After that, it will go to third reading and to report stage. After that it will go to the Senate.

We are following the proper process to turn this bill into law and we feel that an adequate amount of time has been allocated for Bill C-48.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed in this, and we as a party are offended.

There was an agreement made two and a half weeks ago when this session started that we would work together with the government and not be obstructionist, but work to help pass bills that we were able to support.

The result so far is that the government has passed Bill S-2, C-21, C-47, and Bill C-58 all without time allocation, and progress was being made on three more bills, Bill C-55, C-57, and C-60.

There was one bill that we said we had a lot of interest in and would like to have enough time for all of our members to be able to speak, and that was Bill C-48. Now the House leader has broken her word. There is no other way to interpret this. If this is the way she is going to start this session after we have worked in such good faith for the last two and half weeks, all the members know that it will be a case of here we go again: a repeat of the failure we saw in the spring session.

Where in the world is the House leader's integrity and ability to keep her word?

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

moved:

That, in relation to 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, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill;

and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Bill C-48—Notice of time allocation motion

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

Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Lakeland not only for the tremendous job she is doing as a shadow minister for natural resources and taking the lead on this file, but also for the wealth of experience she brings to it having worked in the industry in the province of Alberta.

I rise today in response to Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, a bill that will have devastating effects on our oil sands and the many jobs created as a result of that development. Once again the Liberals are playing games with Canadian jobs. Ostensibly, this act was introduced as a transportation bill. However, in practice, I believe Bill C-48 is a jobs bill or rather a job-killing bill singling out one specific sector of our economy, the oil sector, and punishing that sector irrationally. Since the Liberals formed government, they have made no attempt to hide their disdain for Canada's oil producers and the men and women who work in that field. This bill is another example of that.

Let us be clear and cut through the rhetoric. Bill C-48 is not really about banning tanker traffic; it is about banning development in the oil sands and the pipelines needed to get the product to market. Right now there is no oil flowing to the northern British Columbia coast. That means that there is no oil for tankers to load in the northern British Columbia coast identified in Bill C-48.

There could have been a northern gateway pipeline project. It was meant to run from Alberta to the northern coast of British Columbia, where our oil would have been loaded onto tankers and exported around the world. The development of a safe and efficient means of transporting our oil to the coast would have led to an economic boom in northern British Columbia, as it has in Vancouver and along the east coast. In those waters, tankers have operated safely for decades. The export of our oil would have strengthened Canada's economy by diversifying our market in the Asia-Pacific region. It would have ensured future economic stability, and it was cancelled because of politics.

Under the previous Conservative government, and through the National Energy Board, Canada had an impartial, evidence-based system that based its decisions on the viability of a project via a rigorous set of tests. These tests reviewed everything from the safety of the project to its environmental footprint to its economic impact and to its effect on our first nation communities.

The northern gateway project passed the first phase in that assessment before it was ended due to a short-sighted election promise by the Prime Minister. His action was not based on any science, but entirely on partisanship. Under the regime of Bill C-48, such a project will now be impossible.

Despite what the Liberals may say, this bill is not really about the environment. To be clear, the bill does not actually do what the Liberals claim it does. Bill C-48 does not ban tanker traffic along our coast, but merely the loading and unloading of oil tankers at our northern B.C. ports, which is currently not happening. Tankers will still operate 100 kilometres from shore, as they always have. The bill will do nothing to reduce the risk of oil spills. Quite frankly, it is 20 pages of empty symbolism on the environment, but with a real impact on the future of our Canadian economy.

In contrast to this empty symbolism, the previous Conservative government strengthened Canada's environmental regime by creating a world-class tanker safety system, including modernizing our navigation system, building marine safety capacity in first nation communities, and ensuring that any polluters pay for the clean-up and environmental impact of spills and damages.

The Conservatives pursued environmental protections based on the facts. Using those facts, we enacted real change that would protect our natural wonders, both now and tomorrow, and we achieved all of that without destroying future prosperity.

It would seem that the Prime Minister is not actually serious about reducing the impact of pollution on our planet. If he were serious about reducing pollution, he would do everything in his power to ensure that whenever possible, Canadian oil replaces oil from countries that have less stringent environmental protection regimes.

The fact is Canadian producers are subject to far more oversight and regulation. Environmental standards in Canada are much higher than the majority of other oil-producing nations'. Our oil production sites are cleaner. Our air is cleaner. This is no random accident. It is a consequence of our strong standards. Canada is a world leader on clean oil production and has been for decades.

Instead of basing their decision on these facts, the Liberals prioritize their anti-oil bias over science, over evidence and, most importantly, over people. That is what the bill is about. It is actually about people.

For no discernible reason, with no due diligence, the Liberals are damaging Canada's economic security. The hundreds of thousands of middle-class Canadians who work or hope to work in the oil and gas sector will see this news as another blow to their future prosperity.

This is not only about Canadians who work directly in this sector, nor is it simply an issue in western Canada. The implications of this legislation along with the partisan decision to end northern gateway will not only be felt in western Canada. It will be felt by Canadians from coast to coast to coast. At least 670,000 Canadians are employed directly or indirectly by our oil and gas sectors. Over 80,000 of them call Ontario home. Over 25,000 are Québecois. This sector is Canada's largest private industry investor.

The Liberals unilateral symbolic decision to ban tanker traffic on British Columbia's northern coast will be felt all the way to the St. Lawrence River and beyond. These businesses employ middle-class Canadians who have become constant targets of the Liberal government. They are already preparing to deal with the unfair tax hikes proposed by the Prime Minister, which will damage our competitiveness worldwide. They will be further disheartened to see yet another opportunity ripped from their grasp by the Liberal government.

If I did not know better, I might think the Liberal government is intentionally sabotaging Canadian jobs.

Perhaps the hardest hit in all of this are our first nations. With the tanker ban, and before that the cancellation of northern gateway, first nations in British Columbia and Alberta are losing out on an estimated $2 billion equity windfall. Thirty-one first nations equity partners supported northern gateway, holding a 30% stake in the project. Those first nations knew that the pipeline would bring jobs to their communities and they hoped that prosperity would follow. Without any consultation, the Prime Minister took that opportunity from them. The Prime Minister's symbolic ban on tanker traffic and cancellation of northern gateway will have real effects on real people.

Millions of dollars that could have gone to first nation communities and the families they represent will now never reach them. The affected communities could have used this money for schools, housing, infrastructure, job creation, or any of a hundred other purposes. But no, that will not happen, all because the Prime Minister does not like the oil sands. Perhaps if some of the money from northern gateway went to building sheds to store canoes, the Prime Minister would have supported it.

I must again draw members' attention to what this legislation would really do, or rather what it would not do. Nowhere does this legislation actually ban tankers from operating off of our west coast. Nowhere does it add anything to our already stringent environmental standards. Nowhere does it reduce risks.

Originally I thought I was only going to have 10 minutes to speak to the bill, but apparently it is up to Conservative members to carry the day on so many of the pieces of legislation the government has been introducing. Members of the Liberal Party, the NDP, the Green Party, and even the Bloc may have an opportunity to pose many questions of those of us who are participating in this debate.

While I do not have a crystal ball, I have a premonition that their questions to me will revolve around four topics. I think the first topic will be on the environment.

As I have said, Bill C-48 would do nothing for the preservation of British Columbia's environment. Ships, including U.S. tankers travelling from Alaska to Washington State, would continue to be able to travel up and down the coast just outside the 100-kilometre limit I mentioned. As I said, this is a pipeline moratorium under a different name.

Further, Canadian oil is extracted and transported under some of the safest and most environmentally strict regulations in the world. Preventing our Canadian oil resources from reaching customers in other countries only serves to proliferate the use of all products extracted and transported in a less safe and environmentally-friendly way. The strange contradiction we see with the Liberals, NDPs, Greens, and Bloc's views on Canadian oil is that their opposition to it defeats their supposed greater goal of protecting the world's environment.

The second question I anticipate from Liberal members in this place will be around the fact that this promise was contained in the Liberals' 2015 election platform.

The Liberals' 2015 election platform is basically a list of broken promises. The Liberal platform was not worth the paper on which it was printed. We have seen considerable willingness, if not eagerness, on the part of the Liberal government to break promises made in its election platform.

I will highlight a few of the broken promises from the Liberals' election platform.

First, there was a commitment to run only modest deficits of $10 billion. Well, we now know that promise was a complete joke. The Liberal government blew past that proposed limit faster than the Road Runner.

Then we had the disingenuous and overreaching promise that 2015 would be the last election under first past the post system. It is amazing when we think about the absolute arrogance that was embedded in that promise.

The third topic I anticipate members of the other parties will pose to me will be around the opinions of first nations. I know I touched upon this, but it bears repeating.

There is considerable support among first nations on B.C.'s coast for energy development opportunities. In fact, it is not just on B.C.'s coast. According to the Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde, 500 of the 630 first nations across Canada are open to pipeline and petroleum development on their land.

As I mentioned, 31 first nations were equity partners, holding a 30% financial position in the northern gateway pipeline project. For the Liberals to move forward with this tanker moratorium without properly consulting coastal first nations is absolutely hypocritical. We know they did not consult because we know this was in the minister's mandate letter. He was directed to put this moratorium in place without any consultation. The Liberals only consult when it is to get the result they seek. They have no interest in dissenting or contrary views.

Finally, we have the Liberal government's much aligned proposals on open and transparent government. I could go on, but I do not want to use the rest of my time embarrassing the government with these facts.

To conclude on this point, to say their platform commitments are binding would be the height of hypocrisy from the Liberals.

The final subject on which I anticipate members of the other parties to pose questions to me on probably will revolve around pipelines or pipeline approvals. As I said earlier, this is not a tanker moratorium bill; this is a pipeline moratorium bill. The Prime Minister and the Government of Canada must champion pipeline development or pipeline projects will never be completed.

Approving one pipeline but not the other is only a partial solution to improving market access for western Canada's energy producers. Additionally, pipelines are the safest means of transporting oil that is already being produced and moved, yet is appears the Liberals and NDP would rather it be moved in a less safe manner.

The bill would only serve to undercut the future prosperity of Canadians in Quebec, British Columbia, first nation communities, and all throughout our country. I am left with only one question. Why does the Prime Minister care more about empty symbolism than about the prosperity of Canada's middle class?

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

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to express my support for this worthy legislation, one of many components of our oceans protection plan. Bill C-48, an act to establish an oil tanker moratorium on British Columbia's north coast, the latest in a suite of actions to protect British Columbia's Pacific coastline, would advance our transportation 2030 vision to safeguard Canada's waterways and three ocean coasts.

The Government of Canada recognizes that the health and well-being of our oceans are vital for our communities, our environment, our economy, and the well-being of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Canada has the longest coastline in the world, and it is critical that those vast stretches of coastline and marine environments are well protected to ensure that our oceans continue to support a rich variety of sea life. Our oceans also play an important role in Canada's economy, facilitating the movement of goods and people to other destinations and enabling the trade that our high standard of living depends upon.

We fully understand how important it is to improve marine safety and to protect the marine environment while fostering a climate that supports Canadian trade and economic objectives. That is why the creation of a world-leading marine safety system is a central plank in our government's $1.5-billion oceans protection plan. It will help ensure that future generations of Canadians continue to benefit from abundant fisheries, tourism, traditional indigenous and community livelihoods, and global trade.

To develop this plan, the Government of Canada undertook extensive consultations with Canadians all across the country on how to best improve marine safety and formalize an oil tanker moratorium. This included consultations with indigenous groups, stakeholders from the marine industry and the oil and gas sector, environmental groups, and other levels of government. Their perspectives informed the parameters of the moratorium outlined in Bill C-48.

The proposed oil tanker moratorium is just one of several crucial and complementary measures this government is taking to protect our coastlines and our oceans. The oceans protection plan will build a world-leading marine safety system that will increase responsible shipping and protect Canada's waters, including new preventive and response measures.

We are also taking steps to preserve and restore marine ecosystems and habitats using new tools and research. To support this work, we are building a stronger evidence base, supported by science and local knowledge. We are investing in oil spill cleanup research and methods to ensure that decisions taken in emergencies are evidence-based. We are strengthening partnerships with indigenous and coastal communities to benefit from local knowledge of the region and to build local emergency response capacity.

These efforts and actions are national in scope, so let me focus on a few specific measures designed to protect British Columbia's northern coast.

I remind my hon. colleagues that our government has instituted a concentrated campaign to inspect tugs and barges in the province. The aim of the campaign is to ensure that tugs and barges, including those engaged in community and industry re-supply, comply with all safety regulations.

Preventing accidents from occurring in the first place really is our primary goal, and this is the rationale behind the concrete steps being taken by our government to build a strong prevention regime that enhances marine safety. For example, we will be providing mariners, indigenous groups, and coastal communities in British Columbia with improved marine traffic and navigation information. This will include designing new information-sharing systems and platforms so that they have access to real-time information on marine shipping activities in local waters. We want to provide maritime situational awareness—who is doing what and where—in a user-friendly way that meets their needs.

A new program will fund initiatives to test new ways to bring local marine traffic information to indigenous and local communities from existing open-source information from ports, the Canadian Coast Guard, and other government systems. This will not only prevent accidents but also give indigenous groups and local communities a meaningful role in responsible shipping.

The oceans protection plan is also making investments so that a quick and adequate response can be mounted when incidents occur. This will mean enhanced search and rescue capabilities in British Columbia, including four new lifeboat stations, and improved communication capacity.

The Canadian Coast Guard will be increasing its towing capacity by equipping its large vessels with towing kits. It also will lease two large vessels on the B.C. coast capable of towing large commercial ships that are in distress and pose a hazard to navigation and to the marine environment. This will improve Canada's ability to effectively respond to incidents, which will ultimately save lives and protect the environment.

Beyond protecting marine ecosystems, our government is committed to restoring them. We will establish coastal zone plans and identify restoration priorities that will engage indigenous communities as well as local groups and communities.

Furthermore, we are working to understand the threat of marine transportation to marine mammals and will examine how to diminish these effects, such as understanding how to reduce the threat whales face from noise and potential collisions with commercial traffic along the B.C. coast. The government will also fund research on the impact of increased shipping on marine ecosystems, which will better position us to protect these mammals.

Strengthening partnerships with indigenous and coastal communities is a key element of the oceans protection plan. With the plan, as well as the oil tanker moratorium, B.C. indigenous communities will have peace of mind that there is the highest level of protection possible on their coast, and they will have a real opportunity to be partners in the marine safety regime. This means being offered training in search and rescue missions, environmental monitoring, and emergency spill response. It also means that our government will work with indigenous and coastal communities to create regional response plans for the west coast and to pursue shared leadership opportunities in other areas. As one example, this might mean creating local traffic management areas to minimize safety risks and environmental impacts.

Ensuring that indigenous groups play a leading role in decision-making processes is a major goal of the oceans protection plan. We have demonstrated this commitment with the new Pacific region places-of-refuge contingency plan, which was developed in collaboration with the Council of the Haida Nation and other provincial and federal partners. We are proving that working together, we can more effectively manage and protect our marine environment across Canada.

By formalizing an oil tanker moratorium on the north coast of British Columbia, the government would be delivering on the commitment to develop a world-leading marine safety system, one that would meet or surpass the marine safety practices of other nations.

By collaborating with the provinces, indigenous groups, environmental NGOs, and other interested stakeholders, I am confident that we have found an approach that demonstrates that a clean environment and a strong economy can go hand in hand. In the same way, members on this side of the House want to work with all our parliamentary colleagues to enhance marine safety and protect the environment to promote responsible and sustainable economic growth.

I hope I can count on all-party support for Bill C-48, which would help protect the northern British Columbia coastline for the benefit of generations to come.

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kanata—Carleton.

It is indeed an honour to be a member of Parliament from British Columbia and to be able to stand in this House in support 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.

Residents and communities on Canada's west coast have been working toward this legislation for years, as reflected in the comments made by my colleague, the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam. It is a key aspect of actions our government is taking to protect British Columbia's Pacific coastline and to advance our transportation 2030 vision to protect Canada's waterways and three ocean coasts.

The Government of Canada recognizes that the health and well-being of our oceans is vital for our communities, our environment, our economy, and the well-being of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Canada has the largest coastline in the world, and it is critical that these vast stretches of coastline and marine environment be well protected to ensure that our oceans can continue to support a rich variety of sea life, and our lives too. We are all one.

Our oceans play an important role in Canada's economy, facilitating the movements of goods and people and enabling trade to protect our high standard of living. It was a distinct pleasure for me to attend recently at the expansion of the Port of Prince Rupert, for example, with the Minister of International Trade. The head of the Indiana railway said to me, “There isn't a shipper in Indiana that doesn't know the Port of Prince Rupert.”

That goes to show how integrated Canada's transport system really is.

In full respect for the importance of trade, British Columbians and Canadians are passionate about the importance of marine safety and protecting the marine environment, which is exactly why the creation of a world-leading marine safety system is central to our government's $1.5 billion oceans protection plan. This will ensure that future generations of Canadians will continue to share and benefit from fisheries, tourism, and traditional indigenous and community livelihoods and knowledge, as well as global trade.

To develop this plan, the Government of Canada undertook extensive consultations with Canadians across the country on how best to improve marine safety and formalize an oil tanker moratorium. This included discussions with indigenous peoples, stakeholders from the marine industry, the oil and gas sector, environmental groups, and all levels of government. These perspectives informed the measures of the moratorium outlined in Bill C-48 today.

I am very proud of the work that many in my riding and throughout British Columbia did to get us here today.

The proposed oil tanker moratorium is just one of several crucial and complementary measures this government is taking to protect our coastlines and oceans. The oceans protection plan will build a world-leading marine safety system that increases responsible shipping and protects Canada's waters, and it includes new preventive and response measures.

We are also taking steps to preserve and restore marine ecosystems and habitats by using new tools and research. To support this work, we are building a stronger evidence base, supported by science and local knowledge. We are investing in oil spill cleanup research and methods to ensure that decisions taken in emergencies are based on the best information possible.

We are strengthening partnerships with indigenous and coastal communities to benefit from local knowledge of the region and to build local emergency response capacity.

These efforts and actions are national in scope, but I would like to be permitted to focus on specific measures designed to protect British Columbia's northern coast.

I would like to remind my hon. colleagues that our government has instituted a concentrated campaign to inspect tugs and barges in the province to ensure that tugs and barges, including those working in community and industry re-supply, comply with all safety regulations.

Preventing accidents from occurring in the first place is our primary goal. This is the main idea behind the steps our government is taking to build a strong prevention regime that enhances marine safety.

For example, we will be providing mariners, indigenous groups, and coastal communities in British Columbia with improved marine traffic and navigation information. This includes designing new information-sharing systems and platforms so they have access to real-time information on marine shipping activities in local waters.

We want to provide maritime situational awareness of who is doing what, and where—which is easier said than done—in a user-friendly way to benefit the safety and protection of British Columbia's coastline.

A first-of-its-kind program will fund initiatives to test new ways to bring local marine traffic information to indigenous and local communities from existing open source information from ports, the Canadian Coast Guard, and other government systems. This will not only help to prevent accidents but will also engage indigenous peoples and local communities with a real, important, and vital role in ensuring responsible shipping.

The oceans protection plan is also making investments so that a proactive, timely, and effective response can be mounted when incidents occur. This would mean enhanced search and rescue capabilities in British Columbia, including four new lifeboat stations and improved communication capacity. The Canadian Coast Guard would be increasing its towing capacity by equipping its large vessels with towing kits. It would also lease two large vessels on the B.C. coast capable of towing large commercial ships that are in distress and pose a hazard to navigation and the marine environment. This would improve Canada's ability to effectively respond to incidents, save lives, and protect the environment.

Beyond protecting marine ecosystems, our government is committed to restoring them. We would establish coastal zone plans and identify restoration priorities that would engage indigenous communities as well as local groups. Furthermore, we are working to understand the threat marine transportation poses to marine mammals and we will examine how to diminish these effects—for instance, by understanding how to reduce the threat whales face from noise and potential collisions from commercial traffic along the B.C. coast. The government would also fund research on the impacts of increased shipping on marine ecosystems, which would better position us to protect these mammals.

Strengthening partnerships with indigenous and coastal communities is a key element of the oceans protection plan. With the plan, as well as the oil tanker moratorium, B.C. indigenous communities would know that there is the highest level of protection possible on their coasts and that they will have a real opportunity to be partners in the marine safety regime. This means taking training in search and rescue missions, environmental monitoring, and emergency spill response. It also means that our government would work with indigenous and coastal communities to create regional response plans for the west coast and pursue shared leadership opportunities in other areas. As one example, this might mean creating local traffic management areas to minimize safety risks and environmental impacts.

Ensuring that indigenous groups play a leading role in decision-making processes is also a major goal of the oceans protection plan. We have demonstrated this commitment with the new Pacific region place of refuge contingency plan, which was developed in collaboration with the Council of the Haida Nation and provincial and federal partners.

We believe that we are demonstrating that by working together, we can more effectively manage and protect our marine environment across Canada. By formalizing an oil tanker moratorium on the north coast of British Columbia, the government is delivering on our commitment to develop a world-leading marine safety system, one that will meet or surpass the marine safety practices of other countries. I am confident that by collaborating with the provinces, indigenous groups, environmental NGOs, and other interested stakeholders, we have found an approach that demonstrates that a healthy environment and a strong economy can go hand in hand.

On a more personal note, I would like to say that it is a testament to the people of British Columbia that we are at second reading for an oil tanker moratorium act, and we are very grateful for the leadership of the Minister of Transport, his parliamentary secretary, and his collaborators in cabinet.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favour 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.

Legislating the prior informal ban has been a policy objective of Canada's NDP for many years, which received support from Liberal MPs, particularly on the west coast.

The history of Bill C-48 has been quite the legislative roller coaster. Multiple private members' bills have been tabled to protect the north coast, but none became law.

In 2001, Bill C-571 was introduced by an NDP MP. In 2009, Bill C-458 was introduced by an NDP MP. In 2010, Bill C-606 was introduced by a Liberal MP. In 2011, I introduced Bill C-211. In 2012, Bill C-437 was introduced by a Liberal MP. In 2014, Bill C-628 was introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

In 2010, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley moved a north coast tanker ban motion, which passed in the House 143 to 138, with the support of all parties in the House, except Conservative minority government members who voted against it.

Now, here we are finally debating a bill that would protect the north coast from crude oil tanker traffic for good. The New Democrats welcome the legislation, but we do so with caution. We are concerned that Bill C-48 would give the minister of transport too much arbitrary power to exempt vessels from the legislation and the power to define what fuels would be exempt from the act. We hope the government will implement constructive amendments to limit ministerial power and increase oil spill response resources beyond its ocean protection plan commitments to respond to spills from refined oil vessels not covered by this ban.

Our NDP caucus, local first nations, municipal governments, trade unions, environmental NGOs, grassroots activists, and concerned citizens have over the years increased the call for this ban due to the environmental threat posed by the northern gateway pipeline project.

Northern gateway would have meant the annual passage of 225 supertankers bigger than the Empire State building, which would carry three times as much oil as the Exxon Valdez did before its catastrophic spill into similar waters. Cleanup and coastal recovery for the Exxon Valdez spill cost about $9.5 billion, of which Exxon paid only $3.5 billion. Twenty-five years after that spill, fish habitat and stocks still have not fully recovered. I shake my head in disbelief that so many MPs in the House still think the northern gateway pipeline project would have been a net benefit to Canada.

It is equally galling that our last government ripped up essential environmental laws and undermined the National Energy Board process in order to rubberstamp this pipeline project and others like it. As a result, we are still living with the short-sighted rip and ship mentality for Canada.

It was this short-sighted economic vision that disregarded the crown's obligation to our first nation's people. Canadians still remember how in December, 2013, despite overwhelming opposition from British Columbians and first nations, the National Energy Board recommended approval of the project, along with its 209 conditions. British Columbians showed their resolve to defend our coast by creating a broad-based movement of resistance, which today has shifted its focus to the Liberal's Kinder Morgan pipeline project expansion.

The defenders of our coast were vindicated in January 2016 when the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the Province of B.C. “has breached the honour of the Crown by failing to consult” with the Gitga'at and other coastal first nations on the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline project.

Not considering the environmental dangers of a pipeline through northern B.C. was a grave mistake. A large spill would be a disaster for the north coast. In particular, a supertanker oil spill could deal a serious blow to our already struggling wild salmon.

In British Columbia, our wild salmon are considered an iconic species, an integral part of our identity. They are a keynote species that delivers nutrients deep into the forests when they die. They are a major part of what makes the Great Bear Rainforest so great. Salmon support first nations communities, coastal communities, and are an integral part of our west coast economy.

The waters off British Columbia's north coast are a significant salmon migration route, with millions of salmon coming from the more than 650 streams and rivers along the coast. The impacts of a single oil spill would be devastating.

The commercial fishery on the north coast catches over $100 million worth of fish annually. Over 2,500 residents along B.C.'s north coast work in the commercial fishery. The fish processing industry employs thousands more.

The magnificent beauty of this region and the abundance of salmon have made it a world-renowned destination for ecotourism. The tourism industry has been a major catalyst for employment, economic growth, and opportunity in British Columbia. Businesses in this region have worked hard to promote their location as a major tourist destination.

As other resource-based jobs have taken a hit, tourism has provided a much-needed economic boost. The west coast wilderness tourism industry is now estimated to be worth over $782 million annually, employing some 26,000 people full-time and roughly 40,000 people in total. People from all over the world come to the north coast to witness the annual migration of the more than 20,000 gray whales and northern killer whales.

The shoreline is dotted with sports fishing lodges, as fishing enthusiasts flock to experience the natural marine environment and wild ocean and take part in the world famous fishery. People are often left awestruck after spending even a day kayaking, bear watching, or enjoying a guided trip showcasing the majestic west coast. They come to photograph sea otters and bald eagles, and to experience in some cases the untouched natural environment of the Pacific coast.

This legislated crude oil tanker ban will help protect the Great Bear Rainforest and Gwuii Haanas marine conservation parks. These two protected areas have incredible biological diversity that all parties in the House agree should be protected. They contain many species of concern like iconic killer whales, grizzly bears, bald eagles, and Pacific salmon. With so much at stake for our economy and our ecology, we are happy that Bill C-48 legislates an end to the threat posed by projects like northern gateway, but are also disappointed that the bill does not protect B.C.'s coast outright from oil tanker spills.

Limiting tankers to more than 12,500 tonnes of crude oil on the north coast of Canada appears arbitrary and dangerously high. I encourage the government to make public the past and current oil shipment information for this region and provide a rationale for the 12,500 tonne threshold, including the types of vessels or shipments it will include or exclude. There is no reason to impede necessary vessels that help our coastal communities thrive, but clarity is required to ensure a proper threshold so as not to cause undue risk.

The bill makes exceptions for refined oil products like diesel, gasoline, and propane in order for coastal communities to be resupplied and to support value-added petroleum industries. While most of this is understandable, it means the bill does nothing to protect our coast from refined oil spills that could impact marine environments and disrupt valuable ecosystems.

The recent Nathan E. Stewart disaster shows just how big a threat refined oil spills can be. It demonstrates the need for increased oil spill response funding and training on the north coast and increased oil spill prevention measures for refined oil vessels.

For those needing a reminder, the Nathan E. Stewart ran aground in the early hours of October 13, 2016, near Bella Bella, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, spilling toxic diesel into critical fishing areas off B.C.'s central coast. The vessel eventually sank, spilling as much as 110,000 litres of diesel into the marine environment. Cleanup efforts were repeatedly hampered by bad weather and the vessel was not recovered until more than a month after it sank. Good thing the Nathan E. Stewart was not at maximum fuel capacity. The damage would have been even worse.

A Transportation Safety Board investigation showed spill response was inadequate, including slow response time, insufficient and ineffective equipment, a lack of safety gear, and confusion about who was in charge. First nations leaders were outraged at the government's slow and inadequate spill response. This bill would do nothing to ban vessels like the Nathan E. Stewart from carrying the amount of fuel that it did. We must learn from this disaster to prevent such accidents, and to ensure that, if they do occur, coastal communities are better equipped to quickly respond. We are encouraged to see investments in spill response as part of the government's much-touted oceans protection plan. However, these investments alone are simply inadequate.

It is discouraging that despite the NDP's objections, the government closed three integral marine communications and traffic services centres on B.C.'s coast, which undermines the ability of a speedy spill response. Justine Hunter of The Globe and Mail wrote:

The MCTS is responsible for monitoring distress calls, co-ordinating responses, and taking action to ensure the safe and efficient movement of vessels in Canadian waters. However, with only two MCTS officers responsible for monitoring a vast stretch of B.C.'s coast, from north of Vancouver Island to the Alaskan border and including the inside passage, a source with knowledge of the situation says there was little chance that anyone would have spotted the doomed course of the tug, charted in real time on marine traffic maps through its Automatic Identification System transponder.

The best spill response plans include spill prevention plans and, sadly, the current government is moving in the wrong direction. B.C.'s MCTS centres deal with an incredible volume of marine traffic. By consolidating MCTS resources into only two centres, Prince Rupert and Victoria, the government has increased the number of vessels that our already overworked Coast Guard staff have to monitor and has opened up the system to new failures. Marine vessels continue to report that communications systems regularly go down, leaving vessels without Coast Guard contact. It was short-sighted to close the Comox MCTS centre, removing much-needed resources along our coast who have local knowledge and monitoring capacity. The most troubling aspect of Bill C-48 is that it would allow the Minister of Transport to make exceptions for indeterminate lengths of time without public review or comment.

Gavin Smith of West Coast Environmental Law said:

Section 6(1) of Bill C-48 allows the Minister, by order, to exempt identified oil tankers from the ban on any terms and for any period of time. Moreover, section 6(2) says that the Statutory Instruments Act does not apply to such exemption orders, which removes requirements that such exemption orders be published and made easily available for public inspection.

This provision, if used to its full extent, could allow wide-scale and long-term exemptions from the oil tanker ban to be ordered behind closed doors without opportunity for public review and input, effectively gutting the purpose of the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act. The need for this provision is unclear given that Bill C-48 already includes sensible exemptions from the oil tanker ban for vessels in various forms of distress (e.g. to ensure the safety of the vessel, for medical emergencies, or to render assistance to another vessel in distress), as well as vessels under the control of the Minister of National Defence. It is even more puzzling that the government has proposed excluding such exemption orders from the application of the Statutory Instruments Act, which effectively makes them less public.

Canada's New Democrats agree. The powers given to the minister in this bill would undermine its positive aspects. The minister's power to exempt ships for indeterminate amounts of time if deemed in the public interest is far too broad. There should be time limits on exemptions and opportunities for public comment on any long-term exemptions. This should also apply to the regulatory authority to add or remove fuel types that count under the ban.

Bill C-48 has loopholes large enough to drive an oil tanker through. Ministerial discretion has been used by the Liberal government and others to circumvent the positive aspects of this bill. There is no need to continue this pattern of letting industry circumvent Canada's environmental laws without constraint or review.

This bill is a positive development for British Columbians and Canadians, but it can be improved. It protects what we hold dear and takes us a step closer to a different vision of development on Canada's west coast. However, with the ability to veto protection for destructive megaprojects, the bill still leaves B.C.'s north coast vulnerable.

We ask the government to listen to first nations, NGOs, and coastal communities to close the gaps in Bill C-48 and truly protect the assets of the Pacific north coast.

The House resumed consideration of the motion 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 second time and referred to a committee.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of course I am here to talk about the moratorium bill, Bill C-48. I am very proud that it covers the regions from the United States-Canada border in the north right down to the point that is roughly aligned with the northern tip of Vancouver Island. This is a pristine area for which we promised we would establish a moratorium for tanker traffic, and we are keeping that promise.

British Columbia's economy and environment are important along its entire coast. That is why we are particularly proud of having brought in the oceans protection plan, which will put in place world-leading marine safety measures to ensure that the economic development of British Columbia continues but does so with an eye to ensuring the highest levels of environmental safety.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, legislation has been coming fast and furious from this minister, and I can imagine that he wants to get something done so that the Liberals can say their government actually accomplished some of the things that they promised to do. However, this would be one promise that we ask the government to think very carefully about.

As the minister noted, currently there is a voluntary moratorium on tanker traffic. It has been in place since the 1980s and it covers the area that would be affected by this bill. Regardless of whether one philosophically agrees with this voluntary moratorium, it appears to have been working. Since Bill C-48 would do nothing to change the current situation in regard to tanker traffic travelling up and down B.C.'s coast, why is the minister wasting the House's time with this smokescreen of a bill?

[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 second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, the 400 kilometre stretch of coastal temperate rainforest running along British Columbia's northern coast is one of nature's truly spectacular sites. It is beloved by all Canadians and global visitors who share their determination to preserve and protect this land from potential oil spills. I am here today to speak to the proposed legislation designed to do just that. It is my pleasure to outline the rationale for, and benefits of, Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act. In addition, the proposed act fulfills our government's pledge to formalize an oil tanker moratorium on British Columbia's north coast.

Canada has a robust marine safety regime and a strong track record of marine safety. An oil tanker moratorium has been proposed and discussed by the Canadian public and in the House of Commons, by all parties, for years. I am proud that this government is delivering on important environmental protections for the coastline around Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound.

The proposed oil tanker moratorium act would take concrete action to address these risks. This legislation covers all ports and marine installations located in northern British Columbia. The moratorium area would extend from our border with the United States in the north, down to the point on British Columbia's mainland adjacent to the northern tip of Vancouver Island. The area also includes Haida Gwaii. In keeping with our government's commitment, we would protect the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound from a major oil spill.

At the core of the legislation are prohibitions on oil tankers carrying large volumes of crude oil or persistent oil. Oil tankers with more than 12,500 metric tonnes of crude oil or persistent oil on board as cargo would not be permitted to stop at ports or marine installations within this area. Oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tonnes of crude or persistent oil as cargo would also be prohibited from loading or unloading any crude or persistent oil at a port or marine installation within this area.

In addition, the bill would prohibit what the maritime industry calls ship-to-ship transfers in an attempt to circumvent the moratorium. By this I mean that smaller vessels would not be permitted to load up with crude oil or persistent oil and transport it to or from a large oil tanker.

That said, these changes would not affect community and industry resupply. We have listened to the concerns of local communities. Many rely on some of these oils for heating and local industries. We also recognize that many communities are inaccessible by road or rail and can only receive these oils by ship, including the communities on Haida Gwaii.

I want to be clear. To accommodate community and industry resupply, this legislation would not prohibit shipments of crude oil or persistent oil below 12,500 metric tonnes. This threshold would allow existing resupply shipments to north coast communities and industries to continue.

These comprehensive measures are the result of extensive consultations on the moratorium. We listened closely to Canadians and came to the conclusion that a precautionary approach to the products included in the moratorium is crucial. Accordingly, we have included both crude oils and persistent oils.

To provide clarity, crude oil is defined in the legislation. It is based on the definition used in an important international maritime convention, namely the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. This definition will be familiar to individuals working in the shipping industry.

Persistent oils are those oils that are heavier and stickier. When these oils are spilled, they tend to break up and dissipate more slowly, fouling birds, wildlife, and shorelines. These oils include partially upgraded bitumen, synthetic crude oil, and marine diesel oil, among others.

I think you can understand our decision to include them. These persistent oils were identified using an internationally recognized test for persistence that is based on boiling-point range and are listed in a schedule to the act.

As members know, the Government of Canada takes environmental protection and public safety very seriously. This proposed legislation, which complements our larger strategy to promote marine safety and coastal protection under the oceans protection plan, confirms it.

The oceans protection plan would create a world-leading marine safety system, which would do more to prevent damaging incidents and be better able to respond quickly and efficiently in the unlikely event of a crisis. As part of this plan, we are investing in new preventative and response measures to better protect our waters and coasts. This includes oil spill cleanup, and science and technology.

With the breakneck pace of technological evolution, there may well be advances in oil spill science and technology in the future. Understanding this, amendments to the schedule on persistent oils could be undertaken under Bill C-48. Any such changes would follow a review that would consider the fate and behaviour of oil products in water and the state of cleanup technology.

Environmental safety and science will always be the main considerations in revising the product list. Any amendment to the schedule to add or remove a product would be made by the Governor in Council.

To reinforce just how seriously we take these matters, the oil tanker moratorium act also includes reporting requirements and stiff penalties in the event of contraventions. Oil tankers capable of carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of oil will be required to report pre-arrival information on the cargo they are carrying, or picking up, from a port or marine installation located within the moratorium area.

This information must be submitted 24 hours before calling at our ports or marine installations. This requirement will ensure we know the types and quantities of oil travelling in our waters.

I want to reassure shippers that the reporting burden will be kept to a minimum by aligning requirements with existing reporting processes. The only additional requirement will be for oil tankers capable of carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of oil to report the specific type of oil being carried and the amount of this product that will be loaded or unloaded at a marine installation in northern British Columbia.

Make no mistake. If there is any concern, the government will have strong directive and inspection powers. Oil tankers can be directed to provide more information. They also can be directed not to come into a port or marine installation in northern British Columbia if it is believed they do not comply with this reporting requirement. Transport Canada has trained, professional marine inspectors already working on the north coast of British Columbia who enforce our existing marine legislation. These inspectors will carry out new enforcement activities under the proposed oil tanker moratorium act.

The powers these inspectors will have under this act are similar to the authorities they have under existing marine legislation, such as the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, and environmental protection legislation, such as the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. If necessary, these inspectors will have the authority to board an oil tanker and take samples or conduct tests on the oil to verify compliance with the act. If a marine inspector has reasonable grounds to believe the legislation has been violated, the inspector can have the oil tanker detained while an investigation is launched.

Safety is our top priority. Lest anyone doubt that, consider just how seriously we will treat violations. There are strong penalties if an oil tanker is found to have committed an offence under this act. We are supporting this moratorium with an enforcement regime that could result in fines of up to $5 million for offenders.

These strong measures are what Canadians want and expect.

The measures of the oil tanker moratorium act that I have described today were very much informed by the voices of Canadians. Beginning in January 2016, I undertook a series of engagement sessions with Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I did this to listen to their concerns and views on how to improve marine safety in Canada and how to formalize an oil tanker moratorium, two of my priorities as the Minister of Transport.

I met with indigenous groups all along the north coast of British Columbia, as well as inland indigenous groups. I also met with environmental non-governmental organizations, the marine and resource industries, and communities from across Canada. Participants welcomed us into their communities to discuss a broad range of marine transportation issues. Many more citizens across Canada logged on to our website to leave comments on the oil tanker moratorium.

They had a lot to say. Individuals and communities want to be more engaged in our marine safety system. They want more information on the products being moved in our waters. I also heard how coastal indigenous groups are often first on the scene in responding to marine emergencies and that if they had better equipment and training, they could reduce the potential impact of marine emergencies or pollution incidents, such as an oil spill.

People also offered their ideas on the moratorium boundaries, the oil products to be prohibited, and the types of vessels that should be covered by the moratorium. I met with colleagues from provincial and municipal governments as well to hear their views on improving marine safety and formalizing a tanker moratorium. We discussed ways to strengthen our partnership to benefit the economy and the environment, because we share a common goal to keep our economy strong and to protect the environment and we understand that marine safety is a precondition to sustainable economic development. We all recognize that it is vital to deliver our products to global markets to improve the economic prospects for middle-class Canadians and to receive goods from all four corners of the world that Canadian consumers depend on. We also realize that it is equally crucial that those products be shipped in an environmentally responsible way. Canadians have been clear that they expect no less, and I could not agree more.

This act is part of our larger plan to protect our coasts—to ensure they remain clean and safe, vibrant and diverse, accessible and sustainable—while growing our economy.

Our government has introduced a suite of measures to protect Canada's coasts and waterways. The moratorium complements existing measures, such as the voluntary tanker exclusion zone on the west coast of Canada.

The exclusion zone is a voluntary agreement between Canada and the United States that has been in place since the 1980s. Oil tankers full of crude oil that are transiting between Alaska and Washington or California must transit west of the zone boundary. The zone boundary extends up to 70 nautical miles offshore and then narrows to about 25 nautical miles around the Juan de Fuca Strait as oil tankers enter U.S. waters.

Laden oil tankers stay west of this boundary to protect the environment and coastline should one of these oil tankers become disabled. Transiting west of the tanker exclusion zone allows emergency response services to assist a disabled oil tanker before it can get close to shore.

This has been a successful measure that, every year, keeps approximately 300 laden crude oil tankers at a safe distance from Canadian shores. While the tanker exclusion zone is voluntary, our monitoring indicates that it is being fully observed by all American tankers.

In addition, as I noted earlier, this past fall our government announced that it would be investing in a $1.5-billion comprehensive national oceans protection plan. This plan has four priority areas.

First, the government of Canada will create a world-leading marine safety system that improves responsible shipping and protects Canada’s waters. World-leading means the system will meet or exceed the best practices in the world. This area focuses on both prevention and response measures.

Second, our government is focusing on the preservation and restoration of marine ecosystems and habitats. This is being done using new tools and research, as well as measures to address abandoned and derelict vessels and wrecks.

The third priority is building and strengthening partnerships with indigenous and coastal communities. The government is helping to build local capacity so that indigenous groups play a meaningful role in emergency response and waterway management.

Finally, this government will ensure that Canada’s marine safety system is built on a stronger evidence base supported by science and local knowledge.

Canadians are blessed with some of the most spectacular coastlines in the world, places of raw beauty and ecological diversity. Our new oceans protection plan would safeguard our coastlines and marine environment so that iconic places like British Columbia's northern coastline remain proud elements of our national identity that can be enjoyed today and for generations to come. Once passed by Parliament, our oil tanker moratorium act would provide important environmental protection for British Columbia's north coast, something many Canadians have sought for years.

I am proud to lead this initiative, and I want to extend my thanks to my colleagues who have contributed to it: the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Minister of Natural Resources, and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. I am sure that they join me in calling for a constructive debate on this critical piece of legislation by all members of the House.

Business of the House

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleague across the way will be happy with what we are about to say.

We will continue today with second reading of Bill C-47, the Arms Trade Treaty. When the debate is completed, we will then proceed with Bill C-55, the protection of Canada's marine and coastal areas. Tomorrow we will return to Bill C-55.

The business for Monday and Wednesday next week will be Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium bill. Tuesday and Thursday shall be allotted days.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the House will debate Bill C-49, on transportation modernization, at second reading.

On Monday we will debate our changes to the Standing Orders. Following that debate, we will resume second reading debate on Bill C-51.

Tuesday the House will debate Bill S-3, on Indian registration, at report stage and third reading.

Following that debate, we hope to make progress on the following bills: Bill S-2, the bill respecting motor vehicle recalls, at second reading; Bill C-17, respecting the environmental assessment process in Yukon, at second reading; Bill C-25, on encouraging gender parity on the boards of federally regulated organizations; Bill C-36, the bill to give Statistics Canada greater independence; Bill C-48, the bill to impose a moratorium on oil tankers off the B.C. coast; and Bill C-34, the bill to reinstate sensible conditions for public service employment.

Opposition Motion—Canadian Economy

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to contribute to this debate on the complete failure of the Liberals on this economic file.

For a government that would have us believe it is all about the middle class, as it is wont to add that at the end of every statement it makes, for example, more ethical government for the middle class, a Liberal commissioner of official languages for the middle class, new standing orders for the middle class, better innovation for the middle class, and a carbon tax for the middle class, it is remarkable just how out of touch Liberals are on the most important issues facing the middle class: jobs, the economy, and affordability.

On housing, for example, as the price of homes rose significantly faster than inflation in Toronto and Vancouver, the Liberals decided to implement a one-size-fits-all mortgage policy designed to cool down the housing markets of Toronto and Vancouver. Unfortunately, this policy is having a similar impact across the country, regardless of whether Canadians live in Warman, Saskatchewan or Queen West, Toronto.

Before the Liberals made these changes to the mortgage rules, a person with $50,000 pre-tax income could qualify for a $277,000 mortgage. Now, that same person qualifies for a mortgage of $222,000. This change makes buying a first house more difficult for many. Several people looking to buy their first home, and realtors, have raised concerns about this policy with me. However, these changes have not had the attention they deserve, considering the disproportionate impact they are having on first-time homeowners in smaller communities where housing prices are typically more affordable.

The Liberals are also tone deaf when it comes to western Canada. On May 12, the Minister of Transport introduced the oil tanker moratorium act, a bill that his own political staff conceded would only impact the future development of Canada's oil sands, and no other activity in northern British Columbia. Let us think about that.

It was not enough for the Liberals to reverse the independent National Energy Board's 2014 decision to approve the northern gateway pipeline subject to Enbridge fulfilling 209 conditions. They decided to go one step further by opting to handcuff future governments should they want to diversify Canada's energy exports. Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, will do nothing to enhance marine safety in British Columbia. U .S tankers will continue travelling up and down the coast between Alaska and Washington state.

This is the epitome of political irony. Venezuelan oil in Quebec is okay. Saudi Arabian oil on the east coast is okay. Canadian oil in Vancouver is okay. Alaskan oil in northern B.C. is okay. However, Canadian oil in northern British Columbia is not okay. Blocking tidewater access for western Canadian energy producers was not enough. To add insult to injury, this year's federal budget removed incentives for small companies to engage in energy exploration in Canada.

Furthermore, the new carbon tax will disproportionately impact energy-producing provinces. What the Liberals fail to realize is that Canada does not have a monopoly on the production of energy. In North America alone, western Canadian producers are competing against companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, the Permian Basin, and the Bakken formation. As the U.S. is making important efforts to reduce obstacles to energy development, Canada is going the other way.

Capital and expertise in this sector is very mobile, and Canada is in very real danger of being left behind. Canadian firms and foreign investors will not invest in the Canadian economy if the overall cost of doing business vis-à-vis our American counterparts is higher, as has been mentioned. However, the energy sector is not the only sector being targeted. Western Canadian shippers, and especially captive western Canadian grain shippers, are feeling particularly ignored by the Liberal government.

Unlike Ontario and Quebec, where many products can be trucked to their final destination or to a port for overseas export, western Canada is particularly reliant on rail to get product to market. That is why the Minister of Transport's inaction on critical and time-sensitive rail transport issues is leading to uncertainty for both shippers and railroads. Both need it as they negotiate shipping rates for the season and invest in the required infrastructure to keep products moving to market in a timely manner.

That is why, over the past several months, I have asked many times whether the government intended to renew or build on the sunsetting measures of Bill C-30 before they expired on August 1, 2017. The response, time and time again, was that the government recognized the urgency to get this done and that legislation was forthcoming. Unfortunately the Liberals now acknowledge that the key measures in Bill C-30 will sunset before any replacement legislation can receive royal assent and become law.

Since the transportation modernization act was introduced on May 16, the government has set aside less than two and a half hours to debate it, with the Minister of Transport taking the floor to lead off debate at 9:45 p.m. on a Monday night. This means there will be at least a two and a half month gap from when Bill C-30 measures sunset and Bill C-49 receives royal assent.

By the time this legislation has passed, the majority of contracts for the year will have been negotiated with the law in flux. Because of the government's mismanagement of its legislative agenda, these popular measures will sunset without any replacement, and shippers will be the worse off. What is worse is that while this two and a half month gap will negatively impact both railways and shippers this year, the replacement legislation will weaken shipper protections from what they are today. While something is better than nothing, the transportation modernization act is not a replacement for the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

What the government is proposing in its omnibus transportation legislation is to take a little used existing remedy called a competitive line rate and rename it long haul inter-switching.

Under a competitive line rate, a shipper could apply to the agency to set the competitive line rate, the designation of the continuous route, the designation of the nearest interchange, and the manner in which the local carrier shall fulfill its service obligations. We know from history that this remedy was infrequently used because of the prerequisite that the shipper must first reach an agreement with the connecting carrier and the two main carriers effectively declined to compete with one another through CLRs. While the requirement that the shipper must have an agreement with a connecting carrier prior to requesting a CLR has been removed, the greater issue is whether the terms imposed by the connecting carrier will be acceptable to the shipper.

While railways do have a common carrier obligations, we know there are ways to avoid doing a haul. For example, both railways have set the price of hauling uranium so high that it is no longer economical for it to be shipped by rail. Furthermore, while long haul inter-switching will be extended to 1,200 kilometres or 50% of the total haul distance, the first inter-switch location from any captive shippers in north Alberta and northern B.C. will be located within the Kamloops-Vancouver corridor, where inter-switching is not allowed beyond 30 kilometres. Therefore, these captive shippers will not be able to utilize this remedy to increase railway competition.

By borrowing and spending in good times, the Liberals have made it harder to deal with real crisis. According to the PBO, even a minor recession would cause deficits to be as large as during the great recession, and that is before considering the fiscal costs of any response.

The Liberals have mismanaged Canada's finances and have closed many doors for economic development. Unfortunately, the full effects of their policies have not reverberated across the entire economy yet.

The choices the Liberals have made to date are not random. They are the result of an overarching vision of picking winners and losers. Right now, my province is coming out on the wrong side of nearly every Liberal policy decision.

For a government that professes to be focused on the middle class, first-time homebuyers, farmers, shippers, and energy workers are all feeling left out in the cold.

Transportation Modernization Act

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to debate Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act, at second reading.

The bill could simply be renamed the transportation omnibus act for the number of different bills being amended, with many of changes being more than just technical in nature. The Air Canada Public Participation Act, the Canada Transportation Act, the CN Commercialization Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act, the Coasting Trade Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Competition Act, the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, the 2009 Budget Implementation Act, and the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act are all being amended.

How this squares with the Liberal election promise not to use omnibus legislation is beyond me. Do not get me wrong, I am not complaining about an omnibus bill, just the fact that the Liberals did and then made a promise they knew they would not keep. Furthermore, when I introduced a motion in transport committee last week calling on the committee to write to the Minister of Transport and his government House leader to ask them to split the bill into the following sections, rail shipping, rail safety, air, and marine, to provide an enhanced and possibly expedited scrutiny, every single Liberal member voted against it without even a single comment as to why.

I found this vote particularly ironic, as it was the Liberal member for Niagara Centre who raised the idea of expediting the passage of the bill in the first place, in order to provide grain farmers with a greater amount of certainty as they negotiate contracts for future shipping seasons.

The more measures that a bill contains, the more time it takes to provide adequate scrutiny. Separating the bill would be the easiest way to facilitate expedited passage, and thus my motion calling on the bill to be split into several parts.

Unfortunately, Liberal members were unwilling to split the bill into these natural divisions. This does not inspire confidence that when the bill eventually does reach committee, the Liberal Party members will be open to any amendments. While Bill C-49 is supposed to be the Minister of Transport's legislative response to the 2015 Canada Transportation Act review led by the Hon. David Emerson, it would appear that what we have before us is a bill that is designed to change the channel from some of the bad news that keeps piling up for the Liberals.

The government's communications strategy for this legislation has overwhelmingly concentrated on the air passenger compensation regime that is being introduced, and not the other very consequential measures. Here is what the Minister of Transport posted on his Twitter feed as he introduced this legislation, “These air passenger rights will ensure that travellers are treated like people, not just a number.”

Like many members here, I travel a lot and only have positive things to say about all the employees working for the airlines and at our airports. Of course, on occasion, flights do not go as we hope, but the Minister of Transport appears to be willing to pit passengers against airlines rather than fixing the structural problems in Canada's aviation regime.

This legislation does not spell out what the compensation regime will be, just that there will be one. The bill states that after consulting with only the Minister of Transport, the Canadian Transportation Agency will make regulations concerning carriers' obligations toward passengers. However, for even greater clarity, subsection (2) of proposed section 86.11 states that the Canadian Transportation Agency must comply with any instruction from the minister with regard to setting regulations concerning carriers' obligations to passengers.

What this means is that the Canadian Transportation Agency is tentatively responsible for setting what financial penalties a carrier would have to pay to the passenger in the case of a service breach, unless the minister is dissatisfied with the level of prescribed compensation that the CTA decides is appropriate, in which case he or she can dictate what that level of compensation will be.

It is noteworthy that the agency will, by law, only be allowed to consult with the Minister of Transport concerning the setting of these regulations, and not with consumer advocate groups, airlines, airports, Nav Canada and other stakeholders in the sector.

I do not understand what the purpose of consulting only the minister is. If the Canadian Transportation Agency is to be an arm's-length organization, this legislation clearly diminishes its independence. If the minister will not allow the agency to independently set the parameters of the passenger compensation regime, he should just spell out in legislation what it will be and let members of Parliament and stakeholder groups decide whether this is a good proposal or not.

If this legislation were truly aimed at reducing the cost of travel for the passenger, while increasing service and convenience, the minister would immediately lobby to have the government's carbon tax, which will make every single flight more expensive, withdrawn. He would reform the air passenger security system, which was universally identified as a major irritant for all passengers during the Canada Transportation Act review by all the organizations that participated in the process.

While it would be preferable to have the sections of the bill dealing with air and rail examined as stand-alone pieces of legislation, I can only surmise that the government's complete mismanagement of the House's agenda has led us to the point where an omnibus transportation bill is what we have in front of us today. At least we have finally begun debating something in the transport sector, now that we are two years into the government's mandate. So far, the only achievement the minister has to show in terms of legislation is the act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Let us talk about Bill S-2, an act to amend the Motor Vehicle Safety Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act. This was first introduced by the government's representative in the Senate 13 months ago and passed third reading in the Senate on February 2. The minister claimed that Bill S-2 was a priority in his speech to the Montreal Chamber of Commerce in November 2016, yet it has not been touched since.

On May 12, just days before the introduction of the legislation we are debating today, the Minister of Transport introduced the oil tanker moratorium act, a bill that his own officials conceded would only impact the future development of Canada's oil sands and no other activity in northern British Columbia. Equally concerning about this oil tanker moratorium, which could be renamed the oil pipeline moratorium, is that there is considerable support among first nations on B.C.'s coast for energy development opportunities, but the wishes of these first nations are being ignored. For the Liberals to move forward with this tanker moratorium without properly consulting coastal first nations is extremely hypocritical.

The Liberals go to painstaking lengths to emphasize the amount of consultation they undertake, but it is becoming more and more apparent that their interest in consulting is about being told what they want to hear and not about listening to differing views. If anyone needs further proof that Bill C-48 was introduced only for political purposes, it is that this moratorium has been introduced as a stand-alone bill and not as part of this omnibus package we are debating today.

The Minister of Transport's silence and inaction on critical and time-sensitive transport issues, especially rail transport, is leading to uncertainty for both shippers and the railroads, which both want certainty as they negotiate shipping rates for the season.

That is why over the past several months I have asked many times whether the government intends to renew the sunsetting measures in Bill C-30 before they expire on August 1, 2017. The response I have been given time and time again is that the government recognizes the urgency to get this done and that legislation is forthcoming. Unfortunately, the Liberals have made a muck of this, and the key measures in Bill C-30 will sunset before any replacement legislation can receive royal assent and become law.

Last week in the transport committee, a Liberal member moved a motion calling on the committee to begin its consideration of this bill, Bill C-49, in September, before the House begins sitting, to expedite the study of the sections of the bill that deal with the shipping of grain. While Conservatives have no objection to considering this legislation in September before the House returns from the summer break, government members fail to realize that our producers needed them to turn their attention to this months ago, as the measures will sunset on August 1 of this year. At best, there will be a two-and-a-half-month gap between when the measures in Bill C-30 sunset and replacement legislation is in place.

By the time this legislation has passed, the majority of contracts for this year will have been negotiated with the law in flux. Because of the government's mismanagement of the legislative agenda, these popular measures will sunset without replacement, and shippers will be the worse off.

This is important to note, because for a combination of reasons, including a lack of rail capacity, preparedness by railways and shippers, weather, and the size of the crop, western Canada's 2013-14 grain crop did not get to market in a timely manner. Consequently, the previous Conservative government introduced Bill C-30, which gave the Canada Transportation Agency the power to allow shippers access to regulated interswitching up to 160 kilometres, mandated that CN and CP both haul at least 500 tonnes of grain per week, and introduced a new definition of adequate and suitable service levels. With this extension, the number of primary grain elevators with access to more than one railroad with the extended interswitching limits increased from 48 to 261.

These measures were met with universal support from the members of the shipping community, because even if they did not use interswitching, they could use it as a tool to increase their negotiating position with the railways, as the shippers knew exactly how much the interswitch portion of the haul would cost them.

At the same time, the government announced that the Canada Transportation Act statutory review would be expedited, and it began a year early to provide long-term solutions to the grain backlog of the 2013-14 shipping season and other problems in the transport sector within Canada. The hon. David Emerson, a former Liberal and Conservative cabinet minister, was tasked with leading the review. This review was completed in the fall of 2015 and was on the Minister of Transport's desk shortly before Christmas. The minister then tabled this report in mid-February 2016 and promised wide consultations on the report. As the key measures of Bill C-30 were going to sunset on August 1, 2016, and parliamentarians were hearing from the shipping community that it would like to see these extended, Parliament voted in June 2016 to extend those provisions for one year.

In the fall of 2016, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities undertook a study of Bill C-30 and held a number of meetings on the merits of these measures and whether they should be allowed to sunset. We were assured that if we lived with this extension, these issues would be dealt with by August 1, 2017.

The vast majority of the testimony heard was supportive of maintaining the 160-kilometre regulated interswitching limit at committee, which is why the committee's first recommendation was the following:

That the Canadian Transportation Agency retain the flexibility provided under the Canada Transportation Act by the Fair Rail For Grain Farmers Act to set interswitching distances up to 160 km, in order to maintain a more competitive operating environment for rail shippers with direct access to only one railway company.

Anyone who has read this bill will know that the government ignored the committee's main recommendation. At some point during this debate, I hope to hear from Liberal members on the transport committee about whether they believe that the government was right to ignore the committee's recommendations, and if so, whether the entire committee study was just a waste of time.

Basically, what the government is proposing with this legislation is to replace the 160-kilometre interswitching limit with the creation of a new long-haul interswitching tool that would be in effect between Windsor and Kamloops on hauls of up to 1,200 kilometres, or up to 50% of the length of the entire haul. Shippers would be charged the regulated interswitching rate for the first 30 kilometres of the haul and then a Canada Transportation Agency-determined rate, which would be determined on a case-by-case basis based on the price of a similar haul, for the remainder of the distance to the interswitch point. Shippers would only be able to interswitch at the first available interswitch point within the zone.

What the government has done is take a little-used existing remedy, called a competitive line rate, and rename it long-haul interswitching.

Under a competitive line rate, a shipper could apply to the agency to set the amount of the competitive line rate, the designation of the continuous route, the designation of the nearest interchange, and the manner in which the local carrier would fulfill its service obligations. We know from history that this remedy was infrequently used because of the prerequisite that the shipper first reach an agreement with the connecting carrier, and the two main carriers effectively declined to compete with one another through CLRs. What we do not know is what the difference will be at a practical level between this new long-haul interswitching and the existing competitive line rates.

Like competitive line rates, long-haul interswitching is a much more complicated system for shippers to use, and the jury is still out on whether this will achieve the minister's stated objective of improving rail access for captive shippers. When Bill C-30 was first introduced, there was universal support among shippers for the extended interswitching. So far, very few organizations I have spoken to can say that this tool is better.

In conclusion, this much is certain: the key measures in Bill C-30 will be allowed to sunset on August 1, before this legislation receives royal assent. The Liberals have had nearly a full year to get new legislation in place but failed to do so, and shippers will suffer the consequences.

Canada remains one of the most expensive jurisdictions in which to operate an airline, and it is about to become even more so with the imposition of a national carbon tax. This bill does nothing to address the systemic cost issues, which are passed on to passengers, that were identified by the Transportation Act review. As has been the case with almost everything with the current government, optics trump everything, and this bill exemplifies that.

Opposition Motion—Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project

[Jim Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, more important than my agreement with the content of this motion is my complete agreement with the views on this project of our Prime Minister.

As hon. members will know, in the immediate aftermath of the election in British Columbia, the Prime Minister publicly and clearly reiterated our government's support for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion project. He reinforced the case that our support for this project was made using a rigorous and thorough process, and it was based on science and facts, not political rhetoric.

At the moment, the future of the British Columbia government remains in question. Premier Clark has indicated her intention to face the legislature and test its confidence in her government. I cannot predict the outcome of a vote of confidence in the British Columbia legislature, but what I can say is that whatever the result of that vote, our government stands behind the decision we made to approve the Trans Mountain expansion project. Why? It is because it was the right decision when we made it last November. It was the right decision the day before the British Columbia election, and it is the right decision now. While the government in B.C. may change, the facts, the science, the evidence, the environmental considerations, the economic benefits, and the jobs all remain unchanged.

The project was, and this project is, in the best interests of Canadians, so I welcome the support of the members opposite. I welcome their recognition of the wisdom of our decision. I welcome their pointing out through this motion that the project has social licence to proceed, that it is critical to the Canadian economy and the creation of thousands of jobs, that it is safe and environmentally sound, as recognized by the National Energy Board, and that it is under federal jurisdiction with respect to approval and regulation.

It is rare when the official opposition is a leading advocate for a government policy, but I can tell the House that it is something I could get used to.

The motion before us deserves a fuller articulation, so let me address its various elements one by one. It asks the House to agree that the project has social licence, although I think we can all agree that this is an outdated term. One does not simply get a “lose” or a “yes” of social support. It is a daily responsibility to serve Canadians and constantly rebuild trust in the government.

How did this project achieve something the previous government was unable to do, which was diversify markets for our resources, during its entire time in office? The answer is straightforward. Our government listened to Canadians. The previous government believed it knew best without needing to ask for any other opinion. There must be a certain comfort in knowing all without asking Canadians what their opinions are on such projects as this. We listened closely. We heard that not all Canadians agreed, and that is okay. What we heard most strongly was that Canadians are tired of the polarization of the environment versus the economy. We are all in this together.

Under the previous government, Canadians had simply lost trust in the environmental assessment and review processes, because the outcomes were predetermined. They had come to believe that when weighing economic benefits and environmental stewardship, the scales had become tipped too far in one direction. Our government set about regaining the trust of Canadians. We did so by taking a different approach. We reached out to indigenous communities. We consulted meaningfully, something the Federal Court of Appeal said the previous government had not done sufficiently with the northern gateway project, which is the reason its permit was revoked.

In the case of the Trans Mountain expansion project, government officials consulted with 117 indigenous groups, and the results are publicly available. We have set aside more than $64 million to fund an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee to meaningfully engage indigenous groups in monitoring the project over its lifespan, the first time in Canadian history. It is a step never before taken by any previous government.

Our government listened to environmental groups and those living in the affected communities. We listened to academics and industry. We extended the consultation period to ensure that as many voices as possible could be heard. However, we did not stop there. To regain the confidence of Canadians, we also initiated a modernization of the National Energy Board to ensure that its composition reflected regional views and had sufficient expertise in environmental science, community development, and indigenous traditional knowledge. We are now in the process of determining how these changes can best be made.

Canadians know that the path to a lower-carbon future may be long, but it is well under way. It is accelerating, and its trajectory is clear. They know that the economy of tomorrow will require investments today in clean technologies, energy efficiency, and renewable sources of energy. Our government has taken action on all these fronts, including doing what virtually every economist and energy company says is the best, most effective way to lower greenhouse gas emissions and spur innovation: putting a price on carbon. In fact, in our government's first budget, we made generational investments in clean energy and new technologies, including technologies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. We will build that clean-growth economy, and we are, but we are not there yet, due to nearly a decade of inaction by the previous government.

With all these initiatives—consulting indigenous communities, engaging Canadians, focusing on sustainability, modernizing the National Energy Board, and investing in green technologies—we sent a very clear signal to Canadians and the world that under this government, environmental sustainability will go hand in hand with economic development. We cannot have one without the other. The actions we took, the investments we made, and the approach we embraced demonstrated that commitment and earned the confidence of Canadians.

The motion before us also speaks to the importance of the Trans Mountain expansion project to the Canadian economy and in creating thousands of jobs. Indeed, this $7.4 billion project will have significant economic benefits. The project is expected to create 15,000 new jobs during construction. This is good news for workers in Alberta, it is good news for workers in British Columbia, and it is good news for all of Canada. It is also good news for indigenous peoples, who will benefit from jobs and business opportunities as a result of the impact and benefit agreements they have signed with Kinder Morgan.

The Trans Mountain expansion is also expected to generate more than $3 billion in revenue for governments, revenues that can be used to invest in health care, schools, water treatment plants, and safer roads, improving the lives of millions of Canadians. This is a vital project in a vital industry, an industry that has been hit hard over the past few years.

I know that every member in the House understands what the effect of lower oil prices has been for Albertans. The economic impacts may be measured in rigs being closed, barrels cut, or investments deferred, but they are felt in the lives of families and experienced in hard conversations around kitchen tables. We took action to support families in the energy sector by extending EI benefits in affected regions, including parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, northern Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador. We also provided additional support to families in the prairie provinces under the Canada child benefit.

To give more Canadians greater access to good, well-paying jobs, our government invested in training for unemployed and underemployed workers and will develop a new framework to support union-based apprenticeship training.

For families in Alberta and British Columbia, the Trans Mountain expansion project offers much-needed help and good jobs. It is no wonder, then, that Premier Notley praised the Prime Minister for extraordinary leadership and said, “It has been a long, dark night for the people of Alberta.... [But] we are finally seeing some morning light.”

The Premier also pointed to a key benefit of this project when she said, “We're getting a chance to reduce our dependence on one market, and therefore to be more economically independent. And we're getting a chance to pick ourselves up and move forward again.”

Nor is it just Canadians in Alberta and British Columbia who will benefit from the Trans Mountain expansion project. A 2014 study by the Canadian Energy Research Institute found that for every job created in Alberta's oil patch, at least two more jobs were created across the country. It could be a manufacturing company in Ontario, an engineering firm in Quebec, or an oil worker commuting from one of our coasts. Quite simply, a strong energy industy strengthens us all, and projects such as the Trans Mountain expansion benefit all Canadians.

The motion also points out the environmental soundness of this project, as determined by the National Energy Board. In approving this project, our government considered the evidence and weighed the facts. We agree with the National Energy Board that the project should proceed, subject to the 157 binding conditions that will be enforced by the board.

Our government considered the fact that without new pipelines, more diluted bitumen would be forced into more rail tanker cars for transport. That would be less economic, more dangerous for communities, and would produce higher greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time that we approved the Trans Mountain expansion project, we also announced a ban on oil tankers on the northern B.C. coastline, specifically around Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound. This coastline is vital to the livelihoods and cultures of indigenous and coastal communities and is part of a unique and ecologically sensitive region.

Hon. members will know that Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, has now been introduced in this House. I look forward to their support for this vital legislation in the days ahead. As the Minister of Transport has said, the Great Bear region is no place for an oil pipeline, and it is no place for oil tankers either.

Our government has also made the most significant investment ever to protect our oceans and coastlines, with a $1.5-billion oceans protection plan that includes improving marine traffic monitoring; setting tougher requirements on industry, including for spill response times; making navigation safer; and co-managing our coast with indigenous and coastal communities.

Our government is also committed to consistently increasing our action on climate change. A 1.5-degree world helps no one, and that includes every one of us here and every Canadian we represent. Inaction comes at too high a cost, whereas a clean growth economy will build more good, middle-class jobs across the country.

These measures reinforce the importance of carefully balancing environmental protection with economic development as Canada makes the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The motion put forward by my hon. colleague points out that the Trans Mountain expansion project falls under federal jurisdiction for approval and regulation. Certainly the Constitution assigns the federal government jurisdiction over interprovincial and international trade. With that jurisdiction comes responsibility to consult widely, to act prudently, and to stand firmly.

We know that there are some who disagree with our decision to approve this project and that they may use the legal system to seek redress. We respect their right to do so, but we will strongly defend our decision in court.

Our position is clear: the jurisdiction is federal, the decision has been made, and our government will continue to support the Trans Mountain expansion project. On every aspect of this motion, our government finds itself in full agreement. Indeed, as I said in this House to a question from the hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn, I appreciate their making the case for us.

As I have said many times, one of our government's key responsibilities is to help get Canadian resources to market. With our major customer, the United States, producing more of its own energy, it is essential that Canada build the infrastructure to get our oil and gas to new global markets. That is exactly why we have approved projects such as the Trans Mountain expansion, doing more in one year than the previous government did in a decade: protecting our oceans, pricing carbon pollution, resetting our nation-to-nation relations, building a climate change plan, and putting middle-class Canadians back to work today by approving the pipelines we need to reach those new markets.

There is one final element of this motion that I have not yet addressed: that the Trans Mountain expansion project “should be constructed with the continued support of the federal government, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister personally announcing the approval of the project.”

I would have thought that the answer to that request would have been clear from the Prime Minister's statements of the past week, so I was somewhat surprised to hear the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle ask in this House whether the Prime Minister will “stand up to the forces that are seeking to kill these jobs, or will he fold like a cardboard cut-out?” If I may paraphrase one of the more famous phrases uttered by one our heroes, Sir Winston Churchill, in this very place, some cardboard, some cut-out.

Our government will not falter. We will not fail. We will certainly not fold in our support of the Trans Mountain expansion project, nor will we shy away from being a leading force in the global clean growth economy. Neither can be ignored. It is the right thing to do for Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

They will be here for the first hour on Thursday. Thank you very much. I'm really glad when we can work together.

Now we have 15 minutes left to talk about committee business: what we have outstanding that's coming to us or that we still have to deal with.

We have Mr. Bratina's motion on water quality, which we have to deal with before December 1. We have a draft report on infrastructure that our analysts have done, which we have not gone back to review. We can take action on it, or we can simply leave it there until the fall, depending on the will of the committee on those two issues.

Legislation-wise, at some point we're going to have Bill S-2, Bill C-48, and Bill C-49. That's the legislative agenda ahead of us, over and above all the other issues that we'd like to dealt with.

As we look forward to the committee business ahead of us, we should sort out how we're going to deal with some of it. Bill C-49 is a very important piece of legislation, given the fact that it affects the issue of the sunset clause in Bill C-30.

That's what's ahead of us. We need to sort out how we are going to get these issues dealt with in the couple of meetings we have left.

I'm going to open the floor.

Mr. Badawey, go ahead.

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

moved for leave to introduce 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.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)