Bill C-57 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act

This enactment amends the Federal Sustainable Development Act to make decision making related to sustainable development more transparent and subject to accountability to Parliament.

Federal Sustainable Development Act

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate in this late hour on Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act. Of course, as other members have said, including the member for Abbotsford, we will be supporting this piece of legislation.

In preparing for the debate, I went through past commentary by other members, including the member for Abbotsford, and really, what else is there to add? He went over every single point and report that rebutted many of the talking points the Liberal government has put forward in defending its environmental record and so-called achievements. They are achievements in name, mostly. He went through it very well, so there is really nothing more I can contribute in illuminating the debate in that sense.

However, there is one part of it that I do want to delve into and spend more time on. It is the part where the member for Abbotsford referenced a report, which, in his words, “is supposed to marry the environment and the economy”. He questioned why the government had completely forgotten about the economic component. He said it was unbelievable, and I agree with him.

We have heard time and time again in the House this metaphor alluding to the economy and the environment going hand in hand. All I have seen so far is posturing by the Liberals when it comes to the environment, and very little focus on the economy. We have seen over the past two and a half years one thing happen, and one thing only, which is this two-handed concept. Why are both of those hands in my pockets? Both hands are in the pockets of taxpayers.

On one side are carbon taxes. On one side is a higher cost of living, so-called, to pay for environmental reasons and environmental targets, so-called. At the end of the day, it is always about more revenue. On the other side are higher small business taxes, higher payroll taxes, or higher taxes period, across the board, with a higher cost of living for most Canadians today. Think tanks have said this. Independent reports have said this, and I am sure every single member of the House could attest to the fact that they have received emails, letters, and phone calls from constituents who are saying that the cost of living has gone up significantly.

Why are both of those hands, supposedly the economy and the environment, when managed by the federal government, the Ottawa Liberals, in the pockets of taxpayers? They are in our pockets. Everyone in Canada is paying more because of the government's decision-making. There are job losses in the energy sector.

I know that members hear all the time that Statistics Canada is saying that the job numbers are better. However, the comparison is being made between the loss of an engineering job paying maybe $150,000 to $200,000 in Calgary and then maybe a job working in retail for $50,000.

What about underemployment? It is something that Statistics Canada and stats in general have a very difficult time catching. I can give example after example in my own riding in Calgary, and even wider than the Calgary area, of individuals who have been impacted by the drastic slowdown in the energy sector, which was initially caused by lower prices, and then prolonged by bad government policy, both provincially and federally, making things far worse for far longer than they needed to be.

I have heard the debate in the House thus far on Bill C-57, including an exchange earlier today. Members know that I like Yiddish proverbs. One of them is “What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your tongue.” I see this happening on that side of the House all the time. They make it up as they go along.

This brings me to the next point, which I will spend some more time on. The Trans Mountain pipeline is the perfect example of this. Supposedly, in the name of getting it right and finding the right balance between the economy and the environment, the only way the Liberals can do this is by expropriating Kinder Morgan and forcing the company. It would have been one of the most profitable portions of the energy sector to transport the goods to the market. The Liberals made it unprofitable by getting in the way at every single junction, and by undermining the legitimate process by which a company, shareholders, and members of the public can arrive at a reasonable decision. They can disagree without being disagreeable through a regulator, define approval, and move the project forward.

Instead, with the encouragement of the federal government, the Liberals on that side, protesters, third-party groups, many foreign-funded, then went out and undermined the rule of law and the legal process by which the pipeline was approved. Now we have a situation.

The economy and the environment supposedly go hand in hand. However, both of the government's federal hands are now taking Kinder Morgan's pipeline. The Liberals are saying that in the name of getting it built, the only thing they can do, the only way we can get it done is by taking on 100% of the risk for $4.5 billion, and that is just to buy the old pipeline. Now we are talking about building the actual pipeline expansion itself.

However, the court proceedings will still go ahead. The obstruction of a provincial government will still continue. The obstruction of a legally approved pipeline will continue to go ahead, because nothing has changed. We have seen it in the media, with quote after quote from protester leaders, from certain but not all indigenous groups, and from civic leaders who say they will continue to oppose it, that it makes no difference. However, now every one of us is on the hook for cost overruns, for cost failures, for potential strikes, for workers' health and safety, and for the extra spending to ensure they can work in a safe environment while they build this pipeline, even if it goes ahead.

This $4.5 billion that the Canadian taxpayer is giving to the shareholders of Kinder Morgan Canada is going to do what? It is going to go and finance competitor pipelines. The state of Texas will become the largest producer of oil in the world. I always joke about the state of Texas. I call it “Alberta Junior”. That is what it is to me in my heart. Texas calls us in the reverse. So many Canadians who worked in the energy sector in Calgary, Edmonton, and Fort McMurray are working there today.

Where was that focus on getting the environment and the economy right? Did that involve the brain drain, the escape, the exile, of tens of thousands of Canadian energy workers to Dallas and Houston? Was that the purpose? Is that how we get the balance right? The Liberals failed miserably, despite this legislation, which we will support.

As I mentioned, what our eyes do not see, do not invent with our tongues, but they are inventing. The Liberals are inventing a narrative that simply does not exist, because they do not have the balance right. They did not get it right with the economy and the environment. If they did, they would not be getting into the business of owning and operating a pipeline.

Seven thousand kilometres of pipeline has been cancelled under the Liberals' watch, not our watch. They are the ones who failed to achieve it. They are the ones who did not get it to move forward. However, now they will be able to build their own pipeline. The future health of the Alberta government's finances now rest in the hands of the federal government, which is a position I guarantee 90% of Albertans will be against.

We are adamantly against it, because we have seen this type of behaviour before, 40 years ago with the national energy plan. This is the second version of it, getting it wrong again. The Liberals do not know where to find the balance between the two. They will continue to back their allies in the environmental movement, the activists, and those who they continuously back in illegal activities because they need their help to win elections.

We will support this proposed legislation. However, on the continuous use of the environment and the economy go hand in hand, the Liberals actually have to live it and they have to do it. Buying pipelines, expropriating pipelines, is not the way to achieve it. We should never have been in the position where the taxpayer of Canada would have to be on the hook for up to $12 billion of new spending.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciated the speech by my colleague from Calgary Shepard, who adroitly set out to deconstruct that worn-out Liberal platitude about the environment and the economy going hand in had. It is patently obvious that they do, because we human beings come from the environment, our resources come from the environment, and the economy comes from the environment.

The economy is both a process and a product of the environment we live in. The resources we export, such as oil, are natural resources that come from the environment. The Liberals' platitude is purely political PR.

As I recall, under the Conservative government, we did not sweet-talk anyone. We took concrete action that produced excellent results. For example, we reduced Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 2% while we grew the GDP by 16%.

I would like the member for Calgary Shepard to tell us more about the strides our government made on both the environmental and economic fronts.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Before going to the hon. member for Calgary—Shepard, I want to remind hon. members that there are no rules preventing people from one side to go to the other side to speak. There are rules that prevent members from shouting or talking loudly across. It makes it difficult to hear the hon. member.

Let us hear what the hon. member for Calgary—Shepard has to say.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Beauport—Limoilou for his question.

Indeed, the previous government was very successful at balancing the environment and the economy. Even though the members across the aisle, the Liberals, keep denying it, the member is correct in saying that greenhouse gases decreased by 2% and the economy kept growing.

Four pipelines were approved and supported by the previous government, which knew how to balance environmental objectives and the economy. Our growth was quite good, even in the midst of a massive recession that significantly affected Canadian businesses and workers. The previous government was able to balance the budget and create 1.4 million jobs in Canada after the recession, giving Canada's middle class a major boost.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague certainly highlighted the fact that the legislation would ensure that government decisions would not only reviewed through the lens of the environment, but also through a social lens as well as the lens of the economy. There is a certain irony that we are in the House debating this legislation. The Liberal government of course has it brought forward, which is strongly supported, but the Liberals do not even take their own advice. They generally do not understand how important it is to view decisions the government makes through the lens of the economy.

We have seen that with the incredible flight of capital in Canada. Canada used to be the most desired destination in the world for foreign investors. Today, we are among the least desired investment destinations among the developed countries. I would be interested to hear my colleague's comments on what could have contributed to that dramatic decline in confidence in Canada's economy.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are a series of policy decisions the government has taken, some legislative, some regulatory. We could talk about the tanker ban off the west coast. It was totally a political decision, not based on very much of any science. It hurt the prospective investment decisions that companies were going to make in Canada. We could talk about the carbon tax, which seriously hurt the cost of living for all Canadians, because we are all paying higher taxes now.

We could also talk about decisions, such as Bill C-69, which did immense damage to the regulatory process. In fact, if I remember correctly, a very senior official at Suncor, I believe it was the CEO, said that no new project would be built under that model because it gave the Minister of Environment and Climate Change so much power to cancel projects.

What company could be blamed for not wanting to take on an immense amount of risk? At the end of the day, the board of directors and executive teams are responsible to the shareholders who invested in it. I would not invest in Canada either if I were being told by the members opposite that I would have to jump through as many hoops and they would decide afterward if I did it well enough.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, here we are in the House, on Wednesday, May 30, at 8:45. I should mention that it is 8:45 p.m., for the many residents of Beauport—Limoilou who I am sure are tuning in. To all my constituents, good evening.

We are debating this evening because the Liberal government tabled very few significant government bills over the winter. Instead, they tabled an astounding number of private members' bills on things like swallows' day and beauty month. Sometimes my colleagues and I can hardly help laughing at this pile of utterly trivial bills. I also think that this process of randomly selecting the members who get to table bills is a bit past its prime. Maybe it should be reviewed. At the same time, I understand that it is up to each member to decide what kind of bill is important to him or her.

The reason we have had to sit until midnight for two days now is that, as my colleague from Perth—Wellington said, the government has been acting like a typical university student over the past three months. That comparison is a bit ridiculous, but it is true. The government is behaving like those students who wait until the last minute to do their assignments and are still working on them at 3 a.m. the day before they are due because they were too busy partying all semester. Members know what I mean, even though that paints a rather stereotypical picture of students; most of them do not do things like that.

In short, we have a government that, at the end of the session, has realized that time is running out and that it only has three weeks left to pass some of its legislative measures, some of which are rather lengthy bills that are key to the government's legislative agenda. One has to wonder about that.

The Liberals believe these bills to be important. However, because of their lack of responsibility over the past three months, we were unable to debate these major bills that will make significant changes to our society. Take for example, Bill C-76, which has to do with the electoral reforms that the Liberals want to make to the voting system, the way we vote, protection of the vote, and identification. There is also Bill C-49 on transportation in Canada, a very lengthy bill that we have not had time to examine properly.

Today we are debating Bill C-57 on sustainable development. This is an important topic, but for the past three years I have been getting sick and tired of seeing the Liberal government act as though it has a monopoly on environmental righteousness. I searched online to get an accurate picture of the record of Mr. Harper's Conservative government from 2006 to 2015, and I came across some fascinating results. I want to share this information very honestly with the House and my Liberal colleagues so that they understand that even though we did not talk incessantly about the environment, we achieved some excellent concrete results.

I want to read a quote from www.mediaterre.org, a perfectly legitimate site:

Stephen Harper's Canadian government released its 2007 budget on March 19. The budget allocated $4.5 billion in new investments to some 20 environmental projects. These measures include a $2,000 rebate for all electronic-vehicle or alternative-fuel purchases, and the creation of a $1.5-billion EcoTrust program to help provinces reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Liberals often criticize us for talking about the environment, but we did take action. For example, we set targets. We proposed reducing emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Liberals even retained these same targets as part of the Paris agreement.

They said we had targets, but no plan. That is not true. Not only did we have the $1.5-billion ecotrust program, but we also had a plan that involved federal co-operation.

Allow me to quote the premier of Quebec at the time, Jean Charest, who was praising the plan that was going to help Quebec—his province, my province—meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets. Jean Charest and Mr. Harper issued a joint press release.

Mr. Harper said, “Canada's New Government is investing to protect Canadians from the consequences of climate change, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.” He was already recognizing it in 2007.

Mr. Charest said, “In June 2006, our government adopted its plan to combat climate change. This plan has been hailed as one of the finest in North America. With Ottawa contributing financially to this Quebec initiative, we will be able to achieve our objectives.”

It was Mr. Charest who said that in 2007, at a press conference with the prime minister.

I will continue to read the joint press release from the two governments, “As a result of this federal funding, the Government of Quebec has indicated that it will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 13.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent below its anticipated 2012 level.”

What is more, the $1.5-billion ecotrust that was supposed to be allocated and was allocated to every province provided $339 million to Quebec alone. That was going to allow Quebec to engage in the following: investments to improve access to new technologies for the trucking sector; a program to develop renewable energy sources in rural regions; a pilot plant for production of cellulosic ethanol; promotion of geothermal heat pumps in the residential sector; support for technological research and innovation for the reduction and sequestration of greenhouse gases. This is probably one of those programs that is helping us make our oil sands increasingly environmentally friendly by allowing us to capture the carbon that comes from converting the sands to oil. There are also measures for the capture of biogas from landfill sites, for waste treatment and energy recovery, and finally for Canada ecotrust.

I invite our Liberal colleagues to listen to what I am going to say. In 2007, Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace said the following: “We are pleased to see that after negotiating for more than a year, Quebec has finally obtained the money it needs to move towards meeting the Kyoto targets.”

Who made it possible for Quebec to move towards meeting its Kyoto objectives? It was the Harper government, a Conservative government, which established the $1.5-billion ecotrust fund in 2007 with monies from the budget surplus.

Not only did we have a plan to meet the targets we proposed, but this was also a plan that could only be implemented if the provinces agreed to the targets. It was a plan that was funded through the budget surplus, that did not further tax Canadians, and that provided money directly, without any conditions, other than the fundamental requirement that it had to help reduce climate change, which was philosophically important. Any and all measures taken to reach that goal were left entirely to the discretion of the provinces.

Mr. Harper, like a good Conservative who supported decentralization and like a true federalist leader, said that he was giving $400 million to each province so it could move forward with its plan.

By 2015, after 10 years of Conservative government, the country had not only weathered the worst economic crisis, the worst recession in history since the 1930s, but it had also reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2% and increased the gross domestic product for all Canadians while lopping three points off the GST and lowering income taxes for families with two children by an average of $2,000 per year.

If that is not co-operative federalism, if those are not real results, if that is not a concrete environmental plan, then I do not know what is. Add to that the fact that we achieved royal assent for no less than 25 to 35 bills every session.

In contrast, during this session, in between being forced to grapple with scandals involving the carbon tax, illegal border crossings, and the Trans Mountain project, this government has barely managed to come up with four genuinely important bills.

By contrast, we expanded parks and protected Canada's wetlands. Our environmental record is exceptional.

Furthermore, we allowed debate. For example, we debated Bill C-23 on electoral reform for four days. The Liberals' electoral reform was debated for two hours.

I am sad, but I am happy to debate until midnight because debating is my passion.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague on his fascinating speech on how we supported sustainable development in Canada without running unnecessary deficits.

As my colleague mentioned, we went through a significant economic crisis, but we still made unprecedented investments in the environment, which produced results.

The government is currently spending outrageous amounts of money left and right, as we saw yesterday with the $4.5 billion it handed over to the United States to buy a pipeline we did not need.

Responsible managers are able to achieve clear economies of scale and look after the environment. Can my colleague speak to that?

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, day after day, the government is revealing itself to be a poor manager for our country. Politics, arguments, and ideologies aside, the Canadian Constitution calls for peace, order, and good government. In this Parliament, we can be comforted by the fact that, at the very least, there is peace and order. However, there certainly is not good governance.

Day after day, the Liberals face national crises, sometimes of their own making, and their solutions are almost behind the times. They are unable to balance the budget in a reasonable time, as they promised.

What I particularly liked about the Conservative government, and what I will like about the future 2019 Conservative government, is that it had the political courage to speak the truth and take real action.

Today, we are talking about the environment, and I have a theory. I am sure that the Paris Agreement, which is much more practical and effective, exists because Mr. Harper had the courage to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol before all the international elite. Everyone knew that the Kyoto protocol was not working. There were useless meetings where the international elite set completely unrealistic objectives, when meanwhile all the countries knew full well that they would never achieve those greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Canada was the first and only country to have the courage to say that the Kyoto protocol was not working and that it needed to be updated. It was the only country that had the courage to withdraw. The Paris Agreement and its reduction targets of 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 exist primarily because of the Conservative government and the $1.5-billion ecotrust it created in 2007, which was a real and tangible example of federal co-operation.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member for his articulate speech. The former prime minister said that it was important that all Canadian governments remain competitive with the United States when it comes to the environment.

They continue to add new taxes that make us less and less competitive with the United States. The Liberals are making bad environmental policies that are not only adding extra costs for Canadians but making us less competitive. Is the member concerned about the competitiveness gap that the government is pursuing with regard to the environment? The Liberals always like to say that the environment goes hand in hand with the economy, but sometimes it does not, because there are trade-offs between the two.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague could not be more right. The government has yet to propose to Canadians how it is going to respond to the fiscal reform related to the presidency of Mr. Trump, which has already had a great impact on us. I have read the National Post and The Globe and Mail in the last month, and most experts have been telling us that Canada's competitiveness has decreased drastically in the last several months.

We learned yesterday that not only is the government not responding to the fiscal reform being implemented in the U.S., but it is sending $4.5 billion of taxpayer money to a Texas-based company, Kinder Morgan. We have all known the story, of course, since yesterday.

Worse than that, in the autumn session, the government tried to impose fiscal reform that would tax our small and medium-sized enterprises more and more. I am sure that the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola is very concerned about that because he is the critic for small and medium-sized enterprises. It is a fiasco, and the government does not know how to deal with it, either domestically or internationally.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It being 9:02 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.