Bill C-69 (Historical)

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

Part 1 enacts the Impact Assessment Act and repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. Among other things, the Impact Assessment Act
(a) names the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada as the authority responsible for impact assessments;
(b) provides for a process for assessing the environmental, health, social and economic effects of designated projects with a view to preventing certain adverse effects and fostering sustainability;
(c) prohibits proponents, subject to certain conditions, from carrying out a designated project if the designated project is likely to cause certain environmental, health, social or economic effects, unless the Minister of the Environment or Governor in Council determines that those effects are in the public interest, taking into account the impacts on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada, all effects that may be caused by the carrying out of the project, the extent to which the project contributes to sustainability and other factors;
(d) establishes a planning phase for a possible impact assessment of a designated project, which includes requirements to cooperate with and consult certain persons and entities and requirements with respect to public participation;
(e) authorizes the Minister to refer an impact assessment of a designated project to a review panel if he or she considers it in the public interest to do so, and requires that an impact assessment be referred to a review panel if the designated project includes physical activities that are regulated under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act;
(f) establishes time limits with respect to the planning phase, to impact assessments and to certain decisions, in order to ensure that impact assessments are conducted in a timely manner;
(g) provides for public participation and for funding to allow the public to participate in a meaningful manner;
(h) sets out the factors to be taken into account in conducting an impact assessment, including the impacts on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada;
(i) provides for cooperation with certain jurisdictions, including Indigenous governing bodies, through the delegation of any part of an impact assessment, the joint establishment of a review panel or the substitution of another process for the impact assessment;
(j) provides for transparency in decision-making by requiring that the scientific and other information taken into account in an impact assessment, as well as the reasons for decisions, be made available to the public through a registry that is accessible via the Internet;
(k) provides that the Minister may set conditions, including with respect to mitigation measures, that must be implemented by the proponent of a designated project;
(l) provides for the assessment of cumulative effects of existing or future activities in a specific region through regional assessments and of federal policies, plans and programs, and of issues, that are relevant to the impact assessment of designated projects through strategic assessments; and
(m) sets out requirements for an assessment of environmental effects of non-designated projects that are on federal lands or that are to be carried out outside Canada.
Part 2 enacts the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, which establishes the Canadian Energy Regulator and sets out its composition, mandate and powers. The role of the Regulator is to regulate the exploitation, development and transportation of energy within Parliament’s jurisdiction.
The Canadian Energy Regulator Act, among other things,
(a) provides for the establishment of a Commission that is responsible for the adjudicative functions of the Regulator;
(b) ensures the safety and security of persons, energy facilities and abandoned facilities and the protection of property and the environment;
(c) provides for the regulation of pipelines, abandoned pipelines, and traffic, tolls and tariffs relating to the transmission of oil or gas through pipelines;
(d) provides for the regulation of international power lines and certain interprovincial power lines;
(e) provides for the regulation of renewable energy projects and power lines in Canada’s offshore;
(f) provides for the regulation of access to lands;
(g) provides for the regulation of the exportation of oil, gas and electricity and the interprovincial oil and gas trade; and
(h) sets out the process the Commission must follow before making, amending or revoking a declaration of a significant discovery or a commercial discovery under the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act and the process for appealing a decision made by the Chief Conservation Officer or the Chief Safety Officer under that Act.
Part 2 also repeals the National Energy Board Act.
Part 3 amends the Navigation Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) rename it the Canadian Navigable Waters Act;
(b) provide a comprehensive definition of navigable water;
(c) require that, when making a decision under that Act, the Minister must consider any adverse effects that the decision may have on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada;
(d) require that an owner apply for an approval for a major work in any navigable water if the work may interfere with navigation;
(e)  set out the factors that the Minister must consider when deciding whether to issue an approval;
(f) provide a process for addressing navigation-related concerns when an owner proposes to carry out a work in navigable waters that are not listed in the schedule;
(g) provide the Minister with powers to address obstructions in any navigable water;
(h) amend the criteria and process for adding a reference to a navigable water to the schedule;
(i) require that the Minister establish a registry; and
(j) provide for new measures for the administration and enforcement of the Act.
Part 4 makes consequential amendments to Acts of Parliament and regulations.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not finished.

I will continue in English. I want to share this great speech with English-speaking Canadians.

After nine years of the Prime Minister's deficits doubling the national debt and doubling housing costs and a new budget that brings in $50 billion of new unfunded spending on promises he has already broken, this budget, just like the Prime Minister, is not worth the cost, and Conservatives will be voting no.

Before I get into the reasons, and my common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, I would like to pay the Minister of Finance a compliment for a page in her speech I thought was extremely illustrative. She said, “I would like to ask Canada's 1%, Canada's 0.1%, to consider this: What kind of country do they want to live in?”

Before I go any further, let us point out the incredible irony that, as she and her leader point out, Canada's 0.1% are doing better than ever after nine years of the Prime Minister promising to go after them. Yes, they have benefited from the tens of billions of dollars of undeserved corporate welfare handouts and grants, ironically supported by the NDP; of corporate loan guarantees that protect them against losses in cases of incompetence or dishonest bidding; of contracts, of which there are now $21 billion, granted to outside and highly paid consultants, many of them making millions of dollars a year in taxpayer contracts for work that could be done inside the government itself if that work is of any value at all; and finally, of those grand fortunes that have been inflated by the $600 billion of inflationary money printing that has transferred wealth from the working class to the wealthiest among us. That 0.1% is doing better than ever after nine years of the Prime Minister pretending he would get tough on them.

Let me go on. I am interrupting myself. The Minister of Finance asked, “Do [you] want to live in a country where [you] can tell the size of someone’s paycheque by their smile?” Wow. How many Canadians are smiling when they look at their paycheque today? People are not smiling at all, because a paycheque cannot buy them a basket of affordable food, according to Sylvain Charlebois, the food professor. He has said that the cost of a basket of food has gone up by thousands of dollars per year, but the majority of Canadians are spending hundreds of dollars less than is required to buy that basket. That means they are not getting enough food. We live in a country now where the average paycheque cannot pay the average rent, so nobody is smiling when they look at their paycheque.

The minister went on to ask, “Do [you] want to live in a country where kids go to school hungry?” According to the Prime Minister, one in four kids are going to school hungry after his nine years. I look here at a press release his government released on April 1, on April Fool's Day of all days, where he says, “Nearly one in four children do not get enough food”. In fact, it says that they do not get enough food “to learn and grow”.

No, we do not want to live in a country where kids go to school hungry, but according to the Prime Minister's own release, we do live in a country where one in four kids do go to school hungry. The Minister of Finance then said, “Do [they] want to live in a country where the only young Canadians who can buy their own homes are those with parents who can help with the down payment?” No, we do not want to live in that country, but we do live in that country today.

According to data released by RBC Dominion, for the average family to afford monthly payments on the average home in Canada, the family would have to spend 64% of its pre-tax income. Most families do not keep 64% of pre-tax income because they pay so much in taxes. Therefore, most families would have to give up on eating, recreation, clothing themselves and transportation to be mathematically capable of making payments on the average home. For young people, it is even worse because they do not have a nest egg. They cannot afford a down payment that has doubled in the last nine years. That is why 76% of Canadians who do not own homes tell pollsters they believe they never will. Do we want to live in a country where the only young people who can afford a down payment are those whose parents can pay it for them? No. However, that is the country that we live in today.

“Do [you] want to live in a country where we make the investments we need in health care, in housing, in old age pensions, but we lack the political will to pay for them and choose instead to pass a ballooning debt on to our children?”

Are we living in the twilight zone here? These are the minister's words: Do we want to live in a country where we pass the bill on to our children with “ballooning debt”? She asks this as she is ballooning the debt by adding $40 billion to that debt. She asks this while giving a speech about the perils of passing ballooning debt to our children. She is the finance minister for the government that has added more debt than all previous governments combined in the preceding century and a half. It is worth noting that the Prime Minister has added deficits as a share of GDP that are bigger than we had in World War I, in the Great Depression and in the great global recession of 2008 and 2009.

I should also note that the majority of debt that has been added under the Prime Minister was unrelated to COVID. The “dog ate my homework” excuse, of blaming COVID for all that is wrong in Canada, no longer works. I will add that we are now three years past COVID and the deficits and debt continue to grow, putting a lie to that entire endless, nauseating excuse that the government has made.

The Prime Minister has added so much debt that we are now spending more on interest for that debt than we are spending on health care; $54.1 billion in debt interest this year; more money for those wealthy bankers and bondholders who own our debt; and less money for the doctors and nurses whom we await when we sit for 26 hours in the average emergency room right across the country.

No, we do not want to live in a country that passes on a ballooning debt to our children, but after nine years of the Prime Minister, that is exactly the country in which we live.

The Minister of Finance asks, “Do [you] want to live in a country where those at the very top live lives of luxury?” Who does that remind us of? There is somebody who flies around in a private jet to stay on secret islands on the other side of the hemisphere, where they treat him to $8,000- and $9,000-a-day luxuries, and he pays for it with the tax dollars of Canadians and emits thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Somebody luxuriates in that way at the expense of everyone else. He shall remain unnamed because we cannot say the Prime Minister's name in the House of Commons, so I will not break that parliamentary rule. However, I do point out the irony.

I will start again. The Minister of Finance asks:

Do [you] want to live in a country where those at the very top live lives of luxury but must do so in gated communities behind ever-higher fences using private health care and private planes because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of their less-privileged compatriots burns so hot?

She says that the wrath of the majority of less privileged compatriots burns so hot. She is right that some people do not have the ability to live in gated communities, behind armed guards. Those people are told that they should leave their keys next to the door so that the car thieves can just walk in and peacefully steal their cars.

Communities across the country are being ravaged by crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. What she has described is exactly what is happening after nine years of the government. We have nurses in British Columbia hospitals who are terrified to go to work because the Prime Minister, in collusion with the NDP Premier of B.C., has decriminalized hard drugs and allowed the worst criminals to bring weapons and narcotics into their hospital rooms, where they cannot be confronted. We have 26 international students crammed into the basement of one Brampton home. We have a car stolen every 40 minutes in the GTA. We have a 100% increase in gun killings across the country.

We have communities where people are terrified to go out. We have small businesses across Brampton and Surrey that are receiving letters weekly, warning them that if they do not write cheques for millions of dollars to extortionists, their homes will be shot up, and their children will have bullets flying through the windows as they are sleeping.

That is life in Canada today. Do we want to live in that country? No, we do not want to live in that country. After eight years of rising costs, rising crime and rising chaos, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. We will replace him with a common-sense Conservative government that will bring home a country we love.

What does that country look like and how will we get there? Fortunately, we have a common-sense plan that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.

Let us start with the carbon tax, which went up 23% on April 1. Now we see the raging gas prices at the pumps across Ontario. There is chaos as people are desperately trying to get to the pumps and fill up before the latest hikes go ahead.

The Prime Minister celebrates, saying that high gas prices are his purpose, and he has the full support of the NDP leader on most days, when the NDP leader can figure out what his policy is. The NDP leader has voted 22 times to hike the carbon tax. Both parties, along with the help of the Bloc, have voted for future increases that will quadruple the tax to 61¢ a litre, a tax that will also apply on home heating bills and, of course, a tax that applies to the farmers who produce the food, the truckers who ship the food and therefore to all who buy the food.

That is why common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax to bring home lower prices. We take exactly the opposite approach to that of the Prime Minister when it comes to protecting our environment. His approach is to raise the cost on traditional energy we still need. Our approach is to lower the cost on other alternatives. We will green-light green projects, like nuclear power, hydroelectric dams, carbon capture and storage, mining of critical minerals, like lithium, cobalt, copper and others. We will do this by repealing the unconstitutional Bill C-69 so that we can approve these projects in 18 months, rather than in 18 years.

Here is the difference, the Prime Minister wants taxes; I want technology. He wants to drive our money to the dirty dictators abroad; I want to bring it home in powerful paycheques for our people in this country.

The same approach that will allow us to unleash energy, abundance and affordability is the approach we will take to build the homes; that is to say getting the government gatekeepers out of the way.

Why do we have the worst housing inflation in the G7 after nine years of the Prime Minister? Why have housing costs risen 40% faster than paycheques? It is by far the worst gap of any G7 country. Why did UBS say Toronto had the worst housing bubble in the world? Vancouver is the third most overpriced when comparing median income to median house price according to Demographia. Why? It is because we have the worst bureaucracy when it comes to homebuilding.

After nine years of the Prime Minister, Canada has the second-slowest building permits out of nearly 40 OECD countries. These permitting costs add $1.3 million to the cost of every newly built home in Vancouver and $350,000 to every newly built home in Toronto. Winnipeg blocked 2,000 homes next to a transit station that was built for those homes. The City of Montreal has blocked 25,000 homes in the last seven years. Literally hundreds of thousands of homes are waiting to be built but are locked up in slow permitting processes.

What do we have as a solution? The Prime Minister has taken the worst immigration minister in our country's history, the guy the Prime Minister blamed for causing out-of-control temporary immigration to balloon housing prices, and put him in charge of housing. Since that time, the minister has said that his housing accelerator fund of $4 billion does not actually build any homes.

Since he has doled out all of this cash to political friends in incompetent city halls across the country, homebuilding has dropped. In fact, homebuilding is down this year and, according to the federal government's housing agency, it will be down next year and again the year after that. That is a housing decelerator, not an accelerator.

That is what happens when a minister is chosen because he is a media darling and a fast talker rather than someone who gets things done, as I did when I was housing minister. The rent was only $973 a month for the average family right across the country, and the average house price was roughly $400,000. Those are results. There was less talk and less government spending but far more homes. That is what our common-sense plan will do again.

Our plan will build the homes by requiring municipalities to speed up, permit more land and build faster. They will be required to permit 15% more homes per year as a condition of getting federal funding, and to permit high-rise apartments around every federally funded transit station. We will sell off 6,000 federal buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to build. We will get rid of the carbon tax to lower the cost of building materials.

Finally, we will reward the working people who build homes, because we need more boots, not more suits. We will pass the common-sense Conservative law that allows trade workers to write off the full cost of transportation, food and accommodation to go from one work site to another, so they can build the homes while bringing home paycheques for themselves.

These homes will be in safe neighbourhoods. We will stop the crime by making repeat violent offenders ineligible for bail, parole or house arrest. That will mean no more catch and release. We will repeal Bill C-5, the house arrest law. We will repeal Bill C-75, the catch-and-release law. We will repeal Bill C-83, the cushy living for multiple murderers law that allows Paul Bernardo to enjoy tennis courts and skating rinks that most Canadian taxpaying families can no longer afford outside of prison.

We will bring in jail and not bail for repeat violent offenders. We will repeal the entire catch-and-release criminal justice agenda that the radical Prime Minister, with the help of the loony-left NDP, has brought in. The radical agenda that has turned many of our streets into war zones will be a thing of the past.

We will also stop giving out deadly narcotics. I made a video about the so-called safe supply. I went to the tragic site of yet another homeless encampment in Vancouver, which used to be one of the most beautiful views in the entire world. Now it is unfortunately a place where people live in squalor and die of overdoses. Everyone said it was terrible that I was planning to take away the tax-funded drugs and that all of the claims I made were just a bunch of conspiracy theories, but everything I said then has been proven accurate, every word of it.

I noticed that the Liberals and the pointy-headed professors they relied on for their policies have all gone into hiding as well. Why is that? It is because the facts are now coming out. Even the public health agency in British Columbia, which has been pushing the NDP-Liberal ideology, is admitting that the tax-funded hydromorphone is being diverted. The police in Vancouver said this week that 50% of all the high-powered hydromorphone opioids are paid for with tax dollars and given out by public health agencies, supposedly to save lives. Now we know that those very powerful drugs are being resold to children, who are getting hooked on them, and the profits are being used to buy even more dangerous fentanyl, tranq and other drugs that are leaving our people face-first on the pavement, dying of record overdoses.

The so-called experts always tell us to ignore the bumper stickers and look at the facts. The facts are in. In British Columbia, where this radical and incomparable policy has been most enthusiastically embraced, overdose deaths are up 300%. They have risen in B.C. faster than anywhere else in Canada and possibly anywhere else in North America. The ultraprogressive state of Oregon has reversed decriminalization, recognizing the total chaos, death and destruction the policy has caused.

What does the radical Prime Minister, with the help of his NDP counterpart, do? They look at the death and destruction that have occurred in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and other communities and say we should have more of that. They took a walk, or better yet, these two politicians probably drove through the Downtown Eastside in their bulletproof limousines. They looked around at the people who were bent over, completely tranquilized by fentanyl, saw the people lying face-first on the ground, saw the tents that the police would have pointed out are filled with dangerous guns and drugs, saw all the small businesses that were shuttered by this policy and said that we should have more of that. They want to replicate all the policies that have created it, so that we can have tent cities and homeless encampments in every corner of the country.

That is exactly what they have done. In Halifax, there are 35 homeless encampments in one city after nine years of the Prime Minister, his NDP counterpart and the Liberal mayor of Halifax. If we look at every town in this country, we will find homeless encampments that never existed before the last nine years. This policy will go down in infamy as one of the most insane experiments ever carried out on a population. Nowhere else in the world is this being done. The Liberals gaslight us. They love to say that all the civilized people believe that giving out these drugs will save lives, but nowhere else is this being done. When we tell people this is happening, they have a hard time believing that we are giving out heroin-grade drugs for free to addicts and expecting it to save lives.

Now they spill into our hospitals, where nurses are told by the NPD government in B.C. and the Liberal government in Ottawa that they are not allowed to take away crack pipes or knives or guns. They are just supposed to expect that someone is going to consume the drugs, have a massive fit and start slashing up the hospital floor. This is something out of a bad hallucination and a hallucination that will come to an end when I am prime minister. We will end this nightmare.

We will also ensure that Canadians have a better way. We are not only going to ban the drugs. We are not only going to stop giving out taxpayer-funded drugs. We are going to provide treatment and recovery.

If people are watching today and are suffering from addiction and do not know how they can turn their lives around, I want them to know that there is hope. There is a better future ahead. We will put the money into beautiful treatment centres with counselling, group therapy, physical exercise, yoga and sweat lodges for first nations, where people can graduate drug-free, live in nearby housing that helps them transition into a law-abiding, drug-free life, and come back to the centre for a counselling session, a workout or maybe even to mentor an incoming addict on the hopeful future that is ahead. That is the way we are going to bring our loved ones home, drug-free.

As I always say, we are going to have a common-sense dollar-for-dollar law, requiring that we find one dollar of savings for every new dollar of spending. In this case, that will include how we will partly pay for this. We will unleash the biggest lawsuit in Canadian history against the corrupt pharmaceutical companies that profited off of this nightmare. We will make them pay.

Finally, we will stop the gun crime. We know that gun crime is out of control. Just yesterday, we saw this gold heist. By the way, all of the gold thieves are out on bail already, so do not to worry. They will have to send the Prime Minister a nugget of gold to thank him for passing Bill C-75 and letting them out of jail within a few days of this monster gold heist.

Why did they steal the gold? They stole the gold so that they could buy the guns, because we know that all of the gun crime is happening with stolen guns. The Prime Minister wants to ban all civilian, law-abiding people from owning guns, but he wants to allow every criminal to have as many guns as they want. I am not just talking about rifles. I am talking about machine guns, fully loaded machine guns that are being found on the street, which never existed since they were banned in the 1970s. Now the criminals can get them because the Prime Minister has mismanaged the federal borders and ports and because he is wasting so much money going after the good guys.

The Prime Minister wants to ban our hunting rifles. He said so in a December 2022 interview with CTV. He was very clear. If someone has a hunting rifle, he said he will have to take it away. He kept his word by introducing a 300-page amendment to his Bill C-21, which would have banned 300 pages of the most popular and safe hunting rifles. He only put that policy on hold because of a backlash that common-sense Conservatives led, which included rural Canadians, first nations Canadians and NDPers from rural communities. He had to flip-flop.

I know that in places like Kapuskasing, the law-abiding people enjoy hunting. While the NDP leader and the Prime Minister look down on those people and think that they are to blame for crime, we know that the hunters in Kapuskasing are the salt of the earth, the best people around, and we are going to make sure that they can keep their hunting rifles. God love them. God love every one of them.

While the Prime Minister wants to protect turkeys from hunters, common-sense Conservatives want to protect Canadians from criminals. That is why we will repeal his insane policies.

By the way, I should point out that he has not even done any of the bans. We remember that he had that big press conference during the election. He said to his policy team that morning that he needed them to come up with a policy that would allow him to put a big, scary-looking black gun on his podium sign. They said, “Okay, we will think of something.” He put that scary-looking gun on his podium sign, and he said he was going to ban all of these assault rifles. They asked him what an assault rifle was, and he said he did not know, just that it was the black, scary thing on the front of his podium sign. That was the assault rifle he was referring to.

It is now three years since he made that promise. He was asked again in the hallways what an assault rifle was. He said he was still working to figure it out. These rifles that he says he is going to ban one day, he does not know what they are but one day he is going to figure it out and ban them. In the meantime, he has spent $40 million to buy exactly zero guns from owners. He said he was going to ban them and buy them from the owners. Not one gun has been taken off the street after he spent $40 million.

We could have used that money to hire CBSA officers who would have secured our ports against the thousands of illegal guns that are pouring in and killing people on our streets. When I am prime minister, we will cancel this multi-billion dollar waste of money. We will use it to hire frontline boots-on-the-ground officers who will inspect shipping containers and to buy scanners that can pierce inside to stop the drugs, stop the illegal guns, stop the export of our stolen cars and stop the crime.

What we are seeing is a very different philosophical approach. The finance minister said in her concluding remarks that what we need is bigger and stronger government. Does that not sound eerie? In other words, she and the Prime Minister want to be bigger and stronger. That is why they are always trying to make Canadians feel weaker and smaller. The Prime Minister literally called our people a small, fringe minority. He jabs his fingers in the faces of our citizens. He calls small businesses tax cheats. He claims that those who own hunting rifles are just Americans.

The Prime Minister points his fingers at people who disagree with him. He has the audacity of claiming that anyone who is offside with him is a racist. This is a guy who dressed up in racist costumes so many times he cannot remember them all. He has been denigrating other people his whole life. That is because it is all about him. It is all about concentrating more power and more money in his hands. This budget is no different. It is about a bigger government and smaller citizens. It is about buying his way through the next election with cash that the working-class people have earned and he has burned.

By contrast, I want the opposite. I want smaller government to make room for bigger citizens. I want a state that is a servant and not the master. I want a country where the prime minister actually lives up to the meaning of the word: “prime” meaning “first”, and “minister” meaning “servant”. That is what “minister” means. “Minister” is not master; “minister” is servant.

We need a country that puts people back in charge of their money, their communities, their families and their lives, a country based on the common sense of the common people, united for our common home, their home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.

Therefore, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“the House reject the government's budget since it fails to:

a. Axe the tax on farmers and food by passing Bill C-234 in its original form.

b. Build the homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring cities permit 15% more home building each year as a condition for receiving federal infrastructure money.

c. Cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation by requiring the government to find a dollar in savings for every new dollar of spending.

Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, it sure is telling that every time the NDP-Liberals get up to talk about the bill, they talk about almost anything other than Bill C-50. I think that is because Bill C-50, the just transition, is actually the culmination of nine years of the NDP-Liberals' anti-energy, anti-capitalist and, frankly, anti-Canadian policies, which they know will hurt Canadians.

The bill's proponents say Bill C-50 will deliver jobs and skills training programs, but the bill itself would do nothing of the sort. Instead, it would set up a fancy appointed government committee that would set up another committee to dictate five-year economic plans to governments. Despite what it claims, the costly coalition knows the just transition would actually disrupt the livelihoods of millions of Canadians and threaten 2.7 million jobs in energy, agriculture, transportation, construction and manufacturing, which is about 15% of Canada’s total workforce.

However, do not just take my word for it. These numbers come from the natural resource minister’s own briefing memo about the just transition from a couple of years ago. That is really why the NDP-Liberals colluded to ram Bill C-50 through the House and committee without hearing from any of the Canadians they know this bill will affect, because they know just how much harm their so-called just transition will cause.

In the fall, the cover-up coalition limited debate to less than eight hours for all parties, allowed only two hours for clause-by-clause debate at committee and, ultimately, blocked any single witness, anyone, from speaking about the impact of Bill C-50. It limited report stage debate to one day and now will only allow less than six hours of debate during the third and final reading. This is undemocratic.

Obviously, the Liberals know how unpopular the just transition is among Canadians, and that is exactly why they do not want to let Canadians speak out about it. No wonder they rammed it through committee in the middle of the night, silenced everyone and hoped no one notices. It is because they are showing their true colours. They care more about global accolades and international mutual admiration societies than about Canadians and, frankly, they care more than they really care about Canada, about their home, my home and our home. The Liberals argued that they had to rush through the bill because of how supposedly important it was, but once they sidelined Conservatives and prevented any witnesses from speaking at committee, they did not bring it back for four more months. Time and time again, Liberals say one thing and do another.

Canadians do not want this top-down, economic-restructuring, wealth-redistributing, central-planning just transition. That is why they rebranded it and changed the name with buzzwords to distract, but Canadians see through them. In fact, the majority of Canadians think Canada should not be forced to pay for or to go through anything like the just transition until the world’s big polluters make serious efforts of their own.

People around the world face energy and food emergencies every day. Countries are switching to coal because of the NDP-Liberals when Canada should supply them with LNG instead. While Canada accounts for only 1.6% of world emissions, China approved more coal power in the first quarter of 2023 after building six times as many coal plants as the rest of the world combined in 2022.

Last year, over 70% of India’s power came from coal. Instead of supporting Canada’s LNG development to help countries get off of coal by exporting the worlds cleanest LNG, helping to lower global emissions, the Liberals fixate on destroying Canada’s economy and the livelihoods of the millions of workers who depend on jobs in Canada's energy sector. How does this make any sense?

While the NDP-Liberals punish Canadians for working in one of the world’s most sustainable and transparent energy sectors and for living in a cold, distant, northern country, other countries burn more and more coal every day. The NDP-Liberals say things like “the world is moving this way”. I wish they would really pay attention to what is actually happening in the rest of the world. The rest of the world is moving away from the agenda that the costly coalition imposes on Canada. The virtue signalling and empty words here must stop. Reality and common sense must prevail.

No wonder they made that last-minute name change to the bill, launched a coordinated spin job, broke and made up the rules and rammed it all through. It was so the fewest people would find out, but Conservatives said not so fast. We proposed reasonable amendments that the NDP-Liberals rejected outright, with no hesitation and no consideration.

They rejected amendments from Conservatives outlining measures to ensure access to affordable and reliable energy, to ensure a strong, export-oriented energy sector, to avoid regulatory duplication and unnecessary delays, to improve affordability and to facilitate and promote economic growth in Canada. They rejected amendments to create sustainable jobs through private sector investment and to ensure that major and clean energy projects under federal regulatory frameworks can be delivered on time and on budget. They rejected that.

There were measures to ensure the importance of collaborating with all levels of government, including provincial and municipal governments, engaging all relevant partners and stakeholders; measures to include representatives of provincial governments and indigenous governance bodies; and measures to recognize local and regional needs, including in indigenous communities. They rejected measures to ensure ways to create economic opportunities for indigenous communities. I guess that was because they know indigenous Canadians work at double the rates in Canada's oil and gas sector than in other sectors. As well there were measures to ensure the bill promotes economic growth, including the economic growth of indigenous communities. All of those were proposed by Conservatives, and all were rejected by the NDP-Liberals.

If members did not believe before that the just transition would be anything but fair and equitable for Canadians, now they know for sure. What would be the reason for voting against all these changes, changes calling for measures to improve affordability and to create economic opportunities for indigenous communities? They even rejected a Bloc amendment because it sought to preserve existing jobs.

Bill C-50 would not create sustainable jobs. It would kill them. It is clear that there is nothing well-intentioned about this bill or the NDP-Liberals' costly coalition.

Conservatives also proposed further amendments for Canadian workers and the energy sector, but the NDP-Liberals opposed them all. They were things like, “Canada’s natural resource sector, including oil and gas, has been a reliable source of revenue for the Government of Canada, and has contributed to the sustainability of core social programs”, “Canada’s plan to reduce its production of oil and gas should be done in lock step with major emitters...including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States”, “Canada should sell liquefied natural gas to its security partners in Europe, so that they can break their dependence on Russian natural gas” and “Canadian oil and gas workers produce cleaner products than those of any other country in the world”. All of those were rejected by the NDP-Liberals.

The costly coalition truly has no regard for the hard-working Canadians in the energy sector in local communities right across the country who keep Canadians' lights on, vehicles running, homes warm and cool, and businesses going. The costly coalition actually ignores the lessons from other countries that began imposing a combination of anti-energy and anti-free market policies years ago. However, the NDP-Liberals do not care about reality. It is all about ideology for them.

For example, the consequence of Ireland's anti-energy just transition agenda shut down manufacturing jobs in Ireland, only to have the same jobs be created in other countries abroad, with no impact on emissions but a lot of harm to the economy and the livelihoods of their citizens. Germany was forced to reopen coal plants after initiating their suite of top-down economic restructuring policies years ago. Last year, over a third of Germany's electricity came from coal, and the government waived its emissions tax due to the high cost of energy.

Poland is dependent on coal for over 70% of its energy mix, with no plans to phase it out until 2040. The Netherlands was forced to end its cap on energy production from coal-fired power plants to protect themselves and stop their reliance on Russian natural gas. Austria reopened its coal plants just two years after finishing their so-called just transition. In New Zealand, just three years after initiating their just transition plan, the country burned more coal that ever before.

Last year, Britain had to bring coal plants back online in the face of cold snaps, with the risk of over three-hour rolling blackouts even with the coal plants that were able to come back online, something that Canadians are already experiencing across the country.

Sweden, which currently holds the EU's presidency, ceased all of its efforts to net zero and upset EU plans to phase out fossil fuel subsidies earlier this year, when it put forward a motion to allow countries to prolong subsidies for coal-powered plants. Sweden also dumped their 100% renewable target amid ongoing concerns about short-term energy security and extended their timelines for alterative energy to 2045.

In Scotland there is no planned phase-out of oil and gas, but rather a commitment to continued exploration and production with the hope that investments in sustainable energy and carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies would help reduce sectoral emissions. In Norway, which anti-energy Canadian activists love to celebrate, they continue to export oil and gas, with 49% of Norway’s annual revenues coming from the petroleum sector. Warm, small and sunny Mexico also hit record-high fossil fuel-powered generation in 2023.

That is the reality around the world where the just transition has been tried. Somehow the Liberals think that if they ignore all of the warning signs and alarm bells, they will avoid these same problems faced by all of these countries around the world. The Prime Minister and his costly coalition need a serious reality check.

Canadians do not even have to look abroad to see the failure of just transition claims and plans. In 2017, the Liberals accelerated the forced shutdown of coal operations in communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which killed the jobs of 3,000 workers across the four provinces, in approximately 13 communities.

The Liberals' promised just transition did not materialize. Despite 150 million tax dollars spent, jobs were not replaced; communities were devastated, and municipal representatives worry that local governments will not be able to afford to keep the water running and the town services operational much longer.

The Auditor General said that the Liberals’ just transition for coal workers was anything but just. The program lacked employee retention, and it actually led to a loss of skills and skilled workers, which hiked the cost of housing and infrastructure in remote areas as people fled those smaller communities. Impacted workers were not identified in advance, and 86% of the workforce was left behind with generic, untargeted and unhelpful programs. None of the recommendations of the task force were implemented and all of the government departments that were supposed to monitor and to report on the status of activities that measure whether projects actually helped communities did not report and could not determine whether the millions of taxpayer dollars actually did anything.

The Liberals’ just transition for coal was a perfect and expensive failure trifecta: a failure to plan, a failure to implement and a failure to measure outcomes. Left behind are dozens of communities and thousands of workers and their families who now have to make new lives for themselves because far-away and out-of-touch politicians and program administrators implemented an accelerated plan to fire those hard-working Canadians and to make their communities ghost towns, and they patted themselves on the back while they were it. That is exactly what Bill C-50, the just transition, is all about.

The Liberals want to do it all again, but this time with energy, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and transportation workers who rely indirectly or directly on the oil and gas sector. That internal memo to the natural resources minister says, “[large] scale transformation[s] will take place in...Agriculture...292,000 workers...; [in] Energy...202,000 workers...; [in] Manufacturing...193,000 workers...; [in construction]...1.4 million workers...; and [in] Transportation...642,000 workers”.

The Liberals know it will kill 170,000 oil and gas jobs immediately. That is their plan. The just transition is an attack on all the livelihoods in all those significant sectors in Canada, and it would ultimately hurt all provinces. What does the minister’s memo say those workers would be retrained in? Some of those people would be retrained in jobs as janitors and drivers. Janitors and drivers are obviously essential workers in any business and in all sectors, but the costly coalition should be honest enough to tell the millions of workers already in sustainable, highly paid jobs with significant pensions, benefits and advancement opportunities that this is really the Liberals' plan for them.

The just transition is the pinnacle of the NDP-Liberals' anti-energy agenda for Canada. It goes hand in hand with their cruel and inflationary carbon taxes 1 and 2, the tanker ban, the emissions cap, drilling bans, anti-development zones, the unrealistic EV targets and the incoming ban on internal combustion engines, or ICEs, their overreach on plastics, endless and impossible permitting timelines and red tape and their “no more pipelines“ bill, Bill C-69, which was ruled unconstitutional over 185 days ago with no response or changes yet from the Liberals. This long line of anti-energy policies from the Liberals is a deliberate effort to accelerate the phase-out of oil and gas in Canada. The Liberals know it will not be produced if it cannot be exported, so they block pipelines and turn away world leaders and allies who ask for our resources, like LNG. After nine years, those policies have already driven billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs out of Canada. It is clearly not worth the cost.

At a time when the world is in an energy crisis and when millions of people are living in energy poverty, Canada’s resource wealth should be used to support our allies and the people in developing countries, and not to force them to support their adversaries. If the just transition in Canada goes ahead as intended, the Liberals would continue to reject allies who so desperately want to get off Russian energy to quit funding Putin’s war machine. This is the reality. Global demand for oil and gas has risen, and it will continue to rise in the foreseeable future. Therefore, instead of forcing countries like Japan, Germany, Greece and others to turn to dictators and despots for their energy needs, Canada should be the reliable and the environmentally responsible source they can rely on. However, the NDP-Liberals' gatekeepers hold Canada back.

Canada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, while being the fourth-largest producer, and the 18th-largest natural gas reserves, while being the fifth-largest producer. Common-sense Conservatives would ensure that Canada accelerates and expands the development and exports of traditional oil and gas for the benefit of our people and our home, and to help allies around the world. Canada could rank sixth in LNG exports if all the 18 proposed projects were completed and could displace all natural gas from Russia to allied nations in Europe and East Asia, like Germany, Ukraine, France, Japan and South Korea. However, the government's regulatory regime has killed all but three of those proposed LNG projects in Canada and, still to date, none are operational. Only one, which was previously approved under Conservatives, is under construction.

The Liberals also ignore the fact that the oil and gas sector has been, and continues to be, the top private sector investor in clean technology in Canada. In fact, 75% of Canadian private sector investment in clean energy comes from oil and gas and pipeline companies. However, the NDP-Liberals would apparently spend billions of tax dollars on re-education programs that their internal briefing notes explicitly say would leave workers at risk of only being able to get jobs that are more precarious, with less pay and lower skill requirements, and would shut down a sector that is already the leading research and development investor, and skills trainer in alternative, renewable and future energy technologies in Canada. By the way, 90% of companies in the oil and gas sector have 100 or fewer employees. They are small businesses; they are not big union jobs.

No matter what they say, the Liberals just transition will not be able to replace the quality, quantity or pay of those working today in Canada’s energy sector, never mind the tax revenues to all governments, which benefit every Canadian.

Indigenous people in Canada and visible minorities, who are more highly represented in the sectors that Liberals want to transition away from, will face even higher job disruptions and more trouble finding new opportunities. The worse thing is that the NDP-Liberals know it.

Canada should be the world’s energy producer and supplier of choice. Canada should be energy secure and self-sufficient, but the Liberals put ideology and partisanship above reality, the economy and Canadian sovereignty.

Politicians should be honest about the outcomes of their policies. No wordsmithing can negate the socio-economic consequences of the just transition concept for Canada. Besides, Canadian oil and gas jobs are sustainable jobs. The solutions are transformation, not transition; technology, not taxes; led by the private sector, not government. Conservatives would bring costs and red tape down and would accelerate approvals to make both traditional and alternative energy more affordable and accessible for all Canadians, while green-lighting green projects to help lower emissions globally.

I believe Canadians can see through the costly coalition. I believe they know that they are not worth their trust and not worth the cost to Canada. For my part, I will not stop speaking the truth, no matter what vile names or crass insults they throw at me, no matter how much double-speak and gaslighting they do. I will not back down, and I will not cower.

The truth is this: Common-sense Conservatives are the only party that wants to make life more affordable for all Canadians, to green-light green projects and to expand traditional oil and gas for Canadian energy self-sufficiency, to protect Canada’s sovereignty, to enhance Canada’s security with free and democratic allies and to help lower emissions globally.

The best things for workers right across the country are jobs. This bill, Bill C-50, could create a fancy government committee that would create another fancy government committee, all behind closed doors, with no transparency and no accountability to deliver plans to restructure Canada's economy on a five-year cycle. This is exactly the kind of anti-energy, anti-private sector and anti-democratic policy agenda that has led other countries around the world to have expensive power, to have unaffordable and unreliable fuel and power, to have protests from their citizens, followed by governments rolling back suites of bad policies that are harmful to their countries and harmful to the people.

Given Iran's attack on Israel, Canadians should also be thinking about the necessity for Canada to become completely self-sufficient with our own energy supply and security, which is what Conservatives would ensure we could have, under a new common-sense Conservative government.

Madam Speaker, I would like to move the following amendment, seconded by the member for Provencher. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and by substituting the following:

the House decline to give third reading to Bill C-50, an act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy, since the bill will displace workers, kill jobs, and kill the very sector that provides the most investment and most advancements in alternative energy.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I made this point earlier to the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, and I just want to reiterate it.

Not to be insulting or disparaging to my Liberal friends but, really and truly, the only thing that encouraged people to support the previous environmental assessment legislation that was brought forward as Bill C-69 was that the Premier of Alberta said it was the anti-pipeline act. I could not vote for it, because it just as easily could have been the pro-pipeline act. It was a pile of discretion untethered from federal jurisdiction, which is why the Supreme Court, in its reference case, said that part of the bill that was the designated project list was unconstitutional. It was not that the federal government did too much for climate or too much for the environment. It did so little, but it was aided by over-reaction from Conservative benches.

I want to plead with my colleague, let us be honest about this bill. It sets up a secretariat that says it might talk about doing something for sustainable jobs. It does not actually help workers. It does not do what was promised in numerous Liberal political platforms. I lament that. If we oversell on each side of the House, the citizens of Canada are left disappointed and without a climate plan.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise and speak on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country.

This unjust just transition bill is the NDP-Liberal coalition's attack on jobs and Canada's economy. This is important legislation that would drastically affect Canada's economy from coast to coast to coast, and I am glad to have the opportunity to speak for my community and hard-working Canadians.

If the NDP-Liberal government truly cares about expanding the alternative energy sector, then it must realize the vast impact this bill would have on every Canadian when prices continue to rise and jobs disappear. It has provided no data, no details and no proof otherwise.

If this legislation passed, it would accelerate the shutdown of Canada's energy sector, which would result in the loss of 170,000 direct jobs and the displacement of up to 450,000 direct and indirect jobs. It would create a significant disruption to the manufacturing, agricultural, transportation, energy and construction sectors, affecting 2.7 million Canadian jobs. These numbers come right from a document from the Liberal government itself. The document also states that these jobs would be replaced by other jobs. However, there is no proof and no plan as to what they are or if they would have the same pay and benefits as people have now.

We know what the government wants, because the government wrote it down. This is an ideological attack on well-paying jobs. When a manufacturing company cannot buy plastic solvents, lubricants, waxes or other products needed because there is a lack of domestic product from Canada, it will have to import. We need to bring home the good jobs that are leaving the country.

Even before this just transition legislation, the government's actions have already caused mass job losses and billions of dollars of investment leaving Canada. We only have to look at the Supreme Court of Canada calling the anti-energy bill, Bill C-69, unconstitutional. How poorly the government thinks through its legislation.

This unjust bill is causing my community and people across the country to worry about whether their small business will close or whether they will have a paycheque and where it will come from. As such, how can the Liberal-NDP coalition say it cares about Canadians?

I remember, not long ago, when many families living in Kelowna—Lake Country had family members commuting to and from Fort Mac on flights. Both the flights and the jobs are gone. I spoke to a mom, who told me she reluctantly had to go back to work because her husband lost his well-paying job in a senior management position in a resource company. She said they reluctantly had to find child care, and she was not able to volunteer at her kids' school anymore, which broke her heart. Even with both of them working, they were making less than he had made in his one former position.

Leaving workers behind and ending responsible and clean Canadian energy jobs will not improve the world environment. It will only result in our allies buying more dirty oil from foreign dictators. Not only is the Liberal-NDP government supporting Canada having to buy energy from other countries, but it is also supporting countries and dictators that have poor environmental standards, concerning human rights issues and a lack of transparency standards. In 2020, Canada imported $11.5 billion worth of crude oil, with Saudi Arabia being the top country we imported from. The Liberal government keeps giving away our energy security. We need to bring it home.

This just transition bill is elitist, anti-energy, anti-worker, anti-private sector and anti-free market. It would cause widespread losses of good jobs, as outlined in a government document: 2.7 million jobs. We cannot afford a higher cost of living, especially because Canadians are already suffering under the Prime Minister's government. After eight years of the Liberal government, Canadians are realizing the Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.

Alberta, Canada's largest energy province, has the fear that this just transition bill would dismantle the oil and gas industry. The office of Alberta's energy minister reported that it was not consulted on this. Germany, Japan and Greece all asked for Canada's LNG, yet the Prime Minister turned them down. He said there is no business case. This is absolutely not true.

Business 101 starts with having a need, and the U.S. knows this. In the last five years, it has become one of the largest exporters of LNG. Canada could be supplying our allies around the world rather than having to turn to other countries that do not have the strong environmental, worker rights or human rights standards we do.

Canadians need Canadian energy, and workers are ready to provide it; however, the Prime Minister will not let them. Canada's own energy security is at risk. Canada is at risk of energy poverty. What does the Prime Minister truly think will happen to Canada's economy when one of Canada's main exports is reduced substantially or no longer being exported?

The government is forcing Canada to rely on other countries for energy when we could be self-sufficient, surviving and thriving on our own resources as we find ways to support and expand alternative energy development to make Canada more resilient. We know the radical, career activist Liberal environment minister is all for the just transition. In a shocking move, the minister travelled to Beijing, where there is no carbon tax, to sit as the executive vice-chairman on a body established and controlled by Beijing's Communist Party. The minister should be focused on promoting Canada's energy sector, reducing red tape to ensure that Canada's clean energy, clean LNG, can help countries such as China, which are dependent on coal, to drastically reduce emissions.

At a time when we have had inflation at a 40-year high and continue to have high interest rates, families need the security of a well-paying job. Instead, the NDP-Liberal coalition is guaranteeing the destruction of a powerful paycheque. We are already in an economic crisis, a mental health crisis, an addiction crisis and a housing crisis. Food bank usage is at a record high, and families are struggling to keep food on the table. Like many Conservatives, I will not stand for the Liberals' true goal of shutting down the energy sector and getting to claim positive action from their destruction of Canadian livelihoods and Canada's economy.

Conservatives support the development of Canada's clean energy and support focusing on technological advances. This bill does not mention training or retraining workers for whatever hypothetical jobs the Liberals are alluding to after disrupting 2.7 million jobs. That number is not just about the number of jobs; it is about people and families.

As we are debating this just transition legislation, the Liberal MPs want Canadians not to worry and have them think everything will work out and be just fine, to just trust them on the 2.7 million jobs that will be lost or disrupted. However, Canadians have lost trust in the Liberals.

This is the same government that, through Environment and Climate Change Canada, is implementing single-use plastics prohibition regulations. An up-and-coming Canadian company out of Calgary, Leaf Environmental Products, produces biodegradable, compostable grocery bags. They are banned through the single-use plastics ban, even though they have no plastic in them. They just look like plastic. How ridiculous is that?

Clearly, the government's focus is to bring in legislation and policies that have a nice title but do not consider the ramifications. For the government's just transition plan, the labour minister said at the human resources committee, which I sit on, that he does not like the name “just transition”. This legislation has a new term. It is now called the “sustainable jobs act”, even though a government document states that there will be 2.7 million Canadian jobs affected, creating significant disruption in multiple industries. Today, in debate, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands said that it should be called the just transition act because globalist groups call it that, and that is what it is. Putting millions of people out of work while providing no information on the size and scale of the supposed new jobs, making Canada less energy secure, and creating red tape and bureaucratic inefficiencies are not things Canadians need right now. Canadians need hope.

We need to bring home powerful paycheques, investment and development.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, my family has called Fort McMurray home for over 50 years. My dad’s family moved to Fort McMurray in the 1970s to make a better life for themselves, and shortly after moving to Fort McMurray, my grandfather got a job at a place called Syncrude, working to build the extraction plant in anticipation of first oil. My dad, Gord, proudly worked at Syncrude, securing Canada’s energy future, for 42 years. He started in 1978 right after graduation and right before first oil, and he stayed until his retirement. He had three careers within that time: first as a machinist, as a process operator, and, finally, he found his passion in operations integrity and safety.

I eventually followed in my dad’s footsteps. Through university, I took summer student jobs at Syncrude, learning about extraction, maintenance, health and safety, governance, oil sands and so much more. After university, I started working at North American Construction Group in the mining division within the health and safety department. It was such a wonderful experience. I was able to work on so many different job sites throughout the region, wearing steel-toed boots and having dirty fingernails. I absolutely loved my time there.

I had a first-hand opportunity to see how seriously this industry took health and safety, environmental responsibilities and to see the role it played in not only Fort McMurray's and Alberta's economy but also the Canadian economy. I had the opportunity to meet thousands of hard-working, wonderful people from all across Canada and the world who decided to come to my hometown, to make it their hometown, to work in the oil sands and to make a better life for their families.

My community and the industry that drives it have been a beacon of hope for so many people for so long. In the eighties and the nineties, thousands of Atlantic Canadians flocked to Fort McMurray after the coal mines were shut down in Cape Breton and after the fisheries collapsed. Thousands of people came. They became my friends, my family and my neighbours. They are some of the most amazing people. However, they came to Fort McMurray not by choice, but because some government thought it knew best.

Now, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, my community is struggling. Eco-radicals now sit around a cabinet table and advocate against Canada’s world-class energy industry at every turn. They have made no attempt to even hide their distaste for oil and gas. The Prime Minister has stated on three separate occasions now that there is no business case for Canadian LNG. That is shameful.

The anti-energy agenda of the government has been consistent and punishing over the last eight years: anti-energy messaging, delays, arbitrary and inconsistent regulatory conditions and, frankly, an outright veto of approved export pipelines. It has pushed forward with anti-energy legislation at every turn, including the “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69. Despite universal provincial opposition, it decided it was going to go ahead with it. Despite the fact that it did not have jurisdiction, it decided it was going to go ahead with it. Frankly, the part that really hurts with that bill, particularly, is that the Liberal government knew that if the oil could not be moved and was landlocked, it could not be produced. That was its sneaky way of shutting down oil without shutting down oil.

Canada should and could be the world’s energy producer and supplier of choice and could be the place of energy security and self-sufficiency. Canada could be completely energy self-sufficient if government could get out of the way, but time and time again, the Liberals continue to put ideology and partisanship above supporting our economy or even reality. They have failed to understand that these are hard-working people. These are our neighbours, our friends, and they work hard every single day.

Politicians in this chamber do not mince their words when it comes to speaking in disdain of this industry. In fact, the member for Timmins—James Bay even went so far as to table legislation to make it illegal to say anything supportive of the oil and gas industry, including true and verifiable facts, which would be punishable by massive fines and up to and including jail time. In fact, if his bill were to pass, saying something that is true and verifiable, such as that natural gas is cleaner burning than coal, would be illegal.

That is insane, yet the NDP-Liberal coalition continues pushing its agenda and continues pushing forward with this bill. I have not heard any members from the Liberals or the NDP denounce this insane bill, Bill C-50, because they probably support it, and that is why we are so fearful of everything the government does when it comes to energy.

I wish politicians could simply be honest about the outcomes of their policies, not wordsmithing, not negotiating, and not transition while calling it somehow “just”. We need to accept in this chamber and across the country that Canadian oil and gas jobs are sustainable jobs.

The Liberal just transition is a dangerous government-mandated plan to kill 170,000 Canadian jobs and risks the livelihood of 2.7 million Canadians.

This bill, Bill C-50, is a step, actually more like a leap, toward Soviet-style government-central planning. That is exactly what this is going toward. The NDP-Liberal government claims to value Canadian oil and gas, and yet it wants to increase exports. However, after eight years, it has interfered to kill four pipelines, two of which were specifically designed to export off the west and the east coasts.

Do not worry; hope is on the horizon. Conservatives are going to do everything we can to push back against this legislation. The real solution is electing the leader of the official opposition, the member for Carleton, as our next Prime Minister.

Conservatives would make traditional energy and the development of fuels of the future more affordable and accessible to Canadians. Conservatives would fix what the Liberals broke and would keep westerners, and all provinces, in control of their natural resources. We would respect provincial jurisdiction.

We will respect provincial jurisdiction over natural resources and in all other cases. It is absolutely essential that provincial jurisdiction over natural resources be respected.

Conservatives would bring approvals up and would bring costs and timelines down to ensure Canadian energy security and self-sufficiency and to increase exports to the world. We need technology, not taxes. We need to support an industry that supports this country.

As I described earlier, to so many Canadians, Fort McMurray was, at one point in time, a beacon of hope, prosperity and a fresh start. To the world's leading oil producers, we are a tough competitor that refuses to lie down, but for far too many elected officials across this country, we are simply a cash cow they can abuse.

To the fringe eco-activists, we are unfortunately the enemy, but to me, Fort McMurray has been, and always will be, home. I was born and raised here, and Conservatives of every stripe, federal, provincial and municipal, have always had our backs. They understand that when Fort McMurray works, Alberta works, and when Alberta works, Canada works.

I will not back down from all the politicians in this chamber who seek to land-lock and firewall our oil sands. Pipelines and energy corridors are items of critical national importance and interest for the long-term viability not only of northeastern Alberta but also of Canada and the world. I urge every member of this chamber to vote against this disastrous bill, Bill C-50.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the father of 20th-century modern management, Peter F. Drucker, once said, “There is...nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.” That quote depicts the foundation of the just transition act that we have before us today.

There is nothing just about forcing a transition on an industry or on a community that has made it its life journey to produce the cleanest energy products the world has ever seen, especially knowing that through global turmoil, food insecurity and increased energy demands, the world's hydrocarbons will continue to be needed as a solution to humanity's woes and not, as ideologists would have us believe, as the cause of those woes.

To ensure that, should the world decide that its energy demands will be satisfied by strong environmental hydrocarbon-producing countries, we as Canadians will continue to be there to answer the call, but we will not be there if Canada’s major economic driver is brought to its knees by the twisted ideology of the government and its anti-energy partners.

The Conservative leader has said that we will unleash the growth within our economy, that with our most powerful resources, produced in the most environmentally positive way, there will be benefits to our people and to the environment at the same time. We will not follow the Prime Minister, with the help of his NDP masters, to push production out of Canada and, thus, toward other countries that pollute more, burn more coal and put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with no remorse.

The Prime Minister would sooner drive production away from Canadians, who already have the cleanest electricity grid on planet earth, toward other nations that, frankly, are incapable of change or just do not care.

By using the wealth generated by our essential hydrocarbon resources, we can protect the environment and prevent the loss of billions of dollars of stranded assets owned by provinces and first nations, and use our innovative skills to move the global needle of greenhouse gases to a level that would satisfy all but the most radical eco-activists.

At the natural resources committee, we have had much debate on the future of Canada’s hydrocarbon industries. I find it unbelievable that the natural resources minister, along with his cohorts in cabinet, would actively pursue a framework to handcuff one of Canada’s greatest assets. Of course, all of this discussion has been created because of the planned attack on resource development in Canada. Had Bill C-69, the anti-resource development law, never happened and if tens of billions of investment plans not been shelved, then the government would not have had to produce legislation to prop up the ghost towns that it is actively creating.

The Liberal just transition action plan is a dangerous government-mandated plan to kill off 170,000 Canadian jobs and to put at risk the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadian workers. This is a plan that creates subsidized jobs, not sustainable jobs. Conservatives do not believe in a central-planning “Ottawa knows best” approach that tells private sector energy companies how to run their operations. The government cannot even track emissions properly.

As a member of the natural resources committee, I have asked multiple times for an analysis of the full life-cycle impact of all the projects we have, from the first shovel in the ground to the last shovel used to cover up those projects. The government has no clue, yet we are to trust it to dictate to industries how to best run their operations. I think not.

Oil and gas are still Canada’s largest export sector, and it is so important in the development of renewable and alternative fuels of the future to have it strong and to keep it strong.

The Liberals and their NDP cohorts are ignoring cost, technology and infrastructure demands. Reports vary on how the federal government has underfunded its climate plans. RBC had a report that stated that the government needed to spend $2 trillion to make it to net zero. It published a supplementary report saying Canada could capitalize on the global increase for oil and gas and still meet its net-zero targets with investments from the profits, but the government turned its back on our allies while peddling technology and alternative fuel sources that cannot be produced at a commercial rate.

A Conservative government would unleash the energy sector while fostering technology and innovation to protect our environment, so that more Canadian energy would get to the world to displace dictator energy and create jobs and powerful paycheques for Canadians.

Let us be clear. There is noting just about this transition and tax plan the Liberals have. Chief Dale Swampy said, “There is nothing fair or equitable about what is happening today.”

After eight years of anti-energy messages, delays, arbitrary and inconsistent regulatory conditions, an outright veto of an approved export pipeline and the imposition of project-killing Bill C-69, despite universal provincial opposition, the Liberals have made no secret their intention to accelerate the phase-out of the oil and gas sector in Canada.

It is sad. First nations communities are begging the government to get out of the way and let them produce the resources on their land so that their communities can thrive. Our global allies are begging for our help to get off Putin’s oil, so they can have a stable and ethical energy source. All the while, the government believes that if it cannot be produced, it cannot be shipped and, therefore, its ideological push will win.

The reality is that everyone loses, but the government is too self-absorbed to see that. Canada should be the world’s go-to energy producer and supplier of choice, and be energy secure and self-sufficient as well. Instead, the Liberals put ideology and partisanship above reality and the economy.

Politicians should be honest about the outcomes of their policies. Too often with these Liberals we see them fall back on wordsmithing and absolve themselves of any negative socio-economic consequences of the so-called just transition concept for Canada. This needs to stop.

Many times we hear about how the world is changing and how important it is for us to keep up with our European partners. Perhaps the government should be paying attention to what is happening in Europe. The mood has changed. Governments in Europe are starting to recognize the consequences of this blind action. They are listening to their people.

That is the problem: We do not have a government that is prepared to vary, in any way, from the path that it has set forward. It is not listening to the people. Here, it is understandable that they do not listen to opposition parties, but it had best be listening to the people in their ridings. The mood has changed, and it is important that all parliamentarians recognize that. If we do not, we will be left behind by a world that is looking for Canadian energy.

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 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—

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax Emergency Meeting

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Madam Speaker, I am not here to talk about the Premier of Alberta; I am here to represent the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador know that we have 13 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lying under the Grand Banks and under the Labrador Sea. That natural gas could go to Germany, which is building steam plants right now that in the interim could be fuelled by natural gas. Down the road, when we can have green hydrogen, hydrogen could replace natural gas; however for now, the quickest way to get emissions down is to use natural gas.

In terms of the green revolution, it takes over 18 years to green-light a mine to produce the rare elements needed in the green transition. The government, with Bill C-69, is destroying our mining industry and our opportunity to take part in the green economy.

Impact Assessment Act

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-375, an act to amend the Impact Assessment Act.

We are at a critical juncture where the decisions we make can shape our nation's trajectory towards prosperity and sustainability. Central to our discussion is a vital piece of legislation, common-sense Bill C-375. The bill represents a golden opportunity to streamline how we approach environmental assessments, ensuring that crucial green projects can move forward swiftly and responsibly. It is about cutting through red tape to unleash Canada’s potential for growth while safeguarding our natural environment.

Bill C-375 is not just about amending current legislation; it is also about embracing a smarter, more collaborative way of working together as federal and provincial governments, joining forces to make Canada a better place. If we work together, we can propel our nation into a future where economic development and environmental stewardship go hand in hand.

Over the past eight years, our system has been bogged down by unnecessary bureaucracy, a maze of regulations that, while well-intentioned, often hinder progress rather than facilitate it. The Liberal government's approach, as seen with Bill C-69, better known by many as the “no more pipelines act”, has unfortunately contributed to this stagnation. That piece of legislation, found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, exemplifies an overreach of federal jurisdiction into areas that should rightfully fall within provincial expertise. The result has been delays, confusion and a chilling effect on investment in green and infrastructural projects essential for our nation's future.

The Conservative Party has always championed the principles of efficiency, jurisdictional respect and the reduction of unnecessary governmental interference. Bill C-375 stands as a testament to these values, offering a practical solution to the challenges we face. By allowing for agreements between federal and provincial governments to exempt certain projects from the cumbersome process of repeated environmental assessments, we are proposing a way forward that would respect the expertise of provincial authorities and eliminate redundant federal oversight.

At the heart of our discussion on Bill C-375 lies a multitude of benefits that promise to reshape the landscape of environmental assessments and project development in Canada. The legislative amendment stands not just as a policy shift but also as a signal of progress, highlighting our commitment to efficiency, economic growth and environmental integrity. There are several tangible benefits the bill would bring to the table, ensuring a prosperous future for all Canadians.

The cornerstone of Bill C-375 is its ability to streamline the environmental assessment process. By allowing federal and provincial governments to work closely together, we can eliminate redundant evaluations, ensuring that projects do not get tangled in a web of bureaucratic red tape. This approach would not only speed up the approval process but also conserve valuable resources. It would be a common-sense step toward making government operations leaner and more effective, directly translating into quicker turnarounds for project commencements. This efficiency is critical for maintaining Canada’s competitive edge on the global stage, especially in attracting investments in green technology and infrastructure.

An immediate advantage of streamlined assessments would be the acceleration of project approvals. This benefit cannot be overstated. By reducing the time it takes for projects to clear regulatory hurdles, we would open the door to wider economic opportunities that come with new infrastructure and technology investments. These projects are not just about immediate economic gains; they are also about laying the groundwork for sustainable economic growth. Developers and provinces could move forward with greater confidence, knowing that their initiatives would not be indefinitely delayed by the bureaucratic process. This predictability would be invaluable for planning and executing projects that can significantly contribute to our economy and our environmental goals.

Furthermore, fiscal responsibility is a principle that guides our goals for proper governance, and Bill C-375 is aligned with that aspect. By avoiding duplication in environmental assessments, we would be poised to save significant amounts of public funds. These savings would stem from reduced administrative costs and the more efficient use of resources. While it is challenging to put an exact figure on these savings, the financial implications are clear and substantial. These funds could be redirected to other pressing needs, such as health care, education or further environmental conservation efforts, maximizing the impact of every taxpayer dollar.

Perhaps one of the most profound benefits of Bill C-375 would be the emphasis it places on collaboration and respect for provincial expertise. Canada's provinces and territories are diverse, each with its unique environmental landscape and economic context. This diversity demands a tailored approach to environmental assessments, one that respects the knowledge and capabilities of provincial authorities.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to address what I believe is one area in which the Conservative Party of Canada is somewhat vulnerable, and that is the environment. I really believe that Conservatives, under the new leadership, are found wanting in coming up with ideas that are healthy for Canada's environment.

The legislation being proposed today reinforces other attitudes they have in general about the environment. Today, the Conservatives say a province is saying it can handle it with no problem at all, and the federal Conservative Party says it does not need to have any sort of federal involvement. That is, in essence, what the members opposite are proposing. It reminds me of this consistency of policy development that prevents the Conservatives from being concerned about Canada's environment.

We talk about the major projects that are under way and that are being proposed and considered. These projects will have profound impacts on our environment. There is a very clear possibility some of these megaprojects will go beyond any one provincial boundary. There is a need, I suggest, and the Supreme Court of Canada also suggested, for a federal government role in the process. Most Canadians would agree that the federal government should not get away from its important role when it comes to the environment.

When we think of industries having regulations, both at the federal and provincial levels, it enables a certain amount of security and predictability, which then allows for investment. There are so many investment opportunities. I was encouraged when the member opposite used the words “green developments”. He mentioned “green” quite a bit in his comments, and I applaud him on that.

There is the investment, for example, that Volkswagen has made in Canada, in co-operation with the Premier of Ontario and the Government of Canada, and thousands of green jobs that are going to be created as a direct result. Those jobs, in good part, are going to rely on mineral development as Canada is in the position of being a world leader in the development of batteries. Those batteries require rare minerals, and Canada not only has the opportunity to supply internally for potential demand and development of secondary industries that create more jobs for Canadians, but also has the capacity to supply the world in many different ways.

There are companies throughout the world looking at Canada as a place to invest, and investors are looking for regulatory certainty. When we talk about the IAA, we are really talking about recognizing that the federal government does have a role to play. The Supreme Court of Canada has made it very clear. We have indicated it will be under review. We can anticipate that amendments will be brought forward in a very progressive fashion. We are not going to do what the Conservative Party is suggesting through this legislation.

This is the type of legislation I have talked about in the past regarding the Conservative Party and its so-called hidden agenda. While this is very public, there is something within this legislation that Canadians need to be aware of. Once again, we are seeing the Conservative Party stepping back on the environment, and as a national government, we have the responsibility to ensure that there is the proper protection of our environment and that the IAA is the type of legislation that leads to regulations that protect our environment.

This can be done in a manner that is fully compliant with the Supreme Court of Canada, and that is why we are bringing forward these amendments. Unlike the Conservative Party, we recognize the need for co-operative federalism, which is ultimately what we have seen take place with the Liberal government from virtually day one with programs such as the CPP being put in place. We have also seen this with legislation brought forward by the government on environmental impact issues and with the dialogue that constantly takes place, most recently in regard to housing. These are some of the more high-profile areas we have worked on.

An advantage Canada has, unlike virtually any other country in the world, is that we are fortunate to have all the minerals that we do. The government has a very important role in ensuring that we have laws and regulations in place at both the national and provincial levels to protect our environment. We also have a responsibility to ensure that indigenous peoples of Canada are not only consulted but also worked with when it comes to protecting our environment well into the future.

I recall when we brought in legislation and tried to improve the process, and the Conservatives were being very difficult, for example, when it came to dealing with bills like Bill C-69. This is because having regulatory uncertainty during Stephen Harper's 10 years did nothing when it came to expanding, for example, pipelines to our coastal tidewaters. Looking at the uncertainties that were caused, I would suggest that administration was not successful.

That is unlike our administration, which has created much greater certainty when it comes to environmental impact assessment studies.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

moved that Bill C-375, An Act to amend the Impact Assessment Act (federal-provincial agreements), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in the House to speak. Today is really special, because it is the first time that I have had the opportunity to explain the bill that I introduced with the support of the entire official opposition team. I put this bill together with the help of the House of Commons legislative drafting team and the team that I work with here in Ottawa and in my riding.

This is the first bill that I have introduced in the eight years and five months that I have been a member of the House of Commons. I would like to thank the people of Louis-Saint-Laurent for putting their faith in me in 2015, 2019 and 2021. The decision is in their hands as to what will happen in the future, but I trust their judgment.

Bill C-375 is entitled “An Act to amend the Impact Assessment Act (federal-provincial agreements)”.

I want to talk about the title because, although I was obviously happy and quite moved the first time I saw the bill in print, I also did a bit of a double take. Those who have the French version will notice that it says “fédéro-provinciaux” agreements. I was a little surprised to see that “fédéraux” is spelled with an “o” at the end. Since this was written by legal experts, I approached the table to make sure that this was indeed how it should be spelled. I was told that when it comes to legislation, “fédéraux” is traditionally spelled with an “o”. It is a small detail, but my colleagues know that, when it comes to introducing a bill, we want to make sure that everything is written in proper French, which is clearly the case here.

Climate change is real, as we know. We need to act quickly and decisively to deal with the effects of climate change. Human beings have contributed to climate change and must play a major role in this area. That is why our bill aims to combat climate change more effectively. To put it succinctly, I would say that this bill essentially aims to establish a single environmental assessment per project, because, at this time, there is overlap between federal and provincial environmental powers. When a project is under way, an environmental assessment must be carried out. The first province to adopt this system was Alberta.

Why carry out two assessments if one has been done already, especially considering that the need for green projects to address climate change is greater than ever? This bill aims to significantly improve efficiency and optimize the scientific effort involved in assessing environmental projects. It aims to reduce duplication. In essence, it strives for collaboration, not confrontation. We think that provincial scientists are just as capable as federal scientists. Why pit them against each other by having two environmental assessments done when they could work together on just one and achieve the same objectives much more efficiently and pragmatically?

That is the big issue this bill tackles. What is the approach? For years now, our party has been saying that we need to stop doing two assessments every time. Federal and provincial officials need to stop stepping on each other's toes. When we came up with this bill, we looked at two options. We could have gone through every piece of legislation and analyzed every situation in order to amend this or that act, but that would have taken a very long time, and the resulting bill would have been a brick. That would have been cumbersome, so we opted for a pragmatic approach instead. My thanks to the team of legislative drafters we worked with.

This approach creates a mechanism to enter into agreements. Yes, we have no choice but to work together to fight climate change, but, in this case, we do so gladly because that is what needs to be done for the sake of the planet and the environment. That is why we are laying the groundwork for agreements that will enable federal and provincial partners to work together on a single study, rather than competing with each other. There are no good guys or bad guys. Nobody is stricter or more lenient. Science is science. Science has no allegiance, no political stripe. Science is rigorous. Let us put Canadian scientists to work for the environment. That is how we want to do it.

Needless to say, we need green projects now more than ever. As we speak, under the provisions of Bill C-69, which was introduced and passed by this government, the government gave itself veto power over hydroelectric projects. Obviously, as a Quebecker, this affects me, and I was deeply offended when I learned of that. We recognize Quebec's extensive expertise in hydroelectricity. All projects have been carried out in accordance with the environmental assessment process that falls under Quebec jurisdiction. However, this greedy government, which always interferes where it does not belong—in other words, in areas of provincial jurisdiction—has given itself veto power over hydroelectric projects.

If the federal government had had veto power over every hydroelectric project, including the Romaine River, James Bay, Manicouagan River, Outardes River and Betsiamites River projects, where would Quebec be today? If the federal government had given itself veto power in the 1950s, when studies were being done for Bersimis-1 and Bersimis-2, for the two generating stations on the Outardes River and the four generating stations on the Manicouagan River, where would Quebec be today? The green light was given in the 1950s, in 1958 to be precise, and the project was completed in the 1960s, with the magnificent inauguration of Manic-5 in 1968.

The federal government had no business being involved and that is why it was done properly. Why then did it interfere in this provincial jurisdiction by giving itself veto power and the ability to conduct an environmental assessment of hydroelectric projects?

This issue came before the Supreme Court of Canada. In the reference concerning the Impact Assessment Act, the Supreme Court of Canada chided the government for interfering in provincial jurisdictions. Obviously, the government did not take it as an order, but rather as an opinion of the Supreme Court. That is the issue. It is an opinion and it requires a response. Our response to that Supreme Court opinion is that the provinces are going to work hand in hand with the federal government and not against one another. That is how we have to look at environmental issues.

Let us not forget that the government said that it was going to review the situation. We have a suggestion for the government to ensure that the process is much more efficient and that there will be environmental assessments for major projects. There needs to be an environmental assessment for every project, and those will be done perfectly well by our experts.

Right now, there is a battle between the pragmatic approach that we support and the dogmatic approach. What has the government done to protect the environment in the eight years it has been in office? It has made announcements, announcements and more announcements. It has created the new carbon tax, imposed taxes and, obviously, increased the carbon tax. That is the very dogmatic approach that the Liberals are taking.

What exactly has been achieved after eight years of this government? In eight years, this government has never met its targets, except during the pandemic. If the government has to shut down the economy to meet its targets, then that is not exactly the best approach. That is what is so disappointing. The government's approach is all about taxing people. In a few days, on April 1, the government plans to increase the Liberal carbon tax by 23%. That is not the right thing to do. We will have an opportunity to come back to that a little later.

Some people will say that the Conservatives are against everything the government does. Of course, if the government were doing good things, we would be happy. If we were seeing results, we would be happy, but that is not what is happening. The government has yet to meet its targets, and we are not the only ones saying it.

Every year, the UN tables a report that evaluates the effectiveness of environmental measures for more than sixty countries around the world. Scientists from all over the world provide an objective, non-partisan analysis of the efforts being made to combat climate change and their results. I want to make sure I am using the exact wording used by the UN, so I will read this in English: “Climate Change Performance Index 2024 — Rating table”.

This document was recently tabled at COP 29. After eight years of this Liberal government, Canada ranks 62nd out of 67 countries. Not 40th, 50th or 60th, but 62nd.

After eight years of this Liberal government, Canada ranks 62nd on its performance in the fight against climate change, dropping from 58th place last year. Are the Liberals' climate change policies working? No. Canadians are not the only ones who see it, knowing that the Liberal carbon tax is set to rise in a few days. Scientists around the world see it too, and they clearly have no partisan political agenda like we do. Our very office requires us to have a political agenda. It is our duty to serve as the loyal opposition to this government and therefore to identify flaws. Scientists around the world have now confirmed that Canada's performance puts it in 62nd place worldwide.

We need to take action on climate change. We need pragmatic measures. That is why, at last September's Conservative Party convention, our leader outlined our plan to tackle climate change. I want to emphasize the fact that this happened at our national convention; it was not some press release issued at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday. I was a journalist, and I have been in politics for 15 years, so I am well aware that when people send out press releases on Friday evenings or at the end of the day, it is because they do not really want anyone to talk about them. In this case, it was quite the opposite. We had 2,500 grassroots members from across the country, all of them gathered to hear the member for Carleton give his first speech since being elected as leader of the official opposition. In that speech, he laid the foundation for a future government that a whole lot of Canadians want, none more than us, of course.

Our leader laid out and explained the four pillars of our party's potential government action on the environment. First, we have to invest in new technologies, through tax incentives, to fight climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Investing in high tech through tax incentives is a pragmatic solution. The people whose plants or businesses generate greenhouse gases know the reasons why, and they, not Ottawa, are the ones who know how to lower their emissions. With tax incentives, they can take prompt, concrete action and achieve tangible results. The first pillar therefore consists of tax incentives that encourage investments in high-tech solutions for reducing pollution.

The second pillar of the Conservatives' action on climate change is to green-light green projects. We need green energy, hydroelectricity, solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy and even nuclear energy now more than ever. None of them generate greenhouse gas emissions. These are the avenues that we need to explore, but we have to speed up the process. We need to green-light green projects. This bill aims to speed up the process and develop a game plan for collaboration between the provinces and the federal government. Instead of confrontation, we have to strive for collaboration. The second pillar is therefore to green-light green projects.

The third pillar is the Canadian advantage. Canada has so many natural resources and so many energy sources. Why go abroad for natural resources or energy when we have them right here at home? As long as we need so-called fossil fuels, we will always support Canadian energy and Canadian products because, yes, we do still need them.

The HEC, a Quebec institution, released its annual report about a month ago. What did it find? It found that the consumption of so-called fossil fuels has increased by 7% in Quebec. As long as it is needed, I would rather consume Canadian energy rather than the 48% of American energy that we currently consume. I have nothing against Texas or Louisiana, but the last time I checked, they were not contributing very much—in fact they were not giving one cent—to the principle of equalization.

Finally, the fourth pillar of our environmental action plan is to work hand in hand with first nations. When a project is carried out on ancestral land, we must make first nations communities our partners, rather than handing over a cheque and telling them to leave. On the contrary, we need to work together for the common good.

In short, this bill is about focusing on collaboration and pragmatic measures in order to make progress in the fight against climate change.

Government Business No. 34—Proceedings on Bill C-62

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

Madam Speaker, here we are again at the eleventh hour. The government has waited on something that it has to put in place; otherwise, on March 17, people whose only condition is a mental illness will be able to apply for medical assistance in dying.

The Liberals are not virgins in the parliamentary process. They understand very well that, typically, for a bill to go through three readings in the House and through committee meetings, and then go to the red chamber, where a similar number of readings and committee meetings take place, takes about 18 months. If there is goodwill among all parties and we agree, it may be six months. It is ludicrous to me that less than two months before the deadline, the government put forward this legislation. It is really putting a gun to the head of opposition members, because if we decide not to pass the bill, on March 17 people who suffer only from a mental illness will be able to receive medical assistance in dying.

I have a lot of compassion for people suffering from mental illness. In many cases, they have suicidal thoughts and are not full of hope for the future, so it is easy for them to say in despair that there is no way out. However, a lot of people get better and go on to live full lives. They are not in a place where they can really take that decision.

It is not the first time the government has waited until the last minute. I remember when the medical assistance in dying legislation in Bill C-14 was introduced, there was a lot of pressure for us to get along and pass the bill. I would have more confidence if it were not for the fact that the government continually brings forward legislation that is unconstitutional. Then it goes through the courts to the Supreme Court and, like Bill C-69, is declared unconstitutional. The bill for the welfare of indigenous children was also declared unconstitutional. It is our job to give due process to bills and to make sure they are a good idea, rather than just rubber-stamping them and passing them along.

I do not want to have the consequence that people who are mentally ill would receive MAID if we do not pass this legislation in time, but we have no guarantee that the Senate is not going to delay the bill. There was a question for the member who gave the last speech about how the Senate may choose to block the bill. That would delay it even further and we would not make the timeline. It is not a sure thing that the bill is going to get across the line.

We have to look back to the Carter decision. We spent a lot of time talking about what the response would be, and it was the court's order that the criteria be an irremediable condition with imminent death. That is the path we started on. I was very concerned at the time because every recommendation from the special committee that studied this said that without good-quality palliative care, one really does not have a choice.

At that point in time, I found out that only 30% of Canadians had access to palliative care. That is what prompted me to bring forward my private member's bill to get consistent access to palliative care for all Canadians. That bill unanimously passed in the House. Since then, we have doubled access, from 30% to almost 60%, which is a great thing, but there is more to go. If people do not have good-quality palliative care, they really do not have a real choice.

The government needs to refocus itself. I saw in the report that after five years of progress on palliative care, there are still identified gaps. The government needs to pursue that with passion and aggressiveness because that is the answer. If people have good-quality palliative care, they do not choose medical assistance in dying, and that applies everywhere. I met today with some of the representatives from palliative care, and they informed me that when people go to hospice, nine out of 10 of them are asking for medical assistance in dying, but very few of them actually take advantage of it once they experience palliative care.

Why are nine out of 10 of them asking for medical assistance in dying? It is because the doctors are recommending it, and I do not have any confidence that the safeguards that were supposed to be in place are actually being adhered to. A doctor from the Liberal Party who spoke before me cited five examples that he is aware of where clearly people did not meet the conditions but were given medical assistance in dying.

Canada is on a very slippery slope. If we look at the history of countries that have implemented medical assistance in dying, the Netherlands was sort of at the forefront, and it took a while for it to experience a rise in the percentage of people who were dying from medical assistance in dying. However, last year in Canada, 4% of people who died did so by medical assistance in dying. We set a world record. We are top of the charts on killing people with medical assistance in dying.

I think this is absolutely the wrong direction, so to broaden medical assistance in dying to include people who are mentally ill is absolutely ill-informed, at the very least. I would say, without being insensitive, that people who are mentally ill are actually able to kill themselves. Sadly, in their despair, many of them are taking their lives every day. They do not need the government to enable them.

The Conservatives warned the government, when this ill-advised amendment came from the Senate, that this would happen. Instead of realizing the mistake and backing off, the Liberal government is kicking the can down the road for another three years, where the next government will deal with it, instead of recognizing that this is not a good idea.

Doctors are saying that 50% of the time they cannot even identify whether somebody's condition, when they suffer from mental illness, is irremediable. If that is the case, then half of the time, they are going to kill someone who might have gotten better. This is a totally bad idea. The government should stand up, say it realizes the mistake it has made and that it should have introduced legislation to eliminate that mistake. However, that is not where we are today. Today, here we are: If we do not make a decision and pass the bill in a hurry, people with mental illness are going to start dying from MAID on March 17.

I would say that there is a lot scope creep that has been suggested. Where do we stop? There has been a suggestion that if we approve those with mental illness, maybe minors should be added, or maybe the option of advance directive should be added. It looks like the solution to all of these things is death. We hear that homeless people are requesting medical assistance in dying. We hear that veterans are being advised to take medical assistance in dying. This is just scope creep and broadening who is dying in this way, without having proper controls in place. I do not think that is acceptable.

One of the things that has been totally ignored is the conscience rights of doctors. The federal government will always say it did not preclude that in its bill, but the fact is that provinces are forcing medical doctors and nurses to participate, even if it is against their religion and their conscience rights, and the federal government has done nothing to correct that situation. That is a problem.

The other thing I would say is that in the creep that is happening, they have created an express lane for the disabled. It is disgusting to the disabled community and disgusting to me that they would say that if someone is disabled, they should go to the front of the line. For the vulnerable, the mentally ill and the disabled, we need to protect those people; we need to stand up for their rights and know that we can give them hope.

I do not agree with the way this was brought forward. I think the government should have appealed the Truchon decision. When Quebec decided this needed to happen, the government should have said no, that it had thought about it, studied it and spent a long time on it. It should have said it was going to appeal that decision, because what it brought in at the beginning was at least better than the scope creep we are seeing now.

I have talked about the many examples of things that are not good with the legislation. Obviously, I do not want to see anymore people die. I will definitely work with the government to see the legislation pass as speedily as possible, and I encourage it to use the same leverage it used on Bill C-234 to help its Liberal-appointed senators do what it wants. I hope it does the same on this bill and that it receives speedy passage, and that we do not have people with mental illness being killed by the government.

National Council for Reconciliation Act

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

Mr. Speaker, the point was that the government itself is creating policies that prohibit or severely stunt the growth of the oil and gas sector and even the mining industry and lumber, our natural resources. A lot of these are on first nations land and have the ability to create wealth in those communities, with jobs and opportunity. Bills such as Bill C-69 and others are hampering that growth. The government is using policies behind the scenes to stop investors from investing in the first place and creating jobs, opportunity and wealth there. This is creating the continued dependence on the government for handouts, in the form of program funding, that I am talking about.

When they do have a project, they have the resources leaving the community; the community then has to turn around and go to Ottawa to ask for them back. We think that system is broken, and the status quo is not working. We think there is actually a better way, which is listening to first nations themselves and these leaders in the community, such as the First Nations Tax Commission, the First Nations Financial Management Board and many others. They are doing amazing work, and they want to change how the status quo operates. That is what we support.

National Strategy on Flood and Drought Forecasting Act

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge you because you are my MP when we are here in Ottawa. I live in your riding of Gatineau.

Climate change is real. Humans are contributing to climate change and so humans need to help reduce the impact of it. The bill that was introduced by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis seeks to “establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting”.

I want to commend the member for his commitment to this issue. He is the chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Right now, the committee is conducting a study on water quality and the challenges related to the impacts of climate change on water. We are having some very interesting discussions on that. Dozens of witnesses are contributing to the debate. We are tremendously pleased about that. Last Thursday, a lot of people from Quebec were there. It was highly informative. I would like to commend the member for his bill and for his participation in the public debate on environmental issues.

Basically, this bill seeks to create a national registry of environmental and water initiatives in order to identify and share best practices from across Canada. It also talks about what the government and the public can do to improve the situation. That is basically what it is about.

We agree in principle with this bill. Coordinating the provinces' general actions is part of the federal government's job, along with sharing best practices and pooling information on what can be done and how to do it. However, this presents certain challenges.

We know that, as it happens, the current government is a bit greedy when it comes to the watershed line, as it were, between what the provinces can do and what the feds can do. It has a penchant for interfering. Let us not forget Bill C-69. The federal government gave itself veto power over hydroelectric projects, including projects in Quebec. This has never been done before. If, heaven forbid, the federal government had had veto power over the hydroelectric projects that were developed in the 1950s and carried out in the 1960s, we might not have as many good facilities as we do now, as many good hydroelectric plants. We have to be alert when this government suggests coordinating actions, because the most important thing it must do is respect the different areas of jurisdiction. I will give a specific example.

Last spring, we all saw the fires ravaging several parts of Canada. On June 5, the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton, made a commitment, saying it would be great if we could share the best ways to fight forest fires, including with CL-415 water bombers. I should note that the CL-415, which fights forest fires, is a completely Canadian invention that we can all be proud of. We are proud that it is used around the world. We are recognized as being the best in the world in this area. However, we still need to look after our own country. That is why the Leader of the Opposition suggested that better coordination could help when the time comes to fight forest fires.

We have a concern about that. As for flooding, I would like to remind the House that our party, the Conservatives, has been in favour of conservation for years. I offer our 2019 campaign platform as proof. Our platform included a very long, substantial section on issues related to flooding, water and conservation. I would like to acknowledge our former colleague from Manitoba, Robert Sopuck, who contributed a lot to this section. He is still advocating for the environment and conservation, especially water, within our party, and we are very proud of him.

We have been aware of this reality for years. The work must be done, but it must be done collaboratively. When we study the bill in committee, our questions will be focused on finding out whether it will lead to new spending. We believe the Canadian government currently has enough human resources to provide assistance and work on reducing the environmental impact. We also have to ensure these people can do their job properly in their field of expertise. Sharing knowledge and best practices does not require hiring new people.

Let me remind members that whenever the government spends a dollar, it is not the government's dollar it is spending. That money comes from taxpayers and businesses or from tax that was collected and is being invested elsewhere. This is why we will be very vigilant when looking into this situation, because every dollar spent is not the government's dollar, but one it has taken from the pockets of taxpayers or businesses who would want to spend it differently. Care must be taken in these situations.

I also want to say that the environment is of paramount importance to us and that we must deal with climate challenges. I would remind the House that in September, we held a national convention that was attended by more than 2,500 people. At that convention, the leader of the official opposition, who is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and member for Carleton, gave a very important speech that we Conservatives now refer to as the “Quebec City speech”. It was not our election platform, but it expressed the party's broad ambitions, the overall vision we will have if we should happen to be lucky enough to be entrusted by Canadians to form the next government. We will let Canadians decide.

A key part of that speech involved environmental issues. Our leader recognized, like everyone else, that climate change is real, that we need to adapt to it and that adapting means taking an approach that is pragmatic, not dogmatic. The goal is to reduce pollution across the country. Reducing pollution is a daily challenge that never ends.

Reducing, reducing, it is a never-ending story. We have a continuous debate, a continuous fight, against emissions and against pollution, but we have to reduce it by pragmatic actions, not dogmatic taxation.

That is why our leader carefully laid out the three pillars of our environmental approach, along with everything underpinning it.

The first pillar is investment in new technologies to reduce pollution through tax incentives. We are well aware that the new technologies that are currently being developed the key to reducing pollution. We need to provide tax incentives. That does not mean per-tonne subsidies, but tax credits to help people who know why they are polluting find a way to reduce that pollution. We in Ottawa are not going to tell them what to do, but we are going to encourage them to take action to reduce pollution through tax incentives.

The second pillar is green-lighting green energy. We need green energy in Canada. We need more solar and wind power. We need geothermal power. We also need to be more open to nuclear energy. We need to speed up the green energy process by green-lighting it.

The third pillar is developing Canada's full potential. Canada has all the know-how it needs to reduce pollution. We have tremendous energy capabilities. Our extraordinary natural resources are the envy of every country in the world. It is unfortunate that we are not developing our full potential. Why is that?

Here is an example. Last week, the École des hautes études commerciales published its annual report on energy use in Quebec, which told us two things. First, fossil fuel consumption in Quebec has increased by 7%. Second, 48% of the oil consumed in Quebec comes from the United States. I have nothing against Louisiana and Texas, but why are we sending billions of dollars to the United States when we produce oil in this country? We need to develop Canada's full potential when it comes to energy and natural resources.

There is a fourth element, which is the cornerstone of the three pillars, in a way: We have to work hand in hand with first nations. Last March, the man we want to be prime minister, the member for Carleton and Leader of the Opposition, made a commitment to first nations. He said the days of giving them a cheque and then asking them to get out of the way were over. He promised to work with first nations and create wealth when something happens on their traditional territory. This commitment was confirmed last Thursday in British Columbia.

The future belongs to those who capitalize on high tech, green energy, Canadian potential and working hand in hand with first nations. That is our environmental approach.

Natural Resources

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am returning to a question I asked in question period on October 18, 2023, just last fall. The question was asked five days after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down sections of the government's bill on environmental assessment, which it redubbed “impact assessment” and which came forward through Bill C-69.

I practised environmental law. I will briefly share with the chamber that I actually worked in the Mulroney government and took a draft environmental assessment law through to the Privy Council to get permission for the government of the day to bring forward the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which ultimately entered into force around 1993. It went through several changes. It was an excellent piece of legislation; it worked well. It was repealed under an omnibus budget bill under Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government and was struck down and eliminated by Bill C-38 in spring 2012. That was more than lamentable.

When the new government came in, in 2015, the current Prime Minister gave a mandate letter to the former minister of environment, Catherine McKenna, to fix this. Tragically, she ignored the advice of environmental experts, even those she had empanelled.

What I asked on October 18 was whether the new Minister of Environment and the Minister of Justice would follow the excellent advice of the expert panel on environmental assessment law that was chaired by former Chair of the BAPE, Johanne Gélinas, and many environmental experts, and which was thoroughly supported, certainly by the Green Party and by me. I asked whether we would follow the advice that the essence of environmental assessment law is to evaluate the projects of the federal government itself: at a minimum, the panel said, federal land, federal money or where federal permits are issued. There was an additional list of concerns.

Tragically, the government ignored the advice. It took the advice of the Impact Assessment Agency itself. What I asked the minister on October 18 was whether the government would now commit to reviewing and putting in place the recommendations. An excellent opportunity was created by the court's striking down, as I completely predicted it would, the sections that were based on the designated project list itself, a creation of Harper's Bill C-38, which was a terrible way of weakening environmental law while at the same time failing to honour federal jurisdiction.

The minister missed the point of my question and merely said that they were going to fix it. I am desperately worried they are going to do a quick fix, and that in the quick fix, they will once again listen to the advice of the wrong people.

I beg the parliamentary secretary to tell us tonight that the government will follow the advice of the expert panel that gave them the right road to fixing the environmental assessment law in this country.