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.

Natural Resources

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have always opposed Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill. It has kneecapped Canada's ability to develop and export our natural resources, and it has killed jobs across the country. Bill C-69 was bad for Canada and, frankly, the world because of its negative effects.

Alberta's top court has just ruled Bill C-69 as unconstitutional. Will the Liberals now reverse this terrible piece of legislation and let Canadians get back to work building pipelines and selling our energy to the world?

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

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to represent the riding of Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan in this place. Two things in particular about my riding are that it is very involved in the energy sector and it has a large Ukrainian community. People in this riding are asking me what we can do to support Ukraine in the midst of this horrific invasion by Russia. I think they understand just how critical energy supply and security are in combatting the Russian invasion and allowing Europe to impose the kinds of sanctions that will effectively starve Putin’s war machine.

So much of the Russian economy is dependent on the export of gas and other energy-related projects, so Canada’s critical contribution could be to supply the vital energy resources to Europe and to other parts of the world, to displace their dependence on Russian gas. We have been asking these questions as the opposition. We have been calling on the government for years to recognize the economic opportunities associated with our oil and gas sector and to do more to support the construction of pipelines. We have also called on it, particularly in the context of the Russian invasion that we are seeing, to recognize that building the energy infrastructure we need to displace Russian gas in Europe is not just about the economy. It is also about security. It is about doing our part to support Ukrainians who are resisting by saying we want to give our European friends, allies and other nations around the world an alternative to buying oil and gas from Russia.

It has been interesting that since we have been raising this question, the government is more willing to broadly say that it buys into the idea. There is some language in the G7 communiqué that speaks about working together to phase out dependency on Russian energy, so it is encouraging to see that. The government is starting to talk the talk in response to some of these opposition questions, but what we do not see from the government is a willingness to step up and take action and walk the walk, to recognize that if we are going to displace Russian gas in Europe, if we are going to do our part to be able to supply energy resources to Europe, it is going to mean that we build up that infrastructure and make legislative and policy changes that allow us to move quickly to get those energy resources to where they need to go as quickly as possible, recognizing that the world is in a war.

We are in this very acute security situation, and doing our part should mean re-examining the antienergy policies the government has put in place in the past. It would be good for our economy to do these things, and these are things the Conservatives have been calling for for years, but recognizing the particulars of the situation we are in. Now is the time to be thinking about, for instance, repealing Bill C-69, which makes it very difficult for us to build pipeline infrastructure. We need to have a faster, smoother process for getting infrastructure approved so that we can support Europe in being able to impose energy-related sanctions on Russia and end its dependence on Russian oil and gas. It is not going to be good enough to just talk the talk, to just say the words of solidarity, and to say that we stand with Ukraine, but then to actually fail to make the legislative and policy changes that are going to help achieve that result.

If Canada believes this G7 communiqué it has signed on to and the words that ministers are now starting to say about sanctioning Russia, about having the kind of debilitating sanctions that will stop Putin's tanks in their tracks, and if the government is serious about these things, then it has to think about the kinds of changes we can make that are going to support the development of our energy sector and the export of those energy products, in particular to Europe.

Therefore, I want to ask the government if it is really serious about this. Are these just words, or are we going to see concrete action with respect to Canada playing a greater role and contributing to global energy security?

Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Environment

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, when we reformed environmental impact assessments under Bill C-69, we made a commitment that we were going to depoliticize the process of environmental projects in Canada. Our government has accepted the environmental impact assessment done by the agency, which conducted a rigorous, robust and transparent process that lasted almost four years. This project will include requirements for net-zero emissions by 2050 and 137 other environmental protection measures. The project aligns with the government's ambitious emissions reduction plan and will need to fit under the emission cap for the oil and gas sector.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021

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

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

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

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

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

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natural Resources

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

Madam Speaker, I would simply put it to this member that if the government takes energy security seriously, I do not know why the Liberals voted against our motion on Monday, which was precisely about recognizing the energy security dimension here and the need to move quickly to address those gaps.

The member made no mention of Bill C-69 in her response, nor the fact that the government has intentionally prolonged the review process and created an environment in which it is very difficult for the private sector to come forward with projects. She said no LNG projects are currently being put forward on the Atlantic coast. We would like to see more of these projects proposed by the private sector. That would only happen if the government recognizes that the policy conditions it has created are very unfriendly for energy investment.

Will the member address the problems with Bill C-69? Will she commit to urgently looking at the need to change the policy environment to restore confidence by creating the conditions that will attract that energy investment to this country and allow us to move forward quickly?

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

Mr. Speaker, the invasion of Ukraine by the Putin regime demonstrates the urgent need for the government to take security more seriously, and one key element of that security is global energy security. Nations need energy in order to attend to the basic needs of their people. It is a fact of modern life that we cannot live without energy.

Energy is not just an economic issue; it is also a security issue. Nations need secure access to energy and will be forced to compromise collective security interests as much as necessary in order to guarantee that access. While many Canadians take energy security for granted, other free democracies are in a very tenuous position when it comes to reliable access to energy and already have to consider uncomfortable trade-offs. Some of our democratic partners in the Asia-Pacific region rely on energy that comes from the Middle East and is transmitted through the South China Sea, introducing multiple points of potential disruption. Many of our European allies rely on Russian gas.

Countries struggle to take necessary steps to protect their security or deter aggression, fearing that their vital supply of energy will be impacted. While severe energy-related sanctions could further devastate the Russian government's economic capacity to wage war against Ukraine, the community of free nations has struggled to apply such sanctions because of their current dependency.

Tough energy-related sanctions would be a game-changer in this conflict, shortening the war and saving many lives. We must work in particular to end the dependency of our European partners on Russian gas. We should act quickly to kick Putin’s gas out of the free world. Canada should fuel democracy by providing our European friends with a conflict-free and reliable alternative, and one that is, in many cases, better for the environment than the other options available.

In response to our call to urgently address the issue of European and global energy security, the NDP-Liberal government has said no. On Monday they voted against our motion to push urgently to expand energy infrastructure to confront this problem.

In the process they make three arguments. They say that now is not the time to be talking about this issue; they say that we should be focused on renewables; and they say that we cannot build the energy infrastructure fast enough anyway.

I totally reject the idea that the current crisis is not the time to be talking about solutions to the crisis. We should be talking about concrete acts of support and solidarity that help Ukraine and deprive Russia of its capacity to wage war. It is absurd to think that we should sit on our hands and mouth solidarity without doing the hard work of talking about concrete solutions that will save lives. Reducing European dependency on Russian gas and supporting European efforts to improve energy security is one example of a concrete solution.

I am all for renewables, but the current reality is that the science and the capacity is not there for Europe to simply flip a switch to renewables. Europe can take an all-of-the-above approach, developing its renewable capacity while working to displace Russian gas in the short term. The current limits on renewable capacity are why European countries continue to rely on Russian gas today, and also other fossil-fuel-based sources, such as Polish coal. Let us expand Canadian energy exports to Europe to provide a good alternative to the status quo as renewables continue to develop.

The final excuse, the excuse that we cannot build energy infrastructure fast enough, is particularly absurd, because delays in building vital energy infrastructure are entirely a problem of the government’s making. The Liberals cancelled approved projects. They complicated the review process through Bill C-69. They piled conditions on the energy east pipeline that had never existed before. They appointed a strident law-breaking anti-pipeline activist as environment minister and they repeatedly attacked confidence in Canada as a destination for energy investment, and now they are acting surprised with the consequences.

I agree that it takes too long to build a pipeline in this country, but let us fix that problem and let us recognize the urgency of the current situation. Canadians understand that energy development is an economic and a security imperative. The government should stop making excuses and finally get to work supporting that development.

Equalization

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

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

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

Canadian Navigable Waters Act

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-214, An Act to amend the Canadian Navigable Waters Act (lakes and rivers in British Columbia)

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to introduce my bill. I thank my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley for seconding it.

It is a bill that would restore protection to all the lakes and rivers in my riding that were protected under the Navigable Waters Protection Act, but were stripped of that by the Harper government. The Liberal government promised to fix this, but its half measures in Bill C-69 did not do that.

The bill would restore protection to the Okanagan River, home of one of the greatest success stories of salmon restoration in Canada, the Kettle and Granby rivers that flow through Boundary Country, the Slocan River, one of the most beautiful rivers on the continent, and lakes such as Osoyoos, Skaha and Slocan, as well as Vaseux Lake, one of the first federal bird sanctuaries in the country. All of these waterways and more are at the heart of South Okanagan—West Kootenay and fully deserve the protection they once had.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Opposition Motion—Housing Supply

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, we add affordability and inflation to this mix.

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

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

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

Public Services and Procurement

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

Mr. Speaker, my riding of Red Deer—Mountain View is now almost fully open, despite the Liberal government's total failure to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We have succeeded because we are Albertans. Not only is Alberta now leading the way when it comes to vaccinations and reopening our economy, but we are poised to lead the way for an economic recovery across Canada providing the Liberal government gets out of the way.

Why does the Liberal government ignore Alberta's leadership role and continually punish it with draconian measures like Bill C-69?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1

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

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